Hi everyone!

A few weeks ago I bought my first car! Its a 2005 Mini Cooper S 6-speed manual with about 120xxx miles. Knowing the car is relatively old with a good amount of miles, I have built in some repair and preemptive maintenance costs to my budget.

The first day I brought the car home, I was driving and the EML light came on and the car went into limp mode. I got a code reader and tracked the problem to a bad belt (The belt was so crunchy, it made a crackling sound when I bent it in my hands) and a broken harmonic damper (The crank pulley came off of the damper and wasn't spinning with the crankshaft). Now that these are replaced, it drives well.

However, I understand that the harmonic damper is supposed to be a press fit, and as such, it even bent the bolt of my pulley puller when pulling it off. I expected similar resistance putting the new OEM damper/pulley on, but it just slipped over the shaft by hand. I tightened the crank bolt to spec and put drew a line across the bolt and damper to see if the new damper would slip on the shaft.

Now, the EML light will only come on at the upper end of the RPMs when I floor it. I have checked the marks, and they are still aligned. During hard acceleration I hear a bit of a chirping, sound from the side of the engine bay with the belt.

Do you think the belt could be slipping on the SC pulley? or is there another way to prevent the EML light from turning on at all? BTW, the car has a 15% SC pulley (I don't know how old) and the SC pulley is difficult to turn by hand (I really need to grab it tightly with my whole hand just to turn it a little bit). Is this normal?

I am taking the SC off next weekend to replace the water pump and change the SC oil. Is there anything else that I should look for when doing the service, or any other service that I can do for the SC to make it spin more freely/extend its life?

Thanks in advance!

 

Welcome to NAM.

Going to move this to the Stock Problems/Issues section.

On the chirping, are you sure it is the belt? Sometimes the pulley on the tensioner can make a sound when the bearing is starting to go. Same goes for the idler pulley.

While doing the waterpump, it would make since to do the crank sensor o-ring, the t-stat and the t-stat housing. If you don't know the age of the belt tensioner, you may consider changing that as well. If they let the belt go then I would also change all the fluids; transmission, brakes, clutch and radiator.

Double check if you leaks at the power steering hoses.

 

Haha yea I wasn't sure about which forum to put this on, thanks.

I'm pretty sure. I did a check of all the other pulleys when I changed the belt and balance. They turned really smoothly and easily and there was no play in them. Besides, it doesn't make any noise except during hard acceleration, which is why I think the belt is slipping.

Good idea on all that other stuff, fluids and whatnot. I was surprised the belt was that bad, since they took the car in for service quite often (routine maintenance/tuneups) and had good logs of everything. It wasn't a mini dealership though, so maybe they didn't have the belt removal tool and just said screw it, the belt is probably ok.