hello all

have an '03 MCS, stock except for a Mini Madness Stage 2 kit (mild pulley, new software, cold-air intake, colder plugs & a catback exhaust), about 60,000km/37k miles. Street driven only, rarely sees anything over 5k rpm, and never over 6k. Mostly short trips, as until early February it was a 4 minute drive to work (mostly highway); since then it's been a 10-15 minute commute each way daily.

Last April I had it in for the "Mini Spa" at my local dealer (oil change done at the same time), and when I got home and checked the oil there was a bit of "mayo" on the very tip of the dipstick, as well as some very very fine dots that might have been emuslified water/oil or bits of superfine crap. The oil filler cap had a very light smear, and I could not see any oil in the coolant.

I figured that during the "engine shampoo", some water/steam had inadvertently gotten in somewhere, and as I already had an appointment with another Mini dealer the next day, I had them look it over and give it an engine flush & new oil/filter, and they could not find anything wrong.

I have been keeping a close eye on the dipstick since then, and have not seen any further traces of coolant in the oil or vice-versa.....until yesterday.

I checked the oil and there was again a small amount of mayo on the very tip of the dipstick. The coolant is clean, as is the oil filler cap.

Any ideas, or anybody have a similar experience? There's no vapour or smoke coming out the exhaust, no weird smells, in fact nothing weird at all. Could short trips be keeping condensation in the engine, as opposed to burning it off? Or is there a crack somewhere, or a failing head gasket, or....

I should mention that besides the short trips it has been a very heavy snowy winter (for these parts), and it has pretty much been raining constantly for the last 3 months.


any thoughts appreciated!

greg v.

 

Short trips will cause the engine to warm up, causing condensation, but not be run long enough to get hot and burn the extra condensation off. I would venture that if you took your MINI out for a longer jaunt and let it get up to operating temp then run it for awhile your Mayo will disappear. I have had it happen to my TR6 before in the late fall as the temps dropped and I didnt drive it very far. Sounds like a good excuse for a road trip!

 

Well now, that's no fun at all.

 

+1

My Pinzgauer does the same thing when it's not driven on long trips.

 

thanks for the responses!

It runs like a Swiss watch, and again there's no trace of vapour or steam of any sort from the tailpipe(s), and no cross-contamination visible in the coolant, so maybe the short trips are to blame. I checked it again yesterday before driving home, and the amount of mayo is very very small; I'd be tempted to ignore if I didn't know better.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely don't baby it, I just don't rev the snot out of it, and I try to go easy on the transmission. Sounds like a good road trip is in order....

thanks!

greg v.

 

Definitely a short trip thing. I've got an oil temp gauge on my MINI and also had one on my previous car. You'd be surprised to see how long it takes the oil to get up to full operating temp.... definitely it takes way longer than the coolant temp gauge. You might just be reaching operating temp when you shut it off if your commute is 10-15min - no time to evap the water though.

 

thanks Snapper!

All those years of crappy cars with leaky head gaskets has made me hyper-sensitive to mayo, I think.

I'll be going on a nice long run next weekend, that should clean things out. How did you hook up the oil temp gauge? Is there a transducer already on the engine somewhere, or is it a programmable readout dealy?

thanks

greg v.

 

I ordered MINI's chrono package, specifically to get the oil temp gauge (well, and to get the speedo away from my wife's eyes ). To me, it's much more informative than the coolant temp.

Hope one long drive takes care of it, but I suspect it may take a few.

 

Snapper

that makes sense, I've always liked the idea of having the chrono pack.

Whomever ordered my MCS new went very light on the spec sheet; I think the only option mine has are the small driving lights; it doesn't even have a sunroof, one of only two Cooper S's that I've ever seen that way, and the main reason I bought the car in the first place!

Do you think an oil change would help matters? It is due for one shortly anyways, as I like to do it after a year even if it hasn't reached the mileage for it.

thanks again

greg v.

 

Any oil change will, of course, erase your mayo problem, until it slowly builds again from short distance driving.... it's probably the primary reason annual oil changes are suggested by all manufacturers. You might consider learning to change it yourself, pretty easy really... saves money and time and you know it's been right. I typically do my oil change in the middle of the recommended intervals.

I'm not a big wrench person myself, but I do like to change my own oil and tires (swapping winter/summer wheels) on all my vehicles.

 

Snapper

I've been thinking about getting back into doing my own servicing, having just recently swapped my snows off, and repairing the curb rash on one of my R84's at the same time. I used to do all the work on my old '91 Civic, but I kinda burnt myself out after three engine swaps, full suspension rebuild & poly bushing install etc. etc......so it's been nice handing it off to someone else for a change.

However, I am becoming somewhat frustrated by the inability of the dealer techs to think outside of the box, important for tackling odd jobs and faults not covered by the factory manual, especially once aftermarket bits are incorporated into the mix. And I miss getting my car up on jacks every year and having a good probe around the underside, looking for small chips that are starting to rust and any other defects that dealer mechanics usually don't find because they are not looking for them.

I might have to clean out the garage, maybe move that '64 Lambretta Li150 Special project out of the way for a while!

cheers

greg v.

 

That's a common complaint, and not just with MINI dealers, either. Modern on-board diagnostic systems are great, and will often let the tech narrow down a problem to a single component without even having to start the car, much less open the hood. But the drawback is that if a problem *doesn't* throw a code in the OBD, or if it doesn't throw one that's helpful enough, many of the techs don't have any real troubleshooting knowledge or techniques to fall back on.

 

I agree. And after having talked to a few dealer techs, I can't say that it is much their fault either. They are a product of their environment, in this case one that is very structured and designed to turn a profit; if a clutch is supposed to take 4.3 work units of time, 7 different parts, and 2.5 units of consumables then that's what the tech gets to do the job. Anything that's not in the book seems to be a bit of an issue.

I guess this is where non-dealer service comes in, but it can be tough to find someone you trust. I should join a local club, or at least seek their advice.

greg v.