to all my friends:
i have 02 cooper S with 40000 miles, still under waranty.
mods = 15% pulley Alta, exhuast, Cai.

my SUPERCHARGER Faild do to bad bearing and you knew the dealer did not cover it.
the dealer stated that is do to the PULLEY mod.
The car runs fine at idel but as soon as gets to 2000 RPM thats where you can hear the loud klanking and Cliking noise.
so how can this be, so many cars out there have this mod 15, 17 even 19% pulley and the only one that i knew is gone bad is mine.
after doing much research on this and talking to alot of friends and mechanics.

i had my car fix and it was not CHEAP . i had no other choice.

i could not belive what i saw my supercharger shaft looks like a screw!

i have been showing the old SUPERCHARGER to alot of mechanices that i knew from the club and out side.
it seems that my pulley played or moved or mechanics terms (WALKED) on the shaft of the supercharge this very evedent because you can see the groves on the old supercharger shaft thus making the supercharger bearings good bad.
i have taken some pix for you to see.

i will be talking to ALTA and the Installer in regards to this to see what happend and who is resposibale?

 

I just had to replace the SC on my 02 with 17000 miles, it too had a 15% alta, and I had to pay. Alta is not the best with customer service, the installer probably won't pay, and Mini USA will NOT consider thinking about paying. There was a problem with the shaft on mine, though I am not sure what. Putting the pulley on effectively negates all responsibility for fixing the car from everyone but you; there is always a argument that these various companies can make to not pay.

 

That is not a pretty picture. I went back and forth on the pulley mod and finally decided to put the Alta 15% pulley on. Had it done by my local 3rd party Bimmer shop.

I knew the dealer would have nothing to do with it but went for it anyway.

I love the difference but always have that possibility of failure in back of my mind...

Wondering how many other's have had trouble with Pulleys and their supercharger?
It seems as though there are so many people modding their Minis and some do it right after they take delivery too! Hope my fears are unfounded.

 

I've been wanting to do the SC pulley for almost as long as I've had my MCS, which is only 1 year. But something keeps holding me back...the whole 'warranty' issue.

I'd hate to have a new car and be making a nice payment on it and then have to fork out money to have it fixed.

While at my 1 year service appointment today, I found out that the dealership is ordering a new clutch and flywheel for my car - due to the known flywheel issue on the 05's. Makes me wonder if they would have tried to pawn that off on a SC pulley had I done the swap??? Even though it's a known issue.

But, when I was there, I noticed they have a pretty good deal going right now for an Ultrik 15% pulley and colder plugs - installed for just under $500. While certainly more than it would cost to do it myself, it's not so much more that it wouldn't be worth it to have them do it and still have the car under warranty.

 

Like you, There are things I will do and those I will not. The pulley was one that I chose to have done by a pro.

I paid $270 for the install and $110 for the Alta.

I own my 04 but that does not make an expensive repair any less painful should it occur. This is the first time I have gone outside a warranty and put a Milltech and the Alta 15% on....

I always wondered what the "better" pulley was...the one with the collar like the Alta or the Ultrik. At least if the dealer puts it on they can't run from it...$100 buys a lot of piece of mind!

 

To be fair on the 15% pulleys out there. When were these 15% installed on the 02's? Were they installed in the very early days of the pulley craze? The reason I ask is because I purchased a 15% from a vendor which was from the first few batches and the screws would not hold the pulley tight. Luckily it was caught during installation. I'm sure that has been fixed by now so I wouldn't not recommend the pulley based on something that I am positive has been corrected.

In the end. This should fall under the fault of the product. Not every 15% pulley out there but your specific pulley. Whether or not they have a warranty like some vendors do and help you out is another question. Good luck on it and sorry to see something like that happen.

 

I second that!

 

but not many. And yes, this opens the whole can of worms about warranty and the like. Here's a good general rule for things like this: Don't gamble with what you can't afford to loose. So if you can't afford to eat a repair bill during the warranty period, don't mod. After the warranty, doesn't really matter, you're gonna pay one way or the other....

For this one, if you still have the pulley it can be checked for dimensional accuracy (taper angle and length, vairous thicknesses and bore diameters and the like) to see if it was a "good" part (inner diameter must be pretty shot by now though). How long was it on the car for? You didn't say in your original post....

FWIW, some other car models that mod the SC use a woodruff (sp?) key to keep the pulley from spinning on the shaft. But you have to pull the SC to get the groove cut into the shaft, and then you have to have the pulley cut as well..... But that's the ultimate protection.

While I feel for your troubles, and paying to fix it sure must suck, this isn't really a widespread problem for this mod. Also, you can save some $ (but pay in downtime) by sourcing used parts for repair. I bought a used SC with less than 20 miles on it for $300, and a head with about 50 miles on it for $300 as well.... But you do have to take the time to find it and have it shipped, but it can save $$$ compared to what the dealer asks for the parts....

Matt

 

I agree with everything said here, my Alta pulley was on for about 3 months (02 MCS but pulley went on May 2006); it seems that when the Mini dealer took off the OEM pulley, the tech damaged the shaft of the SC (pictures at http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2002-...spagenameZWDVW , too bad for me. The reason the authorized Mini dealer would not pay: it was a aftermarket part....end of story.

 

I did the same.. Im running a 15% pulley.. I realize that if something goes wrong... its on me. So I picked up an 05 SC takeoff that has 5 miles on it for $300 on Ebay.
If I don't need it, I'm sure I can sell it on Ebay later on... good insurance.
The gains from the pulley is well worth the risk... I would do it all over again in a heartbeat

 

Those pulleys attach like a standard industrial taper lock bushing. The engineering principle is sound, but the good Doc is right that the whole setup would be much better with a Woodruff key in the mix.

My theory is that the bearings went bad and the increased torque load is what "spun" the pulley on the shaft and chewed up the shaft. You'll never prove it in a million years, but I bet that's what happened. There are threads out there that document oil loss in the supercharger's gearboxes.

Your pulley caused that bearing to fail in the same way that flies cause garbage....

Best of luck with your situation...it really sux

Rawhyde

 

Sorry if this makes waves, but guess what, YOU modified your car. How bout YOU being the responsible one.

That said, I have modified every vehicle I have owned. I built hot rods for a while, and stuff goes wrong. The dealer has a tremendous amount of R&D in their vehicles so that they can be driven by "anyone" and stand up to "any" condition. The fact is this works good most of the time, but when you start modding things, other things will go wrong. Sort of, your car is only as strong as your weakest link.

 

Just out of curiosity, how much did it cost to fix your problem?

 

Luckily for me...my pulley was purchased at and installed by my Mini dealer. They said if I let them install it, then they would have documentation that they were the ones that did it, and if anything went wrong down the road...I would be ok. Sure it was a little bit more pricey than having some shop do it or even doing it myself...but that extra $100 or so is well worth it in my opinion, and this post goes to show that.

 

If you play, you pay. I do not understand why anybody would think BMW should pay to fix it when you changed their design.


What I don't understand is there have been about 150,000 MINI's sold in the US I'm guessing 100,000 S's. I would also guess that maybe 10 -15 % modded. That is not many and not much money spent where do the companies that are selling this stuff get the money for R&D? I'm guessing they don't.

 

Exactly my point.

So you had $380 plus taxes in your pulley install, and the deal at my dealership also included new cold plugs which are probably around $8-12 each depending on the manufacturer, so that adds in another, let's say $40 in parts. So now the $380 becomes $420 plus taxes and that doesn't include the installation labor for the plugs (which aren't difficult, but if done incorrectly can cause some very expensive damage ).

So when you get all the way to the end total, I still agree with you and think the piece of mind of having your warranty remaining fully intact and the dealership being responsible for anything that goes wrong, well, well worth it!

 

damn that sucks. Good luck on the fix

 

I have to admit...even though I had a qualified mechanic do my pulley (my dealer is 120 mi away and not mod friendly) had I seen this thread, I probably would have stayed stock. My MCS is NOT my daily driver so it is not critical but it is still a royal pain if something goes wrong. (will probabvly begin looking for a decent supercharger on Fleabay just to have a spare as another poster did) I find myself opening the bonnet on a regular basis now to have a peek at the belt...looking for possible wear.

On the brighter side most of the mini owners I have spoken with have all put pulleys into their older minis...none have done it to their newer ones though.

If my dealer would have done it...I would have gone that route...

 

Hmmm interesting thread. Sucks to hear that your SC got trashed but I have a few questions.

1) Did you loctite the allen head bolts into the pully?
2) Did you make sure that the belt was riding correctly and the pully was installed even... aka not shaking?
3) Did you regularly check the pully to make sure it was staying true on the sc shaft?
4) Did you make sure the correct amount of tension was applied to the bolts in the pully?
5) Did you install the pully yourself and if you did what pully puller/pully installation method did you use?

I am sorry to hear about your loss. I installed my alta 15% pully on my 06mcs. My pully was one of the later varities I am sure as I recieved it a few months ago. I was very very meticulus when I installed my pully and even though I know it went on as well as it possibly could, I check the pully and the belt for truthiness (lol I love steven colbert) every day after work.

All I am trying to say here is when you mod your car, it needs much more attention then stock. All to often I think people mod their cars and expect to just forget about it when the opposite is what should happen.

Good luck and happy hunting. Even though this sounds like a crappy problem I bet swapping out the sc on these cars is a fun task, that is if you like wrenching.

 

Well, like Tamoosh....I now have a supercharger with a bad bearing that the dealer wont cover...of course. I had the pulley mfg do the install on the pulley this past May, and their site states a pretty good warranty, soooo....we will see. Yeah, I know all about the pros and cons with this install, but I figured (or should I say ASSumed) that the company has been around quite awhile, doing a ton of these installs, so I took the chance. Now as far as the cost of fixing this, the sc runs $6500 plus 8 hours of labor (nearly $8K) . That's a lot of aluminum cans to recycle :impatient

 

My pulley was Installed by one of ALTA dealers.

Gomez85:
do look around you should be able to pick up a NEW SuperCharger from a dealer for $2300.00 pluse some Discounts or you can post on the market place and get a used one for about $350 to $650, but not knewing how it was used or how many miles on it?

i went for new and NO PULLEY.

on the laber your dead on 7 to 8 hours is it.
Dealer = $125.00 Hrly
Others = $55.00 to $75.00 Hrly.
hope this helps you out.

i have talked to AltA and they are willing to look at the pulley only They say to talk with Instaler so when i get a chance i will take SC to the instaler for inspection.
i will not send my pulley untile i have had it look at by a pro!

 

Anyone have a stock pulley lying around?? I wish I got the my stock pulley from the install day, but since I was on my bike at the time, I didn't think to have them throw the pulley in the boot....I figured I have 44 days left on the warranty .....of course I would never do anything slight of hand
As far as these bearing issues go...I really doubt that if I stayed with the stock pulley, the supercharger would not have failed, I believe the bearings would've failed regardless of which pulley I had on there. There are too many pulleyed cars out there for this to be the cause. We'll see (I change it out at my work, screw the dealer labor $125 p/hr is a bit steep, hell our dealership is high at $85 IMHO. c-ya

 

Man, you moved too fast on getting your car fixed. You could have installed the JCW Kit which includes the S/C, the exhaust, a new cylinder head and ECU, had the warranty for the install and the extra power and stayed in the 6K range.

 

At the dealer I went to, the JCW supercharger is $6850...by itself! That is what the tried to sell me first.

 

You can get the whole JCW upgrade kit for between $4300 to $4775, the 4300 is from one of the dealers here on NAM, it lists it as a JCW upgraded s/c, maybe it's a retrofit and you need your base supercharger?