If you've seen my other thread, I mentioned the fact that there is a very bad vibration sound when I put in my MCSa in reverse (2006 MCSa, took delivery on Saturday).

Today after work, I put it in park when I got home and revved the engine, not hard, maybe to 4000 RPM or so, and there was an awful lot of noise in the engine compartment at the tail end of the rev, banging around noise... is it possible that one of the engine and/or transmission mounts was either not tightened at the factory and has either loosened or come apart altogether? I'm not used to a supercharged engine so I don't know what I'm supposed to hear, or what is normal/not normal. But there sure is a LOT of movement under the hood. I'm going to have my wife rev it up while I have the bonnet open to see how much the engine is moving. What is normal?

In any case, I'm going to schedule an appointment with the dealer for within the next 2 weeks. I'm dissapointed...I thought trading in my 03 CVT for an 06 MCSa would keep me AWAY from the dealer for a long time...hopefully my diagnosis is correct, they fix the mount, and all is well for a lllooooong time.


-boognish

 

If you read around here you'll see that the 06 hydraulic motor mounts are prone to leaking and to failure over time, but this is VERY early for your car to be suffering from it, your problem could be something else.

I wouldn't wait if the vibration is as severe as you are describing, though, it could be frank looseness or something internal that is more important. Failed motor mounts can and usually do go for months in a leaking state before they begin vibration.

You can see some of the leaking if it is your problem. On the passenger side under the bonnet, follow the suspension strut mount riser area of the body down in front to the bracket that goes to the engine. Under the bracket is a 4-inch diameter "pressure cooker" shaped device that is the hydrolic mount for that side. Leakage can be viewed or felt near the base. See attached image...

While you are looking, you may want to check the bolts for tightness... If it is hand-loose that is of course at least part of your problem.

If this is your problem, these motor mounts are quick to replace, of course covered by warranty, and it is a common enough problem that the dealers usually have the parts in stock. Unfortunately this will require a trip to the dealer to replace them and it is unknown at this time if the replacement parts will also suffer this problem later...

I had my 10K service this morning and had a bad upper passenger side engine mount that was replaced -- it had been leaking for months but had not begun vibrating yet. The whole service took less than 2 hours, if the dealer hadn't been 90 miles away in city freeway traffic I could have gone back to work afterward.

My personal MINI experience is with a MCS w/ manual transmission, but in general these are not high maintenance cars, especially this early on. Like you, I would expect lots of no or very low maintenance time with your car after this problem is resolved.

Best,

-- Don