Everyone that has had problems with the chain tensioners or vacuum pumps need to report the issues to http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov
Will maybe help to force MINI to recognize they have a problem

 

While it's a good idea to report those problems, they probably aren't statistically significant.

Even if 100 people report a problem, (unless it directly causes a crash with fire, death and news film at 11) it's just a blip. Figure Mini has made what about 1,000,000 cars in 10 years? say 300,000 with the N14 "S" engine? so having 50 people say they've had HPFP failures, or timing tensioners problems, just isn't significant. (it is to the customers, but...)

 

agreed

but i still reported my passenger airbag sensor failure, its the air bag for f**ks sake, they want 2000 dollars to replace a 3 dollar piece of plastic that was a recalled part in BMWs( same part in the MINIs and BMWs, they just decided not to recall it in the minis WTF) and till i come up with 2 grand(which will never happen) they cant even tell me if the passenger air bag would even deploy in an accident.

wow my good mood just switched to anger really quick. I'm gonna have to go drive the hell out of it while on lunch, to bring my good mood back

 

I'm pretty sure MINI already knows they had a problem with chain tensioners. That is probably why they have done so many goodwill fixes on them and have redesigned the part over the years and issued specific instructions to dealers on how to correct the complaints of cold start chatter.

Vacuum pumps seems to be much more limited and sporadic in occurrence. Not sure the problems amount to a statistically significant number.

 

It's alot more than 50 or 100 from what I see on the different websites. If my car would have stalled going 70 down the interstate it could have been a substantial wreck with fatalities. Putting a new engine in a car that's 3 yrs old at a cost of 6,087, for a car that cost almost 30K, there's something wrong with that picture.

 

And, it can just take one high profile publicized failure in some unfortunate scenario to then put the pieces together. Putting aside the debate about exactly what technically was up, after lots of stonewalling ultimately Toyota could not stand up to the press and scrutiny around the CHP officer crashing his Lexus with several people dying on a California freeway with a contemporaneous terrible 911 recording amid the ongoing debate of whether they had throttle issues, floormat issues or driver "pedal misapplication." Arguably that terrible accident was the proverbial straw that tipped the whole debate from denial to big time efforts to fix at huge dollar cost and massive bad publicity and business repurcussions.

Don't wish it on anyone, but when a tensioner fails, if either the motor stops suddenly and/or it dumps the oil, very bad things can happen--railroad track and intersection scenarios, slick skids, bicycles, many things. Most reports may be mundane, but against a database of reported issues, the manufacturer has a much tougher time going w/ head in sand or official denial approach in the nightmare scenarios. Among reasons BMW/Mini may be penny wise and many pounds ($$$$$) foolish here in the longer term, let alone the goodwill and other common sense business issues.