I have a 2004 MINI Cooper S MCS. Bought it used in Jan with 4900 miles. Today, I drove from Falls church VA to Oxon Hill (over Woodrow Wilson bridge) for an interview and then to Downtown DC where I work. Traffic was heavy on Beltway & the city but no worse than usual.

In my parking garage, I circled a couple of times and then waited while someone left their space. As I started to backing past cars toward the space, I noticed some liquid on the garage floor. Then the red light for the temp caught my eye, just as the smoke started.

The smoke was so thick I could not see out the windshield. When I got out of the car, blue fluid was everywhere. At first, I had no idea what to do. then realized if the car died, I was going to be blocking alot of other cars. It took a couple minutes to get one of the attendants over to help. Whole time the smoke kept billowing but the engine kept going though. Got it turned off as quickly as I safely could. Then I called MINI roadside assistance. They said it should probably be towed, which took one regular tow to get it out of the garage and then a flatbed truck. Quite the entertainment for the whole block.

A very nice gentleman stopped when he saw my MINI being hooked up on the flatbed tow truck to inquire what happened. Turns out he has a 2003 MINI Cooper S - which is why he stopped. He said the same happened to his car and it was a cracked coolant reservoir. Minimal to fix. I am knocking on wood that mine is the same level. Also, a big thanks for the reassurance I'll soon be smiling & motoring again.

My car made it to the dealership in Sterling. Larry has it now. No word yet, of course, from them. Has anyone else had this happen? How worried should I be? Thanks for any input or guidance.

 

Never to that extent, my MINI had a slow leak with the factory fluid and essentialy drained itself over four months I filled it with some heavy duty mid winter coolant and that sealed it up much better then topped it off two months later, tried to skip the step of using a funnel cause I was in a hury but knew it need it and put on quite the show at a stop light 1/2 hour later when some dripped onto the heat shield. Hope it turly is nothing more than a leaky coolant tank that can be replaced and fixed under warranty. Keep us posted.

 

You most likely suffered a failure of the power steering fan, which took out the 5 amp fuse that also happens to control the main radiator fan circuit as well. Your car overheated while standing still and no air was flowing through the radiator. This caused your car to overheat and boil over. Most likely no serious damage was done. Mine did the same thing waiting in traffic a couple years ago. Normal driving usually passes enough air through the radiator even though the fan is not functional, but slow driving or standing still (like you were doing prior to the boilover) makes the engine overheat, the coolant pressure rises, then the 'radiator cap' (which is attached to the coolant overflow tank on MCS, engine thermostat housing on MC) released pressure and the steam started.

Note when you get the car repaired - request that the power steering fan be fitted with it's own separate fuse so this will not happen again (and, sadly, it most likely will). There is a service bulletin to fit a separate fuse to the power steering fan only if the customer requests it.

 

Yeah, I don't think they ever completely fixed the issue. The tanks from back when we got ours in '02 leaked often. The new one's usually last a while. I've never heard of it completely breaking like you described. Ours always was a slow leak and you would see the white residue left when it fried on the exhaust heat shield.

 

I appreciate y'all sharing your experiences. The prior owner did not drive it much so maybe that's a factor. I have a gravel driveway so would not have noticed a leak (had to park my Subaru on the street once before when I was dealing with a leak on it). I will post an upate after I hear from the dealership. And, I am going to request the separate fuse power steering fan whether or not that is the cause.

 

I agree with GreatBear. I had a failure much like yours while in traffic on 495 in Montgomery county. Request the fused link. Check to see if your car has acover over the fan (some did not come with one). Moss sells a steel one and MINI has a plastic one that comes on later cars (don't know what year thay started putting them on).

Should our guess work turn out to be correct, you might want to consider having the powersteering fluid flushed. A year after my car the overheating the PS pump and rack had to be replaced. The problem was covered under the warrenty.
I think the overheating incident cooked the PS fluid causing the PS pump to fail. I do not think changing the fluid is normally covered as a part of the problem you just had. If you talk to the SA about the PS fluid and your concern they may help you. Given your milage make sure the concern about the effects on the PS pump and rack are logged. This way once you are out of warrenty if the PS pump should fail you can point to this incident.

 

DaCrema and GreatBear were right! Service called to say the fan stopped which caused the rest and all was fixed. No real explanation for what caused the fan to stop, but no argument when I asked them to do the separate fuse. Glad I had your information before that call. And, thanks for hte tip about the power steering fluid. I'll talk to them about that tomorrow.

I could not pick up my car yet. Service called me back to say that when they took my car over to be washed, the antenna was broken off by an overhead door. They had to keep it overnight to replace the antenna and buff the roof. Not sure how much damage that description actually conveys. Grrrrr....poor little car...she just wants to have fun.

Thanks again for your help.

 

The most common cause for the failure is litter. Plastic baggies are the worst. I think mine was done in by a stick or something as the fan blades were chewed up. The later cars have a cover over the fans. I have installed a metal one from Moss Motors.

I was very happy with the service I received from Sterling. The PS Fluid cooking is just a theory, but if you mention it as a concern if you have out of warrenty issues with the racks you might (maybe) have a leg to stand on to have the work covered. If they can not replace the fluid under warrenty you will have to decide if you want to pay to have it done.

Like your car when my unit failed there was smoke everywhere, coolant all over the engine bay. It took forever to clean the water marks up, but all the greese was gone. Kind of like a steam cleaning.... You might smell the krispy wiring for a little while, that will go away after the first or second rain.

And yes ... you will have an answer for the next person that lives through this...

 

Aint the internet wonderful (sometimes!)?

Sadly, I can see the steering system fan being a continuing issue in all of it's current implementations. The reason is simply due to the design of the impeller (fan blade), it's location under the car, and mostly it's mounting orientation.

Like the big radiator fan in the front of the car, the little PS fan has an impeller that forms a 'cup' around the motor in order to decrease the overall depth of the impeller/motor assembly. The cup also protects the motor against debris that is being sucked past the motor from actully hitting the motor itself. This works fine with the impeller standing vertically (behind the radiator, for example). The problems start to happen when you move the fan into a more horizontal position with the open end of the 'cup' facing upward. Any debris that might find it's way into the 'cup' will fall back out if that 'cup' is essentially laying on it's side, as is the case with the radiator fan. The power steering fan, however, is mounted almost horizontally. Add to that the fact that the PS fan is under the car, subjected to road spray and flying debris constantly. The debris does not have to be large, the sand-like dirt that covers every road is sufficient. This debris will find it's way into the 'cup' surrounding the fan motor, and once given enough particles or particles of a sufficient size these will eventually wedge between the motor housing and the impeller body, preventing the motor from turning and blowing the fuse.

The original fan had an unguarded intake which was susceptible to inhaling stuff like leaves, bags, paper and the like and fouling the blade. MINI added a simple guard to prevent large items from getting into the blades, but there is still the problem of small particles (and just plain water) from getting through and filling the 'cup'. '05 cars with automatics have a duct that attaches to the fan allowing it to pull in air from behind the front air dam. The problem with all of these implementations is the rear of the fan assembly is still exposed. This is where the majority of the water, road spray and dirt finds it's way into the fan assembly and eventually jams it. Compounding the problem is the fact that the fan does not actually run very often, so not much of a chance occurs to sling out accumulated muck. The fan runs even less in cool, wet, or wintery weather where the available muck is that much greater. Water that gets pooled in that 'cup' and had a motor sitting in the middle of it all is a recipe for inevitable motor failure. The fan would have to be redesigned to make the 'cup' open so debris cannot accumulate. Even some strategically places holes would help.

In other words, if you have not had a problem with this fan, regardless of the year of your car, you will. Anytime you have a problem with this fan and take it to the dealer for service, ask about the fuse kit and have it installed. While this will not prevent damage to the power steering fan, it will prevent that failure from becoming a total cooling system failure and an eventual overheated engine (with possibly even more damage).

How can you tell if there is a problem? Check the underhood fuse box, specifically, the 5amp fuse marked F05. If this is blown, you have the problem. Replacing this fuse will restore the radiator fan too, but might only be temporary. A simple functional test is to run the car at a standstill with the air conditioner on. The radiator fan should turn on occasionally regardless of the engine temperature. If it doesnt, and the a/c stops functioning (and shows a flashing a/c light on the automatic climate control panel), check that fuse. If it's blown, or continues to blow after replacing and you need to drive the car to the dealership, get under the car and disconnect the connector from the PS fan to disable it and replace the fuse. You will be safe from an overheating engine till it's repaired.

I believe that there are many (hundreds? thousands maybe?) people tooling around completely unaware they have this problem. As long as you maintain adequate vehicle forward motion and dont sit in traffic for long periods of time, you will not see any problems because you are getting sufficient airflow though the radiator to keep the engine cool and the a/c functioning. Stay still for any length of time and you will begin to overheat. This can damage the a/c as well, but the a/c compressor will shut itself down if the system overtemps (you will feel warm air come through the vents). Your engine will tend to run hotter than normal, but this is not always apparent by the temp guage, which fixes itself at mid-scale throughout a wide range of temperatures (at least 185-235 degees F), and cars with Nav have only the idiot light (like I do) which will not light until it's too late.

Why do we even have this problematic little fan? The steering pump is electrically driven and controlled by an electronic 'modulator' that varies the power depending on the power assist needed. This system tends to run cooler under normal conditions than a typical engine-driven pump-and-steering rack in most cars. It will tend to run hot under two conditions, heavy steering input (Dragon, city driving, etc) and from the hot exhaust header above the pump. The fan kicks in when the pump gets too hot. The danger to the steering system if it overheats is potential damage to the electrical components of the pump more than the hydraulic sections or the steering rack.

Check your fans and fuses often!

 

well stated
John

 

Huh, I thought that the power steering fan and radiator fan were placed on separate fuses around the middle of the 2003 model year?

-Paul?

 

o

 

This is what happend to me back in July. Can I request a seperate fuse at my next service?

Mikey

 

where can i find this fuse to check the okness of my car? got a pic of where? i know where the fan is

 

The fuse you are looking for is on the bottom of the fuse box under the hood. It's a big pain. You will need to remove the DME & the air box along with the fuse box, in that order. Then turn the fuse box over so you can remove the panel. You will be looking for the 100a fuse, use a multimeter to test the impeadance.

 

This power steering fan arrangement is quite the piece of S_ _ _, design-wise, isn't it? Are there any other live grenades to be aware of as a Mini owner? Please advise.

Thanks.

 

I seem to recall that the coolant leak issue was a problem for MCS's but not MC's. Is the same true for the power steering fans?

 

It looks like the fan is in the same spot on both cars...... The coolant tank was an issue because of it's construction...

The problem with the PS fan on both cars is it can fill up with dirt & stop spinning. By the time the fuse blows, the dammage is done. There are aftermarket guards made for just this reason, although I believe the fan that was replaced on my car ( 03 MCS ) has an improved face in front of the fan ( I saw the new unit & the old after it was replaced ). I don't recall the details.
A good cleaning, every couple of months, more often if you live on a dirt road, would go a long way to keep the fan alive. Just make sure that blade path is clean............