Well, my '07 Cooper S had been rattling, but it would quit after a few mins. of driving. I've had the car about 8 months - bought it with 27,000 miles on it. Now at 39,000 miles, it's in the shop. Tensioner failed, bent valves, chain broke. Shop told me something about the cylinder head, gasket, guiderail... 3500 dollars. :(

What I need to know is once I have this fixed, can I really afford to keep this car? I love it, but are these things just poorly designed? It's my daily driver.
Once fixed, is it really fixed?

 

Can you explain why it's not at the dealership being repaired under warranty?

 

My paperwork shows that the warranty is expired - am I wrong here?

 

MINI comes with a 4 year/50,000 mile warranty. So if you haven't hit your 4 year mark yet, you can bring it to the dealer. I don't think MINI can turn you away if you fall under the terms.

 

As I recall my car is from March of '07 - good lord. :(

 

Sometimes dealers will give you a 'good will' warranty fix if you just fell out of the warranty period. It's worth a try to at least call them and try.

 

Press for it to be fixed, if not escalate to MINI USA and they will offer a "one-time goodwill" offer for free or at a reduced cost.

 

I assume you have a convertible... Just making sure, because the "death rattle" as it's so affectionately known is a supercharger issue and the coupes had turbos starting in 2007.

 

pheeeuu I just bought an 07 mini cooper hatch and had not heard about this death rattle, I would definately call them and see if they cover it, good luck and keep us updated with what happens

 

I had the death rattle and the tension failing, so I brought it in to the dealer, and the chain had stretched out of spec so they replaced both the chain and the tensioner and related parts. All with less than 15,000 miles. My warranty ends in Aug 2011. Lucky.
I have a turbo so it is not to just the supercharged engine.
I thought it was the new engines only which is what I have and the dealer said only the new engines (2007 except Cabrios)had the tensioner timing chain rattle problem.

 

Hammer the dealer for a warranty play on the defective part. They will probably bite on it because it's a known defect and just happened to show up a month after the guarantee expired. I'm pulling for you.

 

You might be able to get it fixed under a "good will" situation, as others have noted. One of my friends (who sold his MINI afterwards due to repeated problems) had his transmission mount and ABS go out only 300 miles after the warranty expired. MINI fixed them both at heavily discounted prices under good will.

But I understand your worry about the car holding up. They aren't made very well, unfortunately, but some get more lucky than others.

 

Thanks everyone - here's the problem. I was told when I bought it 8 months ago or so there was no more warranty - buy I found a paper that said my warranty was up last December. My car is already in a shop near my house and they have it apart - this is not a Mini dealer, just a local Euro car shop with a great reputation. It's already in the process of getting fixed! I'm going to write MINI a letter about this, and see what they have to say.

My real dilemma concerns my keeping the car or not, after it's fixed. I can't afford to drive a car that isn't designed well! I love the thing, but I can't go broke keeping it! I need to find out if fixing this stuff will fix it for good or not.

Very sad MINI owner. :(

 

I understand your dilemma! Two friends of mine recently sold their MINIs (the one mentioned in my previous post, and another) due to all the problems the cars have had for them. They're all the standard problems we read about in your post and others.

Some might call me negative -- I call it realistic and logical -- but these cars simply aren't made terribly well. It's sad indeed because they are such a blast to drive in many ways, but they can't seem to get their act together as far as overall reliability.

My personal opinion would be to sell it if you really need to depend on your car for work. Or you could do what I plan on doing, which is to buy another car at the end of the MINI's warranty and keep the MINI for modding and weekend fun (or sell it, depending on how awesome the other car is -- this is 3 years away ).

 

You drove the car for 8 mos and 12K with the engine rattling and didn't do anything about it? Why should MINI fix it for free?

The owners have some responsibility too, don't they?

 

Opperator error (or NEGLECT) I sure wouldn't flip the bill. Sorry but cars are like plants, DONT GIVE THEM WHAT THEY NEED AND THEY DIE! Its not the manufacturers fault if you decide to drive a broken car for almost a year.

 

Did you ever complain about the noise to the dealer? If you have it documented anywhere, you will have good precedent for a no charge repair. Besides, you're just out of warranty. Call MINIUSA and press for a goodwill repair.

A side note, your warranty should be extended for the number of days and miles it was in for other repairs, which may be long enough to have it covered. In my case this would be a couple months!

 

A couple of months!!??? I'm almost scared to ask what was wrong...?

 

Sunroof and various smaller problems were a few weeks, timing chain and a few more serious problems another couple weeks and a piston failing has been two weeks and counting. I think my car has just a little more, um, quirks than most!

 

Fundamentally you're correct, of course. But I think back to the days when the R56 death rattle issue was first coming to light via reports in the various social networks. I must have seen dozens and dozens of posts from concerned owners experiencing the noise who went to the trouble of taking their MINI in to be examined, only to be told by their MA or SA that the noise "was normal." And a sizable percentage of people trusted that the MINI folks knew what they were talking about, and that the noise was, indeed, normal. Or they came to that conclusion based on their own intuition and experiences. There are a plethora of examples of heated e-dialog just in the NAM archives alone between those who believed the death rattle was bad and degenerative and those who did not.

Owners who've been connected to the discussion over the duration are much better informed now, and we know that: (1) the death rattle does eventually end in DEATH for the afflicted N14 engines; and (2) MINI (albeit not very forthcoming) has gone through considerable behind-the-scenes effort and parts changes to try and rectify it. But what about the 98 percent of owners who never frequent forums such as this? Can they be held fully accountable for recognizing a problem that even MINI USA passed off as "normal" for so long?

 

I'm pretty sure that the majority of folks who thought they heard the so called death rattle were hearing injector noise, a lot of the vids posted reflected that. Plus, when my chain tensioner got noisey it was a very distinct noise, very noticeable and it did not sound anything like a rattle, it sounded exactly like what it was, a loose timing chain. A new tensioner (at 3k miles from new) cured it and it hasn't been back since. My point is that it's a distinct noise, very different from injector noise. Some people claimed they heard valve lifter noise, what happened to that issue?

But I do see your point, an inexperienced or non-car person might think it's Ok since as he said, it goes away after a few minutes - I would not think that tho......I would take my car to the dealer and make sure they heard what I was hearing. Then if they said it was OK, I'd make them put that in writing....

I think he got used to it and as it became louder as it got worse, he simply didn't notice it as out of the ordinary, where if you or I got in the car and heard it we'd be alarmed.

I asked my SA if they were still seeing chain tensioner problems and he said he hadn't replaced one in over a year now, just FWIW. It's funny to me how problems that are horrible and deathly disappear once a car goes out of warranty. There's no question that some of the tensioners were a problem, and I doubt they found and replaced all the bad ones, and that we're going to see more of these engines fail as they go out of warranty, and that it's going to continue to give MINI a black eye. He also said they had not had one 2010 have the tensioner back out.....maybe they just got the note from MINI and tightened them before they delivered the cars? I don't know, but it seems odd that some areas had a bunch of these and some had none.

I've written several times that if I owned a 2007 -2009 S I'd buy and change at least the tensioner, just for safety's sake, and that if I owned a 2010 I'd put a wrench on the tensioner to make sure it's tight - same reason. Simple preventative maintenance like this might save a lot of grief and $$$$ later......

 

You and me both, brother!

 

While I was picking up my car from having the sunroof and timing chain fixed 2 other customers came in and their car were diagnosed as a bad tensioner and timing chain as well. There are still a lot of Minis out there with defective tensioners and resultant out of spec chains waiting to cause bigger problems. It is up to the owner to use their ears and listen and if they suspect a problem, have their dealer take a closer look. Dont expect Mini to notify you.

 

even tho i agree that you should take care of your car, if you buy plants from Home Depot or Lowes or any other major garden center they guarrentee the plants for one year, IF IT DIES, BRING IT BACK FOR A NEW ONE!
what if car companies did the same thing?

 

BILLION's of dollars in government bailouts?

Yes it would be nice, but independant dealers (Or any dealership, on preowned vehicles) are NOT obligated to have such standards. It can be a blessing for the dealership, but at the same time, be a curse for the consumer. Either way its just a part of the biz, and is in no way personal.