My day has just got expensive! (Mini turbo content)

I’m potting about putting the bike back in the shed after a gentle spin this morning and the wife comes weeping through door. I forgot to take my phone.. this nice man bought me home…. I puff my manly chest up at this…. the car’s broken down! The **** Mini Cooper Diesel I was forced into getting for you! Not my Alfa.. your Mini! Anyway fair dos to the old boy who stopped and helped her move it of the carriageway of a big and fast roundabout and then brought her home. Thanks mate. Apparently everyone else was tooting and waving!

We go back to the car. Grinding and smoking then stalled and wouldn’t start apparently. Move car to safer position and call AA. there in 5 min as vulnerable woman in a dangerous position. Good service from them cause she was in danger from me. Turbo gone on a 10 plate properly BMW serviced car with 35k miles on it. Well peed off.

Quick look on net shows little or no info on costs of fitting turbos and I suppose a BMW genuine part is going to be twice the price of the ones I’ve quickly found.

Anyone got any ideas of causes and costs. And breathe..

Anyone got any ideas

Divorce? Possibly citing breakdown (hoho) in communications, as the cause.

We’ve already started on this one. I haven’t heard a single comment about needing a new handbag or frock since it happened so its not all doom and gloom.

There seems to be a bunch of new ones on ebay for some reason (is there a factory upgrade or something? I seem to remember reading something about that…) And it looks to be a fairly standalone part so swapping is probably not that involved. Speak to your mini dealer, they’ll not want to give you a price as there’s a possibility of wider problems but they should be able to give you a starting point. Out of warranty but if it was bought new, maybe chase the goodwill angle? 35000 is not many miles if looked after.

Causes? Oil starvation, parking it while too hot. Random failure o’course. Might be others I don’t know about. Mine was pretty old and took offence to being driven by a knob, that seems reasonable.

Bought as a demonstrator and always serviced by them under one of those packages. I’m going to try the goodwill thing to see what they say though. Some hope. She may be in my bad books but to be honest she doesn’t rag it.

We got rid of our Mini Cooper S earlier this year. Using 1ltr of oil per 1000 miles, engine stutter around 2500rpm unless it was in sport mode and engine coking. All this under 35k miles and full dealer service history. I’d never recommend a Mini to anyone, fun to drive but shocking poor quality.
I’d speak to a turbo specialist rather than BMW. They will normally fit up rated bearings and seals when they rebuild it. BMW will fit a factory reconditioned with the same specs and possible future failure.

Is the engine the Pegeot/Ford engine in your car?

If it is, its a very common issue and is readily repairable.

Replacement turbo and oil pipe and off you go again.

With that sort of mileage and service history I’d be hoping for the job to covered by Mini really.

Different failure but a mate recently had the fuel pump on his Cooper D fail. Fully serviced, average miles etc. Was looking at almost £3k to replace but managed to get it down to about £1300.
Took some arguing and the dealer speaking to MINI UK. They weren’t going to until he insisted on it.

Doing the old ‘blip the throttle’ and then turn the key off whilst the engine is spooling down is the only real ‘driver error’ that could cause early failure…leaves it spinning at high rpm with no oil.

Apart from that, oil starvation/bad luck/weak design?

Pepper, think they are the BMW diesels. I think the earlier cars used Toyotas. BMW should sort this out on such a new car, even if its out of warranty.

I clicked on this thread expecting you to have spent a not insignificant amount of money something small with a turbo’d A-series under the bonnet.

I was disappointed.

The **** Mini Cooper Diesel I was forced into getting for you!

Sounds like you’re a billy biglicks and can therefore cover a new turbo no problem.

A replacement turbo will be around £650 trade, or £1100 retail. Fitting will be another couple of hundred quid. It’s worth getting a proper analysis done onthe failure by a competent garage, as turbo “failure” can be cause be other issues that will not be fixed by changing the turbo on it’s own! (ie, your “new” turbo fails shortly afterwards)

However, the car is 4 years old with full BMW service history i persume? Im which case you may well get significant “good will” from BMW UK. SOme dealers are poor at chasing this on your behalf, so it may well be worth contacting BMW UK yourself to chase this sort of thing up!

Having it replaced by a main dealer WILL be more expensive than by a 3rd party garage BUT, any subsequent failures (caused by unexpected, or undiagnosed issues) will be covered by BMW for at least a 1 year period from the repair.

Oh, and “smoking and stalled” suggests that the engine could have “run on it’s own oil” and completely lunched itself! Ask the wife if it was “reving all on it’s own” before it stalled. If so, the car is probably a write off…………

I am with northernmatt. I expected more. 🙁

Northernmatt – Member
I clicked on this thread expecting you to have spent a not insignificant amount of money something small with a turbo’d A-series under the bonnet.

I was disappointed.

This.

Back in after a medicinal pint or two:
Pepper – no idea
Stumpy – I’ll be strident in my efforts to involvement of BMW uk. I drive past them often and am happy to doorstep individuals.
Loddrik – I probably can but never liked it as a car really and if you pay reasonable money then you should get reasonable life from it! BMW always say how you pay for quality
Maxtorque – Full BMWSH so will spend time in the show room being vocal. Apparently not over revving so hope its not as dire as it could be.
I’ll update tomorrow.

Insanity in mini shell. [/url]

I’ll get an A series after this one is sorted to keep you boys happy!

toppers – I thought you meant Mrs W

Toppers – I’m not going to click that link. Regret selling my 65 so much, anything proper mini shaped tempts me!

Never met mrs wingnuts so I couldn’t say. 🙂
My 78 special is booked on the rollers in a couple of weeks. Can’t wait.

Not an A-series in sight but I’ll still take one of everything

I miss my 85 thou but it succumbed to the rust devil in a major way.

Bought as a demonstrator

Demonstrator: vehicle mechanically violated by the junior sales execs every morning, lunchtime and evening during its running-in period.

My mate’s Turbo pickup. Gone, but not forgotten.

maxtorque – Member

Oh, and “smoking and stalled” suggests that the engine could have “run on it’s own oil” and completely lunched itself! Ask the wife if it was “reving all on it’s own” before it stalled. If so, the car is probably a write off…………

Write off? Crikey that serious? Can’t you just stick a used engine in?

😯

I came here expecting to see (and hear) some Z car content. :O/

Can’t you just stick a used engine in?

Yes you can. The engine will be dead, but there’s no reason not to do this, other than economics. The last x-trail was noted for dying this way.

I was driven round the Curborough sprint track in a Z-Cars honda conversion. Mini saloon body shell with a civic type r lump shoehorned in the back. Truely terrifying. It was something like 500hp and me getting in it increased it’s all up weight by about 20%. 1st and 2nd were gated off so you couldn’t use em. It was one of their open day events and there were loads of their cars there. Including a 700hp type-r engined Monte Carlo. Absolutely nothing to do with minis but it was biblically fast. Went in a bike engined one too but he was having issues with it. It was quick but not very nice.

Can’t wait to get mine set up. It’s a MED built super light (wedged, bladed, lightened, x-drilled, forged pistons) rally spec engine. Straight cut drops and box. Cad brakes etc. should be a hoot. It was before we took it off the road and we’ve made improvements since then. 🙂

Stick a Honda V-tec engine into an original mini … you will feel like sitting in a rocket propelled go-kart. You don’t even have to turbo charge it to feel the fun. 😆

If I were to get an original mini that’s what I want to have. i.e. a V-tec engine in it but with an automatic gear as I don’t want to go around racing.

That would be utterly terrifying – I assume any right-minded individual would upgrade the entire braking system too, otherwise you would die.

I do recall a few people putting Maxi 1750 engines in (the ones with the twin carbs) when we were kids and they were mental fast – and that was with just 95bhp.

I’ve been in a Maxi 1750 Mini, the air filter was in the cabin where the central speedo used to be be, agree was mental fast with a mental teenage driver.

As per Northernmatt dissapointed 😥

Nonturbo at the moment


Now the diff and suspension are all set up in it’s mild-ish form, the engine will have a few internals refreshed and Turbo which it was built around is going back on, should be a reliable 280BHP 😈

OP not sure if it’s the same model or problem but I seem to vaguely remember some of the BMW Mini’s had turbo problems because of the oil feed pipe being run somewhere which got a nasty hot spot so it got coked up and restricted flow, killing turbo’s. I could be wrong, might have been another car I’m thinking of, not 100% it was mini? but a re-routed pipe or heat shield would fix it (obviously for BMW to do) have a google around to see if you can find anything similar.

I had a bog standard mint 1976 1275GT. I loved that car. I gave it to ex mrs iolo as a Christmas gift.
That was a bloody stupid mistake. Did I mention I loved that car? Black with the gold stickers.

Apparently everyone else was tooting and waving!

That happened to me once. Conked out on a roundabout, had to try and push off an exit into an entrance, but everyone was just beeping and getting cross. What the **** do you think I’m trying to do you ****, pull over and give me a hand!

And before you ask I’ve helped people do similar several times, including once when I was on my bike. Road shoes and cleats don’t make for an easy push but I still did it.

To the OP – BMW don’t make turbos (at least I don’t think so) – most are made by specialist turbo manufacturers, so you get the same ones used on different cars. Should be a fairly easy job to replace, as above – talk to a turbo specialist.

http://www.turbominis.co.uk/forums/index.php?p=vt&tid=491506

This would be my perfect mini but they are like rocking horse shit. British engineering at it’s best.

(back to the topic) if it’d run away on the engine oil from the turbo, would that not have been pretty obvious? Like, engine races til it can’t race no more?

I was all excited.. Then realised it was a BMW… At least some others made it a good thread with some photo’s of real Mini’s! 😉

Get rid of the BMW, get a proper Mini! 😆

29erKeith – Member

As per Northernmatt dissapointed

Nonturbo at the moment

That’s beautiful.

I think adding turbo will be excessive with more things to go wrong.

150BHP will be more than enough for a original mini IMO.

Agreed tbh, it’s my brother car, it’s about 180BHP and is very! fast as is, but surprisingly drivable. It’s now as much a show car\advertising for what he’s doing for a living, only been going a few months but has got plenty of work already. He’s got a few complete restorations in (Mini, Morris Minor and a beetle, amongst other smaller jobs) and is taking on extra staff already.

really proud of him, starting out from nothing after being made redundant and making a great success of it.

Sorry OP, I still think your problem is oil related though i.e. lack of, not necessarily complete loss but not sufficient flow causing premature bearing/seal failure in the turbo

Well the update is £1200 later. Correct it was oil starvation. In the Peugeot based engine the feed is through an open pipe. BMW put gauze filter arrangement in the line. This apparently often restricts the flow! Anyway sorted and not so many beers this weekend then!

One interesting thing I found out though. I thought as it was a job that meant taking the grill of etc, why not change the belts now if they were going to be due at 60/70k miles. They car has done 40k. Early but cheaper when combined with the other work. A preventative action rather than required. We looked it up. The change interval is 150k regardless of age!!!!!!! Never heard that length of time or milage before.

And enjoyed the hijacks. I remember a disreputable youth in a blue Mini van.