So, the engine on my 2004 mini cooper s is busted after only a little under 70,000 miles. The second valve has only 10 psi on it. The other 3 are fine.

The shop says they think the best option is to go with a rebuilt engine ($8,000 installed, 3 year warranty), but that the other options would be a junk yard engine ($6,000 installed, 90 day warranty) or to take the header off and see if its a gasket ($3,000 dollars worth of work) and to possibly have bottom end problems anyway.

Any thoughts? It seems very low milage to have an engine go. Would it be better to just junk? Just looking for some extra opinions.

Thanks!

 

That is not the cheapest shop in town. I would without a doubt take the thing apart to see. A gasket is like $78 and even though the labor is huge, it shouldn't be anywhere near $3000 to tear the head off. More like $500 would still be a big profit for them.

Symptoms of the "incident" that got you to the shop will tell a lot too. Loud bang with instant loss of power = bad. Temp overheat, you shut down immediately and tow to shop = good.

 

That is way over priced, you can find a used S for that kind of money.
You need to try a different shop, Shade tree garage in Morristown is very good I would give them a call

 

Thanks. I think they were saying that the labor because of the supercharger would be about 18 hours. What happened when it broke was I was driving on the highway, engine light started flashing and I could clearly feel the loss of power in the engine (a lot of shaking and the clear miss). Pulled over immediately and was towed home. No loud bang.

 

Find another shop. How can they tell you that kind of a price when they haven't seen the car? " Because of the supercharger" what does that mean? They don't have a clue about Minis, find another shop!

 

How does a front mounted Supercharger make it harder to remove the head, which is on the top of the engine?

Having never pulled a MINI engine apart, I guess it could be somehow blocking the head from being removed, but that wouldn't be a very good design.

 

Definatly go somewhere else. In 18 hours you could remove the motor replace all the parts and put it back in....twice. Definatly need to check everything out first from exhaust to intake gaskets, spark plug vally seal, spark plug, etc.....take a good couple hours and just do some basic checks if your are slightly mechanically inclined whick if you did a compression test your are. Could just be a valve hanging slightly open. Would doubt a bottom end problem.

 

The supercharger is not in the way of a head removal Like I said, "they don't have a clue", about working on a Mini. Obviously in the picture more stuff has to be taken off, but not the SC.

 

Its a bit of a stretch to have it towed but perhaps Helix in Philly is your best bet.

 

These are not as easy as a civic to take the whole engine out, but definitely not 18 hrs worth of work. 1 hour to remove the whole front carrier / core support, then it is all wide open from there.

I'd pull it out the front of the car, trans and all.

 

wow! 3k just to pull the head?! You can use a see scope to check the top of pistons for damage and a wet compression check to tell if its the rings. That will not tell you everything but give you a good idea of the bottom end, at least enought to pull the head or not. Sounds like they don't know what is wrong or just want to "shotgun" it to make sure they get it right. I just paid 8k for my 130k 03 s seems crazy to pay that for just an engine.

 

Hell I paid $8K for my 1-owner 03 S with 63K miles on it. Take it to a shop that knows what they're talking about.

 

btw, when you have a check engine light flashing at you while driving usually mean's that the car is misfiring terribly, and it's trying to get your attention... and for the price for the repair... i'm so sorry but like everybody else is saying's is true do... lol, you can ship the car to me, and i'll be able to put a fully built motor in it, and send it back for cheaper =P... again like everybody else is saying... go to someone that know's what they are saying and find a better shop... hope you get your car fixed...

will

 

i'm having the very same issue as we are speaking, i'm going to replace my motor, here's a site you should check out, definitely way better then the guy quoting you..."car-part.com" plug in the info and select engine..it'll pull up all the data base as to who has it..you'll save a ton of money..i'm getting my for 1850 and having a friend drop the motor for $300...the shop quoted me $3000 for labor/engine (60,000) the engine i'm getting has 47,000 miles. Good luck dude.

 

also, check email, i saw a rebuild non-s motor for 2500..you might want to check with guy to see if you can send your motor to get it rebuild, i'm sure it'll be around the same price as well. Here's his name and number, i got it off ebay: [FONT=Arial]PETE 215 888 7518..worth a shot.[/FONT]

 

$3000.00 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Must be a stealership quoted price...