My car is three and a half years old and recently started running on just three cylinders and very smoky. The BMW mini dealers in Kent have run a few checks on the car already at £314 and not found the fault on the top part of the engine and now believe this to be a piston or piston ring which will cost £1,415 to locate and confirm the fault which will then be subject to parts and labour to repair if BMW will not replace under good will. The car has only done 32k miles and has had the following replaced in the last three years all via the dealer it was purchased from.

1. Relaced chain belt tensioner due to (death rattle)
2. Replaced Chain belt tensioner 2nd time and software upgrade (due to rattle return)
3. inspected due to high level of oil consumption (no fault located)
4. nocking noise on acceleration (replaced engine mounts)
5. oil leak on the pipe connecting to the turbo (small oil leak)
6. recalled to replace water pump issue on r56 cooper s engines


The car is immaculate and has been extremely well looked after and any sign of a problem has gone back to BMW Mini for inspection. I have since lost faith in the build quality of this particular car and feel reluctant to spend anything on repair as a car of this design and build should have a much longer life expectancy than just over 3 years or 32k miles.

has anyone else come across this issue or had a similar problem. I will take the case as far as it needs to go to resolve the problem at as little or no cost so any advice on who I should speak to would be great should BMW not be willing to compromise or cover the repair.

I have had same problem in August 2011. They started opening the engine and ended up with a broken piston. Whole engine was replaced under good will and I only paid for labour. Last month had the same problem again. Another broken piston. BMW now replaced the engine again plus some injection parts, hoping that this was the problem in the first place.
Since, they do not know what actually caused the problem, I refused to take delivery of the car and requested that they replace it with an equivalent value car. I have had the car for 4,5 years now.
First engine replacement was at 59000 km. Second one at 70000 km