ok, i'm concerned too now. i have a 08/03 build mcs. recently my power steering went out while i ran in to the market. came back out to no power steering and no electric whine with turning the wheel. drove home and didn't drive it until a few days later. power steering was working and did not fail that day or any other day yet.

yesterday i inspected my p/s fan. checked to make sure it spun freely manually, which it did. i started up the engine, ran it for awhile, turned the wheel a bit to hear the electric motor, looked at the p/s fan and didn't see it moving. turned off the engine, but immediately turned the key to the "on" position, and heard a soft, barely detectable, hi-pitched whine. checked underneath and p/s fan not moving. turned key to "off", and hi-pitched whine disappeared. repeated this twice and same results. what is the hi-pitched whine? i thought it was the p/s fan or maybe it's the motor that's trying to spin the fan, but it's sticky? should the p/s fan run while the engine is running, or only after temps hit a certain mark? i hear the other fan run with the a/c on.

after reading the other threads about our mini's poorly designed/located p/s fan and pump, i'm thinking of replacing both, just to be proactive, as it's now close to 5 years old. with this thread, even more so, i plan on replacing both fan and pump, thinking that the power steering failure episode was a sign of impending failure or worse. what do you folks think?

 

splash, I'm glad you were able to get your car fixed. You've been added to list (#30). Thanks for contacting the NHTSA

kbseto, it's good to have your car checked out if you suspect anything amiss. If there's nothing there there, don't worry too much, just be prepared!

SCoop

 

[SIZE=4]Just an update-
My insurance company insists that the fan AND POWER STEERING PUMP were the mechanical failure. Thus I have to pay for them. Isurance will pay for the electrical harness and fuses. I am fighting for them to pay for the pump.
I spoke to a Safety Defects Engineer / Federal Investigator at the NHTSA and gave him all the info. At his suggestion, I also email and rec'd a call back from BMW. BMW asked for the same info and for my insurance company. He asked for my total out of pocket expense, which I told him was not confirmed yet. He is going to find out what he can do for me. He did offer a detailing of my car to get the smoke smell out.
He did insist that this was an [/SIZE][SIZE=4]isolated incident [/SIZE][SIZE=4]and that the 250+ blogs I saw on the internet were merely negative people.
I pointed out that is was a group/club of Mini lovers that they were writing trying to protect and help each other.
Insurance did send me a small check hoping I would just go away! NEVER
I like to thank all you "negative " people who have helped me with this. A big thanks to the person who started thas site!
[/SIZE][SIZE=2][/SIZE]

 

OK now BMW has offerred to pay the entire bill and detail my car to get the smell out......hmmmm? Howcome, if it is and isolate incident? They did fix it with the defective parts. So hopefully the recall will come before these part cause another fire. I am getting a fire extingusher for the car. But i can't put my dog or kids in it. Also i consistantly park away from other cars in the lot. The walk is good for my health but nothing can help me if i go up in flames. Driving my Mini has gone from shear bliss to shear stress!

 

Lucky! good to hear they will take care of it.. now recall please!

 

I'm glad to hear they are taking care of you.

Don't hold your breath on a recall.....we've been waiting 3 years now.... BMW DOES NOT WANT TO ADMIT there is a problem.....

Donna

 

What was the name and phone number of the person that you spoke with at MINI corporate to get reimbursement? The guy I am dealing with has been giving me the run around for six months now. It is getting very irritating. He keeps making promises but with no action.

 

Is there a way to reach you that does not post on the entire www?

 

kavorka123@yahoo.com

 

Thats pretty frickin extreme. I almost barfed at those pics.

 

The site at BMW I emailed is below. I sent a very detailed email about the fire and how I now feel now about my MINI.
http://www.miniusa.com/#/contactFaq/contact-s
The person that answered my email was from customer relations. He was very helpful. It is just the general email from the website. BMW did respond quickly to my email. They ask questions, for the Fire dept report and to sign a form.

At the NHTSA the Safety Defects Engineer / Federal Investigator felt that the problem should have been fixed when BMW resigned the electrical harness. In 2005 BMW started using a redesigned electrical harness. This one was sealed so no moisture could get in. He felt that the fires start when moisture gets and causes corrosion at the pump/harness connection. I don't think there was ever a recall on the harness…BMW just stopped using them in 2005. Does anyone know if there have been any fires in Minis that have had the harness changed to the post 2005 harness? The Safety Defects Engineer / Federal Investigator also has a link to your thread. He did not say much about the fan causing the fires. He sounded like he was still working towards a recall. May be the fan should be looked at as a separate problem and recall.
There were many versions of how and where the fire started thoughout this situation.

Thank you for starting the thread.
This is all the info i can really give at this time.
Best of luck.

 

ok - so my fear that the engine fires were not just unhappy customers has been confirmed. yikes.

i JUST bought a 2002 MC with 43K miles and all seems to be in working order.

are there any warning signs that precede the fires?

if it's in the post, i apologize - i went through most of it and didn't see it.

now i'm paranoid!

 

I can't speak for anyone else - but in our case - we had no warning what so ever. We had driven it 20 miles - parked it - we were gone for about 3 hours to dinner - and came back to a crispy fried MCS....

Donna

 

The only warning I had was my alarm (electrical system) going nuts... the car had been parked & locked for about 10 minutes after a 40 mile drive on the freeway.

 

i was wondering about the transmission fires - i have a manual transmission. so not the CVT or whatever it was (can't remember at the moment *hehe*) - any better situation there?

 

Xymox, I think your fears are unfounded (see splash's Post #261). There are very few (if any?) fires reported for '05 and beyond, perhaps lending some credibility to the '02 - '04 electrical harness theory. There does not seem to be any correlation with age or high mileage. The fires that have occurred in later models--including the R56--appear to be outliers with dissimilar circumstances/causes.

 

thats good.. now crossfinger

 

Hi everyone,

Add my cooper to the list. I had just driven it ten miles and parked it in front of my building. A co-worker came in yellng that my car was smoking. We caught it before the entire car caught on fire, so the fire was contained to the engine area. Long story short, I couldn't afford to have it towed to the MINI dealer but I do have a very trustworthy mechanic. He said it was the power steering pump and asked to get my insurance involved and I called the dealer. My insurance company was great. They are going to pay for everything after my deductable. MINI, on the other hand, isn't. They went as far to "suggest" that they couldn't help me with the cost because I didn't have my oil changed last time by them, I didn't have my lastest tune-up (which is due in 1000 miles), and that I do not use supreme gas. Ok, I am not a car expert, but most cars don't catch on fire because of using lower octane gasoline.

Anyway, it is getting fixed but I just wanted to add my car to the list. I register with the national board listed in this thread as well.

For the particulars, 2003 MC, 55k, parked, not sure yet of the total cost of repairs.

I still love my car but a bit nervous to put my five month old in it with me.

 

Splash, after reading your post, can I get the information of the MINI people you spoke to? We are having trouble finding some of the wires for the fix and I want to see what MINI can do for me. my email is kirajorgensen at hotmail dot com (sorry for writing it out, I get a lot of spam).

Thanks,
cage

 

I love this car but you have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!

I carry my son around in this thing, he picked it out, and now I'm reading there's a chance of fire.... Last time I had/heard of this happening was on my 86 Daytona CS (still my favorite car I ever owned, close 2nd is my old 88 MR2 out of 35 vehicles).

I gotta say after just spending over $5k on repairs I'd rather be driving a dump truck than this. Safety must not be a german engineering strong suite.

To think I traded in a fault free Suzuki for this that still had 5 years and 40k miles of warranty left. Wanna talk about service? I had an "issue" with the transmission. They called a local dealer (I was 80 miles from home) who drove out to the place we were at then had the XL7 towed back to their place. Gave me the keys to a new XL7 and said have a good weekend, keep the receipts for gas, food and your hotel. 1 week later I got my truck back, new transmission, t-case, valve cover gaskets, dipstick and o-rings, and they even replaced the drivers seat due to "excessive wear" on the leather. American Suzuki offered to pay for the gas and our food if I emailed them scanned copies of the receipts. I thought going of their way to help me out because I saw tranny fluid on the ground was enough. The tank was full on pickup too and I don't remember it being full when we goto the show...

I think I'll be heading to the Suzuki dealer tomorrow. Let someone else die in this thing.

 

Check your wiring first. When my tranny was replaced last week the mechanic did say there was a slice in the one wire and he repaired it. Why? Dunno he didn't say.

 

I was finally getting around to adding #31 (post 268) but I don't see the edit button in my first post. Has something changed on the board? Is there a new way to edit?

Okay, I see the edit button on this post (just used it) but not on any of my older posts...

Thanks.

 

OK this thread has me really scared now. My wife is the primary driver of our 2003 MCS. Last week while driving home from Boston she noticed the power steering was gone. Called the dealership to make an appt and the car is due in this Tuesday AM. Since the first incident she drove the car a little bit the following day to do some errands and the power steering was intermitant. I told her to park it and we'll take it up on Tuesday. Today I went to check under the hood and there is ps fluid in the reseviour but the battery has drained down to nothing. Glad the garage didn't burn down.

Is the car safe to drive 35+ miles to the dealership?

Wish I had checked back in to NAM earlier. Lesson learned.

 

you all just scared the $$$$ out of me. I just got an '03 and it seems that most of those are 03s

 

This is disturbing to hear & read about the fires, and even more about the silence/denial from BMW/Mini!

I was wondering if anyone knew when BMW/Mini started using the redesigned PS fan/pump? We have two '05 Mini's in the family right now. One is a July 2004 build, and the other is a May 2005 build. I know that the May '05 has the redesigned equipment, but I am concerned about the July 2004 build.