Ok, so I hate to put Mini on blast, but what I am going through is serious messed up. I had my r55 taken in for the aux water pump recall in early feb. After one day being at Stevens Creek Mini I was happily on my way. Here's where the problem occurred. I drove down to LA from San Jose last night and everything was going fine. After I crossed the grapevine I decided to get some food at a drive-thru. After waiting in a long line I got my food and was about to drive off. I got out of the drive-thru and I hear a loud "POP", I pull into a parking space and tons of white smoke and coolant spill out from the engine bay...

At this point I figure a radiator hose popped off and the coolant just spilled out. Not a huge deal (except for the fact that I had a job interview this morning {GOT THE JOB}). I had my car towed to Bob Smith Mini in Calabasas, CA and parked it out front so I could get picked up and driven to my interview. After my interview I stop by the dealership to check my car in and get repairs going, thinking that the hose would be a quick fix.

Wrong, this dealership found that the radiator is blown and needs replacement. After hours of calling trying to get a quote, or even see what was wrong, they told me that it was due to a faulty install job of the aux water pump. I get another call a couple hours later telling me that it was "DEBRIS DAMAGE". WTF I would have known if I ran over something strong enough to tear apart my radiator, duh. So now they are trying to stick me with the $1400 bill saying that it was the driver's fault and isn't covered by warranty, because it was not due to faulty parts (IT WAS FAULTY LABOR!!!).

After filing a claim with my insurance, I am possibly facing a $500 deductable instead

What I am looking for is another course of action, possibly taking matters to the Automotive Branch of Consumer Affairs. The kicker is that my new job is going to take me out of the country NEXT WEEK.

If anyone has any advice to what I can do, it would be greatly appreciated. I just landed a job and don't quite have the money to shell out right now. Plus I was intending to put my R55 in storage before I left, so time is extremely important. I'm going to write a letter to the GM of Bob Smith Mini tomorrow and see where I can get from there...

/endrant

 

Ask to see the blown radiator and go from there. If need be kick it up to the Service Managers desk. No reason why a customer should get the perverbial run around like that. IMO they should never have given you a definative diagnosis until the cards were on the table.

 

I would get the radiator and check it out.
I think It would be easy to see if it exploded from inside or has a impact mark from the outside.
Let me guess,the dealer recycled it already.

 

I told the dealer to hold off on repairs until my insurance investigator had a chance to look at the damage. I am going to the dealer today with a letter to the GM..

 

As stated above it should be very obvious if debris hit the radiator and damaged it and also if the radiator blew. If they have already chucked the radiator then I would be VERY suspicious...

 

Just got back from the dealership. I spoke with the foreman about the car and he told me there was a gash that pierced one of the tubes in the radiator. He said that something very small (like a rock) got sucked up by the fan and spit into the radiator, causing it to burst.

This seems to be a HUGE design flaw, and I'm not surprised when all the other design flaws are taken into account. I wrote a letter to the GM of the dealership in an effort to negotiate a lower rate for my repairs. Hopefully my insurance company will recognize the design flaw and cover the damages *crosses fingers*

Next mod: SKID PLATE

 

I would be very suspicious and indeed very impressed, that your radiator fan, has the capability to suck up a object (small rock) and propel it with such velocity force, that it pierced one of your radiator tubes, hmmm I smell a strong dose of BS here!

The more likely cause, is that when your auxiliary pump was fitted, they didn't bleed your cooling system, to remove all the air, and this air lock has over pressurised your cooling system, to such a degree, that it found a weak spot, either a weakend tube, or popped the seal, on one of the plastic end tanks! You really need to be looking at your radiator, and use your common sense, when they feed you more of the smelly Brown stuff as to the cause!

 

This guy should go to work for the FAA!

If your driving down the freeway at speed,is the fan actually working?
Could very well be that a rock hit the radiator but dont think the fan is going to suck up a rock.

Did he say why the change as to the cause?

 

That rock could have hit the radiator years ago, weakened it, and that weak spot blew out. Who knows. If there is a mark on the radiator, it isn't a design flaw. Sometimes things happen and it costs you money.

 

But how could a fan that is "sucking" air thru the radiator suck up a small rock and the "force it back against the air flow" to hit the radiator.

Sounds like TOTAL BULL S%$# to me.

 

Did you see the radiator and the damage. Having worked for a dealer for almost ten years service depts do some shady stuff...

Not all of them but I have been there when it was done and let it be known to GM that I worked for. I reported to him directly for that very reason.

 

It can't be mere coincidence that this cooling system failure occurred shortly after cooling system maintenance (aux pump swap) had been done on your car. I'm willing to bet the radiator was sufficiently damaged by one of the grease monkeys during this work that the weak spot gave way under stress (i.e., hot engine while in the drive-thru line after having been exercised thru the hills of the Grapevine). Remember, most of the techs are still in the process of learning the aux pump replacement procedure and I wouldn't put it past any of them to be yanking on a tool or fitting and have it give way and hit the radiator. Or maybe in combination with an improper bleed, like czar suggested. The initial response you got from Bob Smith MINI makes me even more suspicious.

I'd sure want to take a closer look at the damage.

 

I think Gil is right, it's just too coincidental for me too.....

that said, I love how whenever anything happens to someone's car it's always a "design flaw"............cheese louise....

Hit a rock in the road and get a flat tire? Design flaw....

Go too fast around a corner and hit a curb and bend a wheel and trailing arm? Design flaw.....

I know none of those happened to the OP, but he sure was ready to jump on the "design flaw" bandwagon when he thought a rock had hit his radiator......

The other one that always gets me is the "known issue"......known by whom?

 

I call BS also. The radiator cooling fan sucks air through the radiator and expels it away from the radiator. How is it possible for a fan to expel an object in the opposite direction that it is forcing the flow of air? If the damage was on the front side of the radiator then it would be possible for some road debris to have been kicked up and then it hit the front side of the radiator, but that is not what the "foreman" said as listed above.

 

Just got off the phone with the insurance investigator. He told me the damage to the radiator was from impact, but was not from road debris. He suggested that when I had my aux water pump recall performed, the service tech either lost a bolt/screw in the process and it later made its damage to the radiator while I was on the road. He said the marks on the radiator were right where the pump is located, so it's more than likely that improper installation was the culprit...

In the meantime I will pay the deductible and take the broken radiator to Mini of Steven's Creek, where the recall was done. Hopefully they will not fight me as hard as Bob Smith Mini did, and will reimburse my deductible.

 

You, of course, are free to pursue this matter however you would like. I would encourage you to ask the original installers to cover EVERY expense that you have had regarding this matter. If they had installed the part correctly then you would not be out any money, any time, any hassle. I do not know if your insurance rates will go up with a claim or not but you might want to check that out before you have your insurance company pay for the damage caused by an improper repair.

 

A very similar thing happened to me just a couple of weeks ago. Here is a paraphrase of the experience...
I made an appointment to get the recall work done on my 2009 r55 as well as get my passenger seat heater and an issue with idle dip checked out. After driving ~15miles to the service bay and dropping my car off, I was told that it would be a couple of days before they got to my car. No problems there, I got a loaner. Skip ahead from Monday to Thursday and I get a call from the service manager that the tech told him it looked like a rock had pieced the radiator and it was leaking. New radiator installation price...$857! No way I can handle that. I called the service manager back and asked if he thought I could limp it home with topping the coolant off on the way. He suggested not to, but said it would be possible. At this point I'm imagining a small hole with coolant misting out.
The next day, Friday, I got to the Service Dept and was just going to pick my car up and take it home. The service manager suggested that I take a look at the car before driving it off. The tech pulled the car up onto the lift and showed me where "the rock" hit. Much to my surprise, it was not in the lower part of the radiator, but near the top of the driver's side. Meanwhile, the coolant has leaked out all over the place and there's a puddle under the car about the size of a medium pizza. The tech showed me where they did the recall work and I believed him that he didn't puncture the radiator while doing that work. The problem was that no one was fessing up to how the radiator burst.
Now there's no way I could have driven from my home to the service department with a hole that big in the radiator. It's also unreasonable to think that it happened on my way to the service department because there would have been a huge puddle in the drop-off area (which is inclosed and painted concrete) when the guy drove the car off, which happened WHILE is was still getting everything straightened out with the service manager that Monday.
I begged and plead with the service director about how it had to have happened under their watch. Initially I was going to have to pay out of pocket, but after talking to the director a third time he said that he could get it under $250. I agreed with that price.
I suspect that after the recall work, when they took the car out to check on idle dip, the dealer blew the radiator and *luckily* for me, it happened while they had the car. Oddly, the service director had a complete change of attitude about the work after I mentioned that:
1. The had been there for four days before they got to work on it
2. I bought my MINI at their dealer and only had it serviced there
3. My wife bought MINI there
4. I browsed the MINI forums and know many of the local forum members
About 10 minutes after I left the service department in the loaner car, I got a call that said they were going to eat the entire cost of the radiator and labor. Woohoo!


Sorry the same thing happened to you, but after seeing that quite a similar thing happened to someone else I had to pass the info along.
Hmmm...Maybe there's some relation to the recall work and radiators.

 

They probably pressure test the cooling system after the work on the pump and it was weak enough to blow. The first time it really heated up it might have gone in a traffic jam during the summer, so with the loaner, the free parts and labor, you made out great.

 

Had much better luck here... Recently took the MINI in for the aux H20 pump recall. They also did the timing chain tensioner seal "service action".

Very happy with NW MINI Tacoma service today - they also did the 2 year service 900 miles ahead of time, brake fluid change, air filter, micro filter, oil change etc. Replaced a non op chrome boot latch even though it was added after purchase. Had a 2011 S loaner for the day to boot...... They couldn't wait to pull the car into service at 8:15 AM..... Service advisor had the paperwork in hand as we walked in the door to pick up at 5:00 PM.... Oh and sat in a sweet Roadster while I waited for our MINI to be pulled around.

Total cost. Zero dollars. *PRICELESS*.

 

Just had the same issue after the recall done. I posted about it here: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...long-rant.html