Hello,

I own a 2005 Cooper S and I have been having some starter issues. When the car is dead cold ( regular fall day ) it has a hard time turning over. When I turn the key the car struggles to get over 1k rpm. It's stutters at around 500 rpm trying to get above 1k. Pumping the throttle does nothing. Sometimes it will fix itself and sometimes it will die. If I back off the ignition and retry it insta fires with no problem. I can't put a thought as to the why, why struggle on the first crank but second crank is cake? Any thoughts?

2nd, My car seems to eat coolant. I have own the car since feburary and twice it's ran out of coolant. Other car guys says this is abnormal and could be something wrong, but all I need to do is a coolant top up and it's great. Any thoughts on this? Other then that it puts a giant smile on my face.

 

Do you smell antifreeze around your engine? Are there any antifreeze puddles on your driveway? I'm guessing not, because I would think you'd have said something like "what's that acrid smell?" or "my driveway is a mess". Therefore, your antifreeze is going into your combustion chamber and burning up. It's getting there via a blown head gasket. Which would explain why the car has trouble running.

I'd do a compression test. Besides reading the fault codes. Maybe also eyeball your motor oil and see if it looks water contaminated. Or take it in to a good shop and have that done.

 

No weird smells that I can think of. My starter issues seams to be the stumble start that I have read about in the problems forum. Car runs tight and fast still, loads of power and it just purrs. But every 4 months I need to fill my coolant up. My major concern is that I dump alot of money into my car to get this extremely minor inconvenience fixed

 

There are 2 common places on a 2005 s where coolant leaks..
Simplest is the coolant bottle.....the seam where the bottle is molded tends to get pinhole leaks..look for white residue about halfway down the fill bottle. Simple cheap fix, new bottle, costs about $30, and willtake you 15 minutes.
Other common issue is the thermostat, or more specficly the gasket....the materal used tends to leak, and mini came out with a revised part using different materal for the gasket...
also a slow leak..
may drip, usually not...it get blown back or evoprates, and like above, usually no smell.
Look at those 2 posdibilites first before you worry about the head gasket....heck on a 2005, depending on miles, any hose could have a pinhole leak or the radiator could have an issue...
The cranking makes me think of two isdues...but the description on how it starts is not totally clear...
it cranks fast right (if not new battery), and then has a stumnly, rumbly start right?
than after a few moments usually is ok.
Kinds common....most live with it..might be related to the yearly change over in fuel..summer to winter as the car adjusts...
Some folks have claimed possible drippy injector ($$) or fuel preasurr regulator (cheap) fixed it...but see if it kinda goes away....
check the ignition coil...the terminals tend to corrode on the oem one...cleaning them might help, as other basic mantance, such as plugs and air filter might be good.
Good luck, and enjoy!!