I should have thought it was a bit strange that he was hard to get a hold of (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and for some one else at LTMW to make the appointment for him, probably hiding in his office or not there. When they call me to find out where I am on Tuesday for my appointment I'll ask them where Long Tran was every time I called asking for him and didn't get a call back and why a Mini sat there for a month waiting for work to be done.

It's go to be done the same day or by appointment, no way am I driving at 5 am to drive all the way up there 131 miles only to have to drive back in a rental car, no doing that!

 

What happened with this System? As RA said, he was the original guy who brought the attention for LT and I followed and was happy when I had it done. Apparently things have changed and once again i'll follow RA's advice and steer clear.

 

I must admit I took the day off work when I made the appointment with LTMotorWorks so I was locked into going to my appointment yesterday. I'm glad to report that my experience with LTMotorWorks was a very positive one! They started at exactly 9:30 am and were finished by 2:00 pm, they told me it was the toughest intake valve cleaning they had ever done, I was witness to that! Once they walnut blasted the top layer of dark black carbon deposits off, what they found underneath was extremely hard lighter color carbon deposits.

They took a moment to show me, then I went back into the waiting room. The walnut blasting wasn't doing anything to this lighter harder layer of carbon deposits, this only confirms the one picture of cylinder #4 (the least amount of carbon on the valves) in the last picture in my very first post where you see the light gray marks on top of the black carbon. This is where the Mini dealer stopped cleaning my intake valves because the harder layer was no match for walnut blasting, the fact that it was still there yesterday proofs beyond a reasonable doubt that the Mini dealer got lazy! This is why the mechanic claimed he forgot to take after pictures!

Even when LTMotorWorks used special picks and solvents it was still very difficult to remove and time consuming. Those light gray marks that ECS Tuning Guy menctioned in post #9 was the walnut media striking the hardened carbon leaving those light gray marks or scrapes on the valves. It may not look like much carbon on those valves in cylinder #4, but I beg to differ because I saw the cleaning process several times before it was finely finished. The valves seemed to get smaller and smaller as more carbon was removed, it looked less and less like a domed bell shape on top of the valves!

These pictures were taken about an hour before LTMotorWorks was completely finish cleaning my valves, I didn't want to keep interrupting the cleaning process because I had to leave for work by 2:30-3:00 pm because I knew I'd be in traffic for at least 3 hours! They were using sharp, long, curved dental like tools to remove the harder carbon nearest to the sealing area of the valves where the walnut shells can't get in, I've have seen other pistures of this Here, see the light tan build-up around the back of the valves sealing areas in the link titled "After Blasting"? I did however get to see with my own eyes the completed job, I thought about taking more pictures then but not losing my job is more important.

 

So how does the car run for you in comparison to when Mini did the "blasting"?

 

A big difference between the Mini dealers job and LTMotorWorks job, it feels much more responsive in Non-Sport Mode! The Non-Sport Mode feels very responsive to the lightest amount of pedal input where before you had to really floor it to get any kind of response, that's what most member's complain about for which they have the right to do so.

That flat spot in Non-Sport Mode everyone talks about is gone especially when your sitting at a red light and you get a green light, there's no hesitation or stumble like I clearly had before which is why I started using Sport Mode. It accelerates with ease and moves up the RPM range easily and quickly (Non-sport Mode).

On another note: is my idle supposed to be around 680-700 RPM? I thought they were supposed to be closer to 800 RPM at idle, Dash Command, Torque Pro and my in car RPM gauge shows 700 RPM's. It shows 800 RPM's at idle with the AC on. The ECU was reset and the Throttle Body Actuator was reprogrammed by LTMotorWorks because they had to clean the intake manifold and move the throttle body actuator, it idled at 700 RPM's long before I brought it into LTMotorWorks.

 

I think mine sits around 700. If i remember correctly, that's what torque read it to be last time i checked.


Anyways, glad to hear you're happy with the mini again.

 

interesting, I was wondering about that- ie. short driving (commuting) trips, as opposed to long trips (sustained acceleration).

 

Thats what I have seen, had mine blasted before.

 

what model & year is your Mini? What is mileage? Are you original owner?

 

2007 N14 done at 60,000 miles , was never blasted before , pretty bad ( they drove it short trips in the city), second owner, have seen it only others as DD needing around 50K.

 

I see. Yeah, just trying to get some idea on how prevalent this (excessive carbon) issue is, and what mileage range most owners are typically experiencing unhealthy level occurences. Is this something (Walnut Blasting) that should be performed regardless at some point around/near 40K or 50K miles?

My 2009 Mini Cooper S Hardtop mostly sits in driveway for the last three or four years. I drive locally maybe once or twice every one to two weeks. Otherwise it goes on long trips. Currently 40,000 miles. I'm original owner

 

The easy way to see it is with a scope camera through the intake backside or pull the intake manifold off a bit an take a peak at the build up. Or just have the service done or do it yourself for piece of mind. It should be a requirement at 50K.

 

Every N14 is different, some burn more oil than others, luck of the draw. I have seen some really bad after only 20-40,000 miles while some don't look that bad at 60,000 miles. It robs you of air flow into the engine, it doesn't take much oily deposits to restrict air flow. Cylinder #1 and #2 get the worse of it do to the location of the PCV port and how much closer it is to the actual cylinder, the plumbing in the intake manifold has shorter distance to the first two cylinders.

 

I see, thanks. I've had to add additional oil (maybe on 3 or 4 occassions), in between the few oil-changes, over the duration of the 40K miles I've put on my Mini. The turbo definitely "eats" oil.

 

Mini just got lazy and didn't install any kind of device to take the oil vapors and convert them back to the oil pan, they did just this with the N18 engine because owners would coming in for an oil change with 1-2 quarts of oil in the engine. Mini expected a daily driver to add oil every few gas-ups, people aren't normally used to adding that much oil in-between oil changes as it's not typical of a reliable car. It caught many off guard, all the cars I have ever owner never needed oil between oil changes. Then there's the carbon build-up issues that continues to cause problems for the valves, rings and engine health.

 

all of this (dysfunction) surprises me being that this turbo induction engine was apparently engineered in concert by BMW, based on Peugeot architecture, primarily in the UK and Munich. This design group has extensive knowledge and experience producing current-generation turbo induction power plants.

same here, it definitely caught me off-guard as well. Although my Mini has performed well in general.

I've owned Acura Integra's before I moved up to BMW Mini. Most current-generation products are pretty much no-maintenance, you never even need to check oil, almost like a hands-off "black-box". Manufacturers have come a long way, and are purposely designing-in long duration oil change intervals.

you would think BMW Mini would at least include a mandatory diagnostic test/analysis for excessive carbon-buildup as part of their 40k mile service. I have never had any Mini dealer technician or service manager speak of any mention of "carbon buildup". Was'nt until I read about it on this forum.

 

Nearly every manufacturer initially had issues with carbon build up on direct ignition engines.

 

what about current-generation BMW Mini's (2014 - 2016)? Are they seeing carbon issues?

 

I'm not sure. It's still kind of early for most people would still be below 40k miles

 

Audi is the first to come to mind, one of there cars typically lost 50+ HP after only 10-15,000 miles, owners weren't happy about it. It costs a lot more money to clean the intake valves on a larger engine.

The N18 engine which came out in mid 2011 typically don't burn any oil in-between oil changes and the intake valves are clean even after 60,000+ miles. I don't believe the newer BMW 2.0 engines will have any oily deposits on the intake valves, but if they do it would mean BMW hasn't learned anything from past experiences.

 

yeah. The manufacturer (BMW) has to be well aware of this issue