Having issues with the Mini again :/

I took it in for service two weeks ago after the heater stopped working as well as excessive wind noise from the sunroof at surface street speeds. I also advised them that the oil light was coming on when making hard(ish) turns.

They found a leak in the thermostat (replaced), they weren't able to duplicate the wind noise (although they lubed the rubber) and insisted that the light coming on was normal and refused to change the oil as it had 9k left per the car.

They also found severe cupping on both tires in the rear. I swapped from runflats to Yokohama s drives in early December and they only have about 4k on them. The dealer claimed alignment and improper inflation. After the issue with the runflats, I'm paranoid about air pressure and it gets checked every other fillup.

The alignment shop says everything changable is in speck. My caster is -3.3 on both rears. The camber and toe were less than 1/16 inch off.

I'm worried it's a suspension issue, but isn't that something they should have checked when the tires were so badly worn?

The other problem is the engine. It was perfectly fine prior to taking it in. Now I'm getting a loud clacking noise about 30 seconds after starting and it's not going away for the duration of the drive.

 

That clacking sound could be the timing chain tensioner failing. Get it back to the dealer as soon as possible!

Dave

 

Concur. And I personally disagree with your dealer/SA when they claim any warning lights that flicker on and off is "normal." Check the oil level yourself and ensure that it's within the proper operating range. Despite refusing to change it, did the dealer at least check the oil level...?

If it is low, that may also be related to the "clacking" noise you're hearing. Low oil levels appear to be related to a number of other engine issue, including the timing chain tensioner "rattle." Also, verify that the tensioner bolt is tight; there have been several reports of this bolt backing out due to improper tightening, with severe oil leaks/engine damage resulting when it finally falls out...

Can't help you much with the tires/alignment.

 

Thanks for the info. I checked my oil and it is indeed low. I'll be pointing it out again as well as mentioning my warped scoop - I need to peruse the forums more often

I'm having a hard time wanting to cough up the $1800 they want to extend the warranty now if they aren't even going to check basic things.

 

If you check your tire pressure every other fillup it might be a good idea to check your oil level as well. Especially if your oil light is coming on.

gary

 

I have the same issue with the Yokohama S Drives. After speaking with 5 alignment shops here is what 4 of the 5 told me, the 5th had no idea.

1. the suspension is set up for the much stiffer sidewalls of the runflats.

2. Switching to a tire that has much softer side walls as the S Drives do causes the suspension to allow the tires to bounce. The cupping action is do to the combination of bounce and high negative camber.

3. there are a couple of things that can be done to eliminate this.
a. Change the shocks and springs to something that is stiffer to eliminate the bounce.
b. Reduce the negative camber and loose the handling characteristics
c. return to runflats.

Now I live in Massachusetts where we have real snow and this year lots of it. What I can say is that what they are telling me seems credible as I originally had Dunlop Sport 01 runflats on the car. In the 20K+ miles I had on those they never got rotated and never had any cupping issues. And the car was in proper alignment. I ran those for 1-1/4 summers. During the winter I run Dunlop Winter Sport runflats and those now have about 30K on them after 1-3/4 winters. They have no cupping on them. Last summer I ran the S Drives and after about 3500 miles they were starting to cup and get really noisy. I had the alignment checked and it was spot on. Rotated the tires and the cupping causes shaking in the steering wheel. My other problem with the S Drives is that I only got about 12K miles out of the set.

So from my experience running the runflats does not cause the cupping but the use of non runflats will possibly cause this problem.

As for the other issue of low oil. You really need to check it regularly as the MINI will burn about a quart every 3k-5k miles. So with 15K or more between oil changes you could easily be down 2-3 quarts. BTW MINI states the car can burn as much as a quart every 1500 miles before they think there is a oil burning issue that need to be looked at.

 

Thanks for the info on the tires. I was going to order Kuhmos with new lighter wheels, but I had 3 runflats go at once (grrr stupid roofing companies). It was either the Yokohamas, which were the only tires available for install that day, or cancel our trip to Vegas.

I'm in Phoenix where know not of this different tires for winter/summer thing you speak of. There wasn't any vibration in the steering after rotating thankfully. I'll just rotate them every 3k or so until they wear out. The alignment shop also advised me to drop the psi about 2 lbs in the rear to help the tire sit flatter.

I absolutely HATE the runflats. I dont think there was a day that the traction control didn't kick in at least once before I changed them out. But $600 tires with a 12k life won't work for me :( that's barely 5 months of use.


The car went into the dealer yesterday. They couldn't tell if the rattle was from the timing chain, the tensioner, or a vaccum pump near it, so they kept it overnight to start it this morning. Should I be questioning potential valve issues if it's the tensioner or the timing chain?

I'm only asking about the valves as we're discussing selling/trading it in and getting a lower mileage model instead of paying to extended the warranty. I'm really not crazy about dropping money for suspension/tires on a car that isn't staying. (And now my husband is trying to talk me into an A3 )

 

I had the same cupping issue with a set of Coopers. I got an alignment after installing my lowering springs and they told me the rears were toed in too much, which led to the rear cupping. After I got the alignment, it all went away after the tire wore back out to normal. Of course, I also had to buy new tires soon thereafter.

 

Follow up on the car - the chain and tensioner were both replaced. They claim that it was stopping the oil from giving a proper reading.

They also replaced the scoop with a color match - I asked about paying the difference for the carbon fiber upgrade but that was only an option if they didn't have the color in stock. se la vie

Now the big question remains - keep the car and pump the money into the suspension? Or sell it and pick up a lower mileage one.

They did have a tricked out hardtop in the showroom with a new 'performance package'. Looks like it's JCW body parts with dealer installed NM Performance bits. $45K is a bit steep for me though. That's 3yr old Lotus territory