So after a nice weekend with the MINI including a wash and wax with P21S, my wife set out for work this morning and the car idled very rough, and it would not go over 15 mph. It was cool enough to see the exhaust gases, the engine idle was so bad that i got blasts of exhaust. Poof....Poof....Poof! I called my SA and he said to call Roadside. They sent a flat bed and its on its way to Cincinnati Mini....140 miles away! Any thoughts?

Mods: Alta 15%

 

Any details on your MINI's equipment? A/T vs. Manual, for example. If it has an A/T, there are existing threads that cover problems that are being experienced by A/T-equipped cars that could provide insight into things to enquire about with the dealer.

 

No it is a manual

 

weak man, sorry to hear about this.

Find out what codes the dealers get from the DME when they download. Those lights went off on me when I threw a belt few weeks ago. Hopefully it's just a belt that broke and not some funky ECU issue.

 

The belt is fine so i know that is not the issue. Any thoughts on warranty problems with the Alta pulley?

 

your pulley shouldn't be a problem at all, depends on your service advisor and dealership, but I'm sure you'll be fine. Most likely a software issue that needs updating. I think my MCS needs one now too. 3 years of NO issues, they updated the DME and bam, it starts.

 

There might be an issue. It all depends on the dealer and what they find from the code scan.

 

Well the car arrived at my dealer about an hour ago. They will call me when they know something. I will post as soon as I hear. He said it may be tomorrow before they get to it.

It may be time to trade for an 06, only 9k miles and 11 months left on the warranty.

 

Or, it might be time to consider an extended warranty. Depending on the difference in how your present car is equipped and how you would want an '06 to be equipped, an extended warranty may make the most sense financially.

 

So as of yesterday afternoon, there was still no answers from the tech. guy. According to my SA the computer is throwing multiple fault codes and they just happened to have the "field specialist" there and he was gonna try to figure out what all the fault codes were resulting from. It has now been 48 hours since the flat bed drove off with my MINI! I am anxiously waiting for an answer!

 

thanks for the update man, I hope this all works out for you and the wifey.

I'm gonna have to start carrying a code reader with me on our road trips.

 

UPDATE: Just talked with the SA. She said that the enigine wiring harness has gone bad and essentially the computer cant communicate with the engine. They ordered a new engine wiring harness and expect it to be in tomorrow and that it will take 4 hours to install. She also said there was no chaffing of the wiring but that there was a "dead spot" in the harness.

Just out of curiosity....what if this diagnosis is incorrect and it doesnt fix the problem? What if they cant figure it out? Will they purchase the car from me? I hope they have it right, but trade in seems likely.

 

Doubtful. There the lemon law but you have to be out of service so many days and it does happen and people do get them to buy back their car but you probably wont be happy about it. They will fix it, have faith. German engineering British wiring

 

Them telling you the harness has a deadspot leads me to believe they could not find the source of the problem. Replacing the harness will eliminate a bad wire theory at least, then they'll start replacing sensors if they think they need to.
They'll get it fixed for you though, hang in there.

 

Ours was also towed to the dealer tonight. Same symtoms. Not the first time either. Actually the 4th trip to the dealer (first time towed) for the same symtoms. 2005 MCSa v43. At this point don't care if the dealer fix it. With 6500 miles on the clock we shouldn't be dealing with this crap.

 

if it takes 30days or more to get fixed then it WILL be considered a lemon.. (as long as there is less than 18000miles on it)..

btw, thoses days are accumulative.. so, keep your reciepts.. cars that are not available to the owner for ANY problems add to daily count down..

 

Do you know where the thread originator lives? Lemon Law rules vary by state.

 

Lemon laws vary by state. I believe the basics of Oregon's is 30 days out of service and or 3 times for the same problem.

 

damn, I didn't even realize they came out with v43. F-kin sucks that they don't have the ECU program pinned down yet. I'm gonna take v41.2 and run. The other day my 02 MCS worked it's way out of that rough idle for the first time, besides that and the flat spot at 3000rpm there have been no surprises that ruined a day of motoring.

 

Dealer just called. Supposedly the throttle body is bad. I assume that means either the TPS or the DBW. They did not know. New T/B will be here tomorrow. With any luck we will have a cure.

 

yes it does vary from state to state... however, there are simularites.. (30 day rules seems to apply to all states)

check out http://www.autopedia.com/html/HotLinks_Lemon.html

for all answers to lemon law in different states, etc....

good luck

 

Big surprise the T/B replacement did nothing. Still running terrible. Back to the dealer it goes.

 

The Engine harness has been replaced according to my dealer and the car will be delivered to me today. I will let you know how it runs.

UPDATE: Well now I have been bumped to tomorrow or Wednesday.

 

helped a buddy of mine replace his TB plug yesterday. He had to buy the wiring harness for 300 bucks, but that took care of 7 of the codes his car was throwing. He's got a intake leak somewhere though, only aparent at steady rpm, but once he got on it, it flew.

Hope it works out for you man, it should.

 

Just took delivery of the car 20 minutes ago and took for a test drive. It is much smoother! The car had been bogging at low RPMs which i thought was just the Yo-Yo gremlin but apparently this fixed it. Here is what the report says from the dealer:

RESISTANCE FLUCTUATION AT X6390 EDK CONNECTOR DUE TO PIN CONTAMINATION
CHECKED FAULT MEMEORY WITH GT1, FC P1125 THROTTLE VALVE POTENTIOMETERS STORED. FOLLOWED SIB 12-04-02. EDK MOTOR PRODUCTION DATE 02-08-02. DID NOT REPLACE. REPLACED ENGINE WIRING HARNESS. CLEARED FAULT MEMORY.

Don't know if you can make heads or tails from that but it doesnt seem to list the exact fault codes they were getting although they did report to me verbally that there were multiple. They also replaced my coolant expansion tank which had been leaking under warranty.

So in conclusion, the car was out of my possession for almost 10 days. It does drive much better and I am happy for now, however I have considered selling with only 9000 miles left on the warranty. Imagine just the tow bill to the dealer 170 miles away! Any thoughts on selling? After reading many threads on NAM about reliability it does concern me.