It finally happened. After reading up through the forums I figured I wasn't one of them. But now I am. It started about a month or so ago when I was sitting on a bridge in traffic. I noticed that the temperature warning light came on and I got a little worried. I turned off the car to let it cool (there was a bad accident blocking all lanes of the bridge) and after about 20 minutes started it back up and the light was off.

I figured that maybe the fan had blown a fuse. Brought it in for service (under warranty) and when I got it back they told me "it doesn't look like we fully filled the anti-freeze reservoir after we installed the JCW kit, so we just topped it off and everything looks good." I laughed a little inside and said, they really must think I'm an idiot.

I'm an idiot .

I haven't had the problem for an entire month, but I don't drive the car that often, only for short trips, with no traffic. I went Saturday to bring my baby for a nice hand wash. I was next in line to get vaccumed and temperature warning light comes on. I figured, they turn off the car to go through the wash and it will cool down while they are drying it. Wrong....

I'm waiting for it to be dried and out of the corner of my eye I just see a plume of white smoke. "I wonder whose car is pouring that out!"

I turn it off and call road side assistance. (I know I could have driven it home after it cooled down but I wanted to throw it in my service managers face) So it's being towed to the shop this morning.

So I'm going to give my manager a call and at least ask him to fix the fan/replace the fuse.

Such is my life...

 

Sounds like you are in need of a new coolant resivoir tank, they are notoriuos leakers and I know mine needs to be filled with the real thick stuff (like ab;e to handle below -30F) not to leak other wise 1 monthand I'm low two or more and bone dry. I'm planning on mentioning it next time I'm in for service. MINI switched from white to yellow resivoirs, which was supposed to fix the issue, well it only reduced the problem.

 

White smoke= coolant and you would've smelled it
Steam= no odor caused be cooling system being empty
Hope it all gets fixed soon, I assume they'll try to claim negelance on your part for not monitoring levels of the fluids, just to warn you.
I've also noticed (and I'm not the only one that the fans don't kick in at all until you go underneath the bonnet and wiggle the connector, then it works as it should, may ask that this be replaced/fixed.

 

I'm waiting for them to call me back when they receive my car. Thanks for all the info. It was definetly coolant, a very potent smell.

Hopefully everything gets fixed.

 

05's have the coolant tank issues?? Bit of evaporation of coolant is normal, as my coolant lvl drops off a bit after few thousand miles. Just refil with distilled water only and you're set to go. Hope you get your troubles sorted

 

When you were at the car wash was the temp warning light on? If not, maybe it was just steam from the intercooler. And no I don't think your an idiot, just hitting all the easy stuff first.

 

There was an issue with the pre '05s so MINI would swap out to the yellow plastic resivoirs, which are the ones that are in the 05s it helped significantly but never completey elinated the issue. Its at the point (for me at least) where if you check everything every week or two there ususally isn't an issue cause I now know where to look. I firt heard about the issue around new years (4 months of ownership) went out and checked, sure enough bone dry,filled it up with real thick antifreeze, lost just a little bit (1/4) in three months since then. Just something I keep an eye out for, I know some people have swaped out the plastic for a metal (aluminum?) resivoir. I have also heard of people getting lost of steam cause the cooling fan never kicked in.

 

The coolant reservoir tank was an '02 issue, which was supposed to have been resolved in 2003 Model Year MINIs. I've never had any problems with my 2003 MCS's coolant levels. Surprised to read about this issue again in this thread!

 

Wow that's a new one, never heard of it on a 05 model before. So is it actually leaking from the tank??

 

I thinkI'm going to go have a close look, its ethier the main tank or an overflow portion of it. And I'm not the only one, I mentioned it to another owner, saw if the next week said he went and took a look at it his tank was also bone dry after about 5-7 months (not 100% sure but was definately less than a year). I'll look now to see if I could find where, if I still can't tell b/c I slwed my leak by using the thicker fluid I'll do a search and see if I can find the thread that brought it to my attention.

 

Thanks to this thread, I'm checking all the fluid levels tomorrow morning. I'm prepping Wanda for the annual cross-country roadtrip and want her in tip-top shape!

 

Well want and had a look, it was a little lower than expected but no real eveidance to where the leak is, here is the thread that alerted me in the first place, if you to a search for coolant it is actually a recurring issue to different severities. Seems almost like it went away for a few years and came back, I don't know how much of this has made it back to MINI, and I don't know if there are plans to make changes or send out TSB though looking at a webpage linked earlier I didn't see anything, and actually took the time to look for it. Any wy here is the link:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...t=coolant+tank

 

I'm doing a DE in April and plan on having a spare tank worth of coolant waiting for me in the pits, just in case.

 

Thadeus13- I'd be really interested to her the offical diagnosis, and if your SA has ssen this type of thing before, again hope it all gets taken care of, done as warranty work and nothing else was damaged as a result of the lack of overheating.

 

I'm still waiting on my SA. Been having a real big issue with service at Hassel BMW in Freeport, NY. Everytime I go there I have issues. I never get a call back when I drop my car off. I leave it in the morning, call them at noon sometimes and they say "we'll call you back" and then I call at 5:30 to see if it's done so I can pick it up.

Yesterday I asked for a call back on the status of my car, as to when and if it arrived (was getting towed by Road Side Assistance). I actually called them again around 3:30 (7 hours later) to find out if my car actually got there, and that's when I got the endless transfer.

"Oh I told MArk to handle it! Hold on I'll transfer you to him."
"Hi this is MArk, Leave a message" ::sigh::

Call Back:
"Hi this is Brett leave a message"
"Hi this is MArk, Leave a message" ::sigh::

Call Back:
ME - "Can I speak with the service manager please?"
"Sure hold on...He's a little tied up right now, can you leave a message on his voicemail?" ::sigh::


It's the same story everytime I go there. I spoke with Mike the Service Manager and hopefully he'll be calling me back this morning with an update.

I'll keep you all posted.


PS - It wasn't just steam from the car wash. The light must have come on when it was being vaccumed and out of my hands. They let it idle while they tried it off, until it boiled over. Coolant everywhere, smoke everywhere. It was a sad day.

 

Thanks for the update, I can't believe you put up with that service, but thats for another time, it's all about getting your MINI fixed right now. I'm suprised service isn't better just based on the fact there are other dealers nearby.

 

5-8 months and the coolant tank being "empty" is normal to me. Max fill line is only at the half line mark and I wondered about this myself as mine disappeared in about 8 months. I chalk it up to evaporation as water pressurizes greater than the expansion tank can handle and just lets out steam and pressure. I think it really depends alot on where you live and what your driving habits are. But then again 4 months is an awful short time for coolant to dry up...

However what Thadeus is experiencing is definitely not this case. Sounds like his leaking a alot of coolant for it to disappear in a month!

 

So it turns out that the cooling fan was actually blown along with the fuse.

I got the car back and everything seems fine now, I guess I'll have to see the next time I go for a car wash.

Funny thing is, when the service manager called me let me know about my car I asked him how the fan would have just blown. His response made me laugh a bit.

Svc MA - "They tell me that you may have been driving your car hot for too long."

Me - "but, but....isn't that what the cooling fan is for? So what you said doesn't make any sense..."

Svc MA - "Well, the fan probably blew first and then it overheated"

Me - "Yes...*sigh*"

Till next time!

-Nick

 

Sounds like there is something wrong with the coolant resivoir. (sp?)