MCS 6M acting up again. Now, it occasionally feels like my accelerator is very unresponsive when starting out in first from a dead stop. I can't reproduce it 100% of time, but I'm thinking that if I lift off the clutch around 800 RPM (idle, basically) the feather on the accelerator, the engine barely spins up, and I find myself going a lot slower than I expect to. This is pretty dangerous. If I get this to happen, even mashing the accelerator won't matter. The engine will increase RPMs very slowly, until around 2800 rpm, it kicks in with power and it's back to normal. It seems to do this more when just starting out vs. having been on the road for awhile.

I'm starting to develop the habit of pre-revving the engine to 1200 or higher prior to releasing the clutch, but that's not a clutch-friendly habit to get into.

I also think it's been idling a tad rougher, too, and I've felt that way since I had the cold start problem fixed. It's not worth complaining about, but now maybe I think it could be related.

Any ideas?

 

Does the pattern change any with the Sport button on?

 

Good question. I don't know. I always have the Sport button on. When this problem occurs, it feels like those few times when I've accidentally left Sport off - I dig in, but there's nothing there.

 

I have an MC, but have notived a couple times what may be the same thing. If I don't get the RPMs over 1k, it seems the engine just doesn't have the oomph to move the car and increase RPMs. It can take five seconds or so before she gets back to normal acceleration, but that happens around 2k, not quite as high as you describe.

I have always been told that these little 4-cyl engines are hi-rev. Power comes from revs. Maybe this is normal.

 

I have ran into this a time or two as well. I usually do this because I am not paying attention when a red light changes. Bumping the clutch pedal gets me out of it quick enough. Not really double clutching, just enough to let the engine get out to the front of the power curve.
Feathering in a load at 800 rpm is a big torque demand for a 4-banger. Even a great 4-banger.

 

Just to close the thread...

I brought the car into the dealership and they spent some time (ok, a LOT of time) figuring out the problem. It was

a) The hose from the throttle body to the t-pipe was disconnected. I don't know if this might have been related to the hose that was disconnected the day I got my car back from its cold start problem repair. But if not, MINI needs to rethink their hose clamp vendor.

b) After reconnecting the hose, the cam timing was off and needed to be set to spec. Again, not sure how related to the timing mechanism replacement to repair the cold start problem.

In any case, it's running smoothly again.

 

Are you describing the connection to the noise generator? That clamp being loose would cause a leak and impede boost but has absolutely nothing to do with your cam timing. Sounds to me like they botched the SIM repair.

 

glad its fixed. main issue was probably the timing sounds like....

whoever did the cold start repair sounds a little rookieish lol