A few months ago, I had been experiencing a loss of coolant, so I went through some fun that you can find detailed in this thread.
As I stated toward the end of the thread, I started experiencing some other problems - a lack of acceleration and still losing coolant. I finally got it into the shop and found out things may be as dire as I feared.
The acceleration issues: she won't get up to 3k rpm, and it feels like there's no boost from the supercharger. There's also a bit of a grinding sound coming from that region.
The coolant issues: pressure test revealed slow loss of pressure. Slow leak appears to be coming from thermostat housing. Oil is also high and milky - head gasket most likely culprit.

For the mechanic to just address those issues, I'd be looking at about $6300. For parts, they're quoting $2346 for the supercharger, $493 for the head gasket & thermostat, and $500 to sublet the head to the machine shop for examination.

At this point, I still have some searching to do, but as I'm at work as I post this, if anyone else can point me to threads that might include information on what kind of effort and/or monetary cost I'd be looking at if I try to do it myself, I'd appreciate it.

I intend to sell the car, but need to figure out if it's something I should repair or just try to sell for parts. Thanks for any input!

 

all those prices seem very high, is that labor included?

 

No, those costs are just for parts. I figure they're probably higher than what I could find by searching around, since it's based on wherever the shop sources their parts.

 

you can send your S/C to get rebuilt for about $700, head gasket is about $80 for a metal one, thermostat i dunno off the top of my head, but definently not 400. head work seems about right.

what fails in the S/C is the PTO gears to drive the waterpump, which seems to be the culprit in this case causing the headgasket to fail.

you could also go an electric waterpump conversion and delete the PTO gears, dunno that cost. but there are instructions to do so, sprintex S/C has them since that S/C not longer runs the water pump and they provide an electric one.

 

So far Helix has the lowest bid at $849 (plus $450 core and shipping), followed by WMW at $895 + $500 core.

 

I think that included in this price is the thermostat housing, and more than just the cylinder head gasket. The kits I'm seeing online include valve cover gasket, intake/exhaust manifold gaskets, cylinder head bolts, and maybe a couple other little gaskets, and range up to a few hundred dollars. All said and done, still lower than the $493, but that's not an unreasonable shop price if that's the case.

 

As long as your old sc is not locked up...it should be rebuild able....so core $$ does not matter...
Both places you list are reputable shops that sell a decent rebuilt sc IMO...
....labor to change a sc should be about $500, then add a few gaskets and a $100-200 water pump...not sure how your shop gave you $2300+...even from mini a sc is $1500 or so(rebuilt)...new are getting rare...
Might want to check for a different shop...prices seem very high...matching dealers or even higher...

Sounds like the $6300 price was to push you to get a motor...about $5500.......or to get you to runaway cause they DO NOT WANT THE WORK.....

 

Another thought....after looking at the other thread...
The 3000 rpm thing....makes it sound like a vac leak...any chance it was not put together right?
But if the car has been sitting with "milky oil"... Might think twice about trying to fix it...

 

I don't think the shop is trying to be unreasonable; they're one of only a few shops around here that have a great reputation as far as Minis are concerned. They didn't talk about a motor replacement as an option, either.

Either way, I have a really hard time paying the labor for someone to do something that I can, unless I'm in a real time crunch. The big thing that I was after was someone to give me a diagnosis so I could figure out whether to tackle some problems, or to try to sell it. I might also look into finding a used s/c if that's a cheaper option and I decide to just sell.

 

The car ran fine for a while after reassembly... I suppose something might have come loose in there. She's not throwing any codes, though...

 

Just because I know how annoying it can be when a thread never has a resolution, I just wanted to close this out (finally). I didn't ever get the car fixed, found an 06 and have been using the 03 as a parts car.