I brought my car originally to and independent MINI shop and they diagnosed my CEL as carbon build up. They didn't have the special tools so they referred me to the dealer. No biggie, I brought it to the dealer and they said that it could be symptom of a high pressure fuel pump going bad.

Well fast forward a few days. They called me yesterday after letting the car sit for a few days getting cold. Started her up and were able to repeat the misfire code. But they don't think its due to carbon build up...instead they swapped the firing order and that seemed to clear the CEL. They are waiting one day (today) to restart her, and see if that is the fix.

Anyone know if this makes sense? Now I did have one carbon clean under warranty where they took off the head, etc. Could they have messed the firing order then? But if that was the case wouldn't I have gotted the CEL some 20K miles ago?

Someone help me make sense here...

 

Of course they didn't swap the firing order. That would be nuts and incompetent.

What they probably mean in shorthand is they swapped the coil on plug ignition module. If the error moves from one plug to another with the swap, you know it's the coil in question being moved around that's bad. Standard trial and error technique with coil on plug units.

 

Concur with the above. It's physically impossible to attach the harness plug wires to the wrong plug - too short.