Hey, So Im pretty new to this forum. I follow it every day since owning a 2002 Mini Cooper (Justa). The other day it got rather cold here in southern Arizona and I noticed that my Mini started to leak under the AC compressor. I new that it was coolant immediately. I started to freak out since I knew that this was a pricey repair if I take it to a dealership, let alone a local Mini shop.

Well, Im a pretty handy guy, Aircraft Electrician. I love to turn wrenches. So I decided to attempt this by myself. I started this morning at 10:00 and now its 12:30 and the pump has been changed and I'm about to fill the radiator with coolant. Boy, How on earth can they charge $900 at the mini dealership for this??????? My Gosh, this was a fairly simple job. I had myself all worked up over nothing. But as I said before, Im good with wrenching. I was able to pick up a Valeo Pump for 115 at my local import parts store. Got my Water Outlet from Pelican(Many thanks to them for direction as well), and Picked up Coolant from Orielly. Did this $900 job for around $150, badass.

But my main reason for this post is that this forum is GOLD for projects like this. I was able to figure out the best coolant from everyone. Ive been on other forums before(motorcycles) and all people do is talk **** and *****. Crazy that this forum is legit and full of help.

 

Woohoo!
Way to go on the repair. I agree on the usefulness of the site and the people here, very helpful for us to work on the cars ourselves.

Happy Motoring!

 

+100 on the usefullness of the site and the help from the people.

 

Glad we were able to assist you with your DIY project. I also agree about this forum. I've been on forums since I was 14 and have had my share of unhelpful ones and NAM is definitely a great community full of very knowledgeable individuals willing to help and answer questions. If you ever need anything please don't hesitate to ask.

 

Oh forsure. Yall are perfect for any project. I just have to figure out how to get the coolant out of the engine before refilling. I did the shop vac method and got out about 5 qrts of coolant. I read somewhere there was a coolant drain for the R50 W10 motor?

 

To drain any remaining coolant from the system, from underneath the car, there is a 14mm drain plug located at the rear face base of the cylinder block adjacent to the starter motor underneath the exhaust manifold heat shield (if looking down at the engine). If you haven't already used this, this tech article here goes over a coolant change and has images and descriptions of where you're able to drain as well as a lot more detailed information.