It looks like I have another coolant leak at the waterpump. I had this replaced last year and now it looks like its leaking again. I found this last year when I stored the car for the winter. I see a cup of coolant on the floor as soon as the temp goes down. I now have it again. I called the dealer and I assume that they will replace once again. Is this part defective from the start??


Any of you guys had this repeated problem???

Carl

 

We are on our 4th coolant tank - we have an 02' also. Now it's out of warranty so the next one will be on us (keeping our fingers crossed that is doesn't happen again)...:smile:

This was a real issue for quite a while - there would be daily postings, but it seems to have subsided. Good luck with yours....make sure they replace it with the new style tank..

Chow!

Donna

 

If your expansion tank is darkish orange in colour then you have the Mk2 version of the expansion tank which will/should not leak from the seams/body iteself. The earlier, defective, expansion tanks were white in colour.

Even my MINI with the latest expansion tank, leaks from the cap when it is OVERFILLED (In my opnion, close to the MAX line). Pretty much every MINI I know of will do this, especially when running the reduction pulleys etc. The important thing to remember is that this is an expansion tank and its visible measurement is not an exact indication of cooland levels per se. As long as the level is above or around the minimum mark you will be fine.

If you continue to add water every time it is expelled, you are exerting unessary pressure on the head gasket. The pent up pressure has to escape somehow, so it does so in the form of steam through the cap until such pressure is relieved. If you keep adding water you are exasperating the problem and putting stress on the head gasket. As long as it is not leaking from the expansion tank body iteself, you should be fine. Mine is anyway

As I said, keep the coolant level just above the min mark or around it and your car should be fine (at least mine is in the UK climate). If you insist on refilling the reservoir, I suggest you only use 'battery' de-ionised water and not crappy tap water which can cause calcification in extreme cases (depends how 'hard' your regional water is).

By all means get a MINI tech to replace it/pressure test it etc, but please be mindful that it is a common issue with the MINIs and there is no real long term solution short of fitting an aluminium expanision tank. I would be weary of doing this unless I were fitting it with the origninal plastic cap for the pressure release reasons mentioned earlier.

There you go, I've spent all my $0.02!

Cheers,

Henry

 

we had a leak at the water pump awhile ago, had a defective o-ring at 20 something thousand miles. Haven't had a problem since and just turned 50,000. Good luck

 

Hi,

I had a cooland flush about a year and a half ago, Jan 2009, on a 2005 Cooper S. I noticed that it was about half an inch above the max and I expressed my concern to the dealer and they said this was ok. I disagreed and left it.

10 000 km later, just a few days ago I noticed the level had gone down to near the max line and the expansion tank now has slow leak at the seams. Now it needs to be replaced and I wonder if the excess fluid would cause this? If so I feel the dealer is responsible for over filling the expansion tank causing long term damage eventually requiring replacement.

I also noticed recently when I accelerate my supercharger sound seams muffled and weak, more hissing less whine, not sure if this is related.

Anthony