I noticed a wet (oily) area on the garage floor just left of the right front wheel. Ran Dingo up on ramps for inspection. Brakes are not leaking nor is anything else except motor mount pictured below.



At least I think this is a motor mount, apparently liquid damped (didn't know they were doing such a thing) and apparently cracked somewhere. The thing is, I noticed this crud last spring (although less of it) and thought it was some anticorrision stuff sprayed on the grounding terminal, and so didn't think it a problem. Closer inspection shows the grounding bolt is not coated so that was faulty reasoning on my part. The crud was there last spring when I had noisy pulleys and serpentine belt replaced, and it was definately there 2 weeks ago when I had the initial service done at 13800 miles.

Am I diagnosing this correctly? Has anyone else had this problem? And finally shouldn't the tech's have seen this and fixed it. I mean, its the upper left mount (if you are facing the opened bonnet), the serpentine belt and pulleys are just inches to the right. Now I have to make another 160 mile round trip to Milw. and lose another day of work to get this fixed. Doesn't seem right to me.

 

OK - just saw the other thread on this - sorry folks, should have searched.

 

Funny, motor mounts don't leak in CA. Must be the happy cows.

Seriously, though, you should be able to hold out until your next service unless you notice significant vibration coming from the engine. If you've got wrenches and a jack, you could also try just swapping it out on your own if that's less cost than the round trip and the day off.
They definitely should have noticed - it's a common issue for the 05+.

 

Mine's in for service to fix the passenger mount as we speak - 42,000 miles.

mb

 

yep, typical of 2005's...mine went bad around 8k miles...the oil will damage paint as well so try to clean as much of it as possible

 

Although there has not been much interest in my motor mount problems I thought I would complete my story in hopes that it will document this problem and be of some help to someone that might have had the same thing happen to them. In short, my motor mount went south on me and blew hydraulic fluid out from my wheel and all down the passenger side as well as all over the boot of the car leaving brown spots all over. No wax or clay bar would take them out and the dealers body shop confirmed this as well and that it would need to be repainted. My dealer had a factory rep inspect the car and came to the conclusion that it could not have come from the motor mount because it did not contain enough fluid to make it to the back of the car and thus would not cover the repaint. My dealership told me they were sorry but without the factory reps approval they would not repaint the car. When I went to pick up my car I asked my SA if we could put the car up on the rack and take a look with the mechanic that worked on the motor mount. Sure enough, we all three looked at the trail of fluid coming down and covering the wheel well out from my spinning wheel and down the side and back of the car ( I took great pictures of the mess). The first factory rep more than likely never put the car on the lift and I’m sure hoped that I would not pursue the issue or didn’t care. Well, I requested a second factory rep to come inspect the car and after a couple of weeks he did. That was yesterday and today my SA called me and told me that the factory rep had looked at the car and came to the conclusion that the hydraulic fluid did indeed do the damage and that Mini would cover the repaint. Although I am happy that the work will be covered, I’m unhappy with both the management at the dealership for not standing behind me and mostly, Mini’s factory rep for trying to get out of paying for damage caused by a faulty part that they have known about for a very long time. I hope this LONG story might help one of you out some day.
__________________

 

I believe you Eric. It makes sense that riding happy cows instead of MINI's would be easier on the MINI mechanicals. How many miles you got on Bessie now?

Unfortunately, next scheduled service is 15000 away and if the oil eats my paint I'll really be pissed. The good thing is, there's a Northern Hydraulics retail outlet close to my dealer - I'd like one of everything they have in that store.

 

yeap, same thing happened to me. The passenger's side motor mount eventually leaked out all the oil and I didn't notice it until I I hear a "clunk" whenever I accelerate/decelerate.

 

Paul's did and it got all over his Pepper White and now has to be repainted

Earl

 

Do the 2006 models have the same problem with motor mounts or was it fixed by then?

 

It gave out on my 2006 Cooper convertible (9/05 build) at about 10K miles.

 

Can you explain the clunk? I wonder if my oil is gone in the motor mount.

 

I have to say that I had the same problem. I took the car in for service and they never said a thing and then a month later when I had Randy Webb do my pully, he mentioned it to me. I took the car back and they replaced the mount.
Found out it was considered a 'common' problem.

 

They replaced mine also, no questions asked, but they also didn't answer why they didn't notice it and replace it during two previous visits. The funny thing is, whenever I've not been totally satisfied with their performance I don't get the follow up call where I get to grade their performance.

 

This has bee na real problem with a lot of local cars lately . At the first sign of any fluid around the base of the mount I would do my best to get it into the dealer and get the problem on the record.

 

same thing here. 2005 MCS. it happened around my 12k miles. i sent it back and they replaced it right away. The mech told me it's quite a common problem in 05 model.

 

yeap sure!

the clunk is pronounced when i accelerate from 2nd to 3rd and when i let off the gas during those gears. at first, it felt like it came from under the car. i really thought it was my Rspeed RSB that was acting up, no grease in the bushings? i took my car into the dealer and the master tech rode with me in the car while i try to duplicate the clunk. For the first few mins of driving, the clunk was gone. however, as i drove faster and making desperate maneuvers, the clunk came back. i guess the master tech knew what it was already cuz he assured me it will get fixed. well, needless to say, when i got my car back, they told me that the passenger's side engine mount has leaked out all the oil. they did clean it up so it's not that bad, no need to repaint.

 

After 100 miles, I had a motor mount leak in my new JCW.
Dealership replaced. It was the first thing I checked when I got the MINI, I even showed my MA how clean the area around the motor mount was. When I brought it back in, he was surprised and baffled to see the pool of fluid underneather mount and stains on the mount.

 

Is this also a problem on the '03 MCS?

 

According to the TSB (see below) cars built from December 2003 to May 2006.

http://www.alldata.com/tsb/BMW/11623...6/2201061.html

 

when the customer complains. Otherwise they just let it drip....

Matt

 

I repl my engine mount on my 06 S pepper white. It did seep around the frame area but never got to the wheels. This was repl @ 12,500.

 

Just washing Li'l Pepper today and I noticed the aforementioned crud. 13K miles. Just made an appointment for Tuesday morning. Let's get this thing handled before painting is required.

Sometimes, these forums are great.

 

The same thing happened to me at under 11K. My local dealer fixed right up under warranty. I hope the come up with better mounts before my warranty is up.

 

I've got a mount leak on my mini and at idle there is a rattle and if I rev the engine slightly it goes away. Did any of your cars do this as well?