Blown engine 200 miles after being tuned

[A13EX F Cooper S]

*****So as not to misslead prople there has been an update to the situation on page 5 of this thread and the company involved has agreed to fix my car for me! ******

Hi Guys I need some serious advice here please read carefully

My car 2005 cooper s
11,000 miles on the clock

had a gt tuning air filter fitted
then fitted a scorpion cat back exhaust.

took it to a well known tuning company to have the power upped on it as i thought by going to someone like this would ensure it is done properly.
had the following parts fit by them:
Alta 15% reduced supercharger pulley
shorter supercharger belt
Superchips blue fin with custom (tuner maps)
Denso iridium plugs

supplied and fitted cost me over £600

I had filled the car from a low tank to full with optimax as i thought this would be wise with the extra demand on the engine.

this was all done on a wednesday.

Took the car home from the tuners did a bit of normal driving and clocked up around 200 miles after the work being done.

Sunday night (4 days after the car was tuned)
driving down an empty dual carriage way i decided to test the cars acceleration out after having this work done i changed up into 5th gear and put my foot down when the engine got to aproximately 5500 rpm the engine spluttered as if a spark plug had failed and was running on 3 cylinders so i pulled over and turned the engine off,

luckily i had a tool kit in my car from earlier that day so decided check the plugs spark plug on cylinder 1 had failed and the tip part of it had broken off.

though i would try and put one of the old plugs back in to see if that sorted the car out but didnt.

phoned the tuners up and they picked the car up on wednesday to have a look at it.

now the important bit.......

they are saying the engine is ruined the block has been damaged and also the pistons and valves so basically i need a complete re-build or a new engine bot of which are going to cost me a lot of money.

I personally dont feel like i should be made to pay for the repair work as it seems as though it is the work this company has done to my car which has caused it.

what do you think i should do guys?

i could have a second hand engine fitted but this has probably done more miles and have been thrashed wheras mine was very well looked after!

I have not named this company as I dont believe it is fair to give someone bad publicity until the problem has been resolved.

I have told them i need time to think about what i want to do but at the moment it looks like they are not going to accept responcibility for the damage.

I am thinking of getting a stock engine fitted back into the car then shifting it on as i dont want someones old engine in my dream car!

[Tonyt3]

Quote: Originally Posted by A13EX F Cooper S

Hi Guys I need some serious advice here please read carefully

My car 2005 cooper s
11,000 miles on the clock

had a gt tuning air filter fitted
then fitted a scorpion cat back exhaust.

took it to a well known tuning company to have the power upped on it as i thought by going to someone like this would ensure it is done properly.
had the following parts fit by them:
Alta 15% reduced supercharger pulley
shorter supercharger belt
Superchips blue fin with custom (tuner maps)
Denso iridium plugs

supplied and fitted cost me over £600

I had filled the car from a low tank to full with optimax as i thought this would be wise with the extra demand on the engine.

this was all done on a wednesday.

Took the car home from the tuners did a bit of normal driving and clocked up around 200 miles after the work being done.

Sunday night (4 days after the car was tuned)
driving down an empty dual carriage way i decided to test the cars acceleration out after having this work done i changed up into 5th gear and put my foot down when the engine got to aproximately 5500 rpm the engine spluttered as if a spark plug had failed and was running on 3 cylinders so i pulled over and turned the engine off,

luckily i had a tool kit in my car from earlier that day so decided check the plugs spark plug on cylinder 1 had failed and the tip part of it had broken off.

though i would try and put one of the old plugs back in to see if that sorted the car out but didnt.

phoned the tuners up and they picked the car up on wednesday to have a look at it.

now the important bit.......

they are saying the engine is ruined the block has been damaged and also the pistons and valves so basically i need a complete re-build or a new engine bot of which are going to cost me a lot of money.

I personally dont feel like i should be made to pay for the repair work as it seems as though it is the work this company has done to my car which has caused it.

what do you think i should do guys?

i could have a second hand engine fitted but this has probably done more miles and have been thrashed wheras mine was very well looked after!

I have not named this company as I dont believe it is fair to give someone bad publicity until the problem has been resolved.

I have told them i need time to think about what i want to do but at the moment it looks like they are not going to accept responcibility for the damage.

I am thinking of getting a stock engine fitted back into the car then shifting it on as i dont want someones old engine in my dream car!

Definatly sounds like a cowboy job mate. Sounds like they didn't properly tune the car. Unfortunatly, unless they have a reputation to protect, I would guess they have a 'clause' or two in their warranty. However, do give them the chance to make it right before plastering their name all over the website.

[Root Ginger]

Almost 100% a tuning issue. I can't see how any company could do that work and 200miles later the engine blows up.

If the problem had been there before it should of shown up whilst tuning it as they didn't mention anything it can only be concluded that it was something they did (or didn't) do.

I would suspect you had a lean condition as this seems to be the most popular way to blow MINI's up.

[PmP]

Ive heard of another guy locally who had his cooper S remapped with a bluefin and it blew up his engine! Was advised to steer clear of bluefin's by a local remap specialist if I was going to remap my car.

Surely the company that did the tuning should be able to make a suggestion as to what caused the failure if they have any sort of experience?

[smc]

I am quite sure wrong tuning might have caused motor to blow. Could u pose some pictures of the damaged parts?

[A13EX F Cooper S]

the car is back at the tuning company (they are not cowboys infact they are sponsors of mini 2.)

they said the engine has run lean but cannot figure out why.
the only suggestion they had was that my gt tuning air filter was "too good" which could of made it run lean.

the dont seem too keen on fixing it for free. i'm letting them know on monday what i want to do.

If i have a second hand engine fitted i'm selling the car it wont be my baby anymore!
After only doing 11,000 miles on that engine i'm very ****ed off!

[Paul]

But, "Superchips blue fin with custom (tuner maps)" if it's a real "custom map", surely it should be tested and run on your car, for your cars condition and state of tune, which shoulld surely take into account these sorts of issues such as the filter and exhaust?

[A13EX F Cooper S]

the company offer two tuning kits one is supplied with an air filter only.

the second kit includes an air filter, exhaust and uprated intercooler, i was waiting to get a new intercooler. the same map is used between the two kits i made sure i asked that. so therefore the uprated intercooler would make it run leaner.

oh and the outside air temp was about 16 degrees so it wasnt a freezing cold night which caused it to run lean.



anyone know how much work it is to re-bore and fit new pistons (and prices) as I can get a new head quite easily with all of the jcw conversions and people selling their standard heads

[roland2003]

Hi Guys, Just to avoid any guessing as to who the tuner may be... ?. It was not us ( GT Tuning.)
To try and blame it on the airfilter being too good is absurd, unprofessional & desperate. I havn't even seen the car but Im guessing the car was detonating from any combo of too much ignition advance and /or too lean mixture,and has put a hole in number 1 piston scorring the bore in the process.
Incidently you could take the airfilter completly off an MCS and the air/fuel ratio will not change one bit. It calculates the 'air mass' from the data from the 'T 'Map sensor .(ie manifold pressure and air temp inside the manifold). Even changing the intercooler wont effect mixture,the car knows the temp in the inlet manifold is cooler (therefore densor) and injects more fuel accordingly
.On a carburretor car a free flow airfilter can cause lean......there are no carbs on an MCS though . A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Alex... Good luck with getting it sorted
Best Regards Roland Gt Tuning Ltd

[A13EX F Cooper S]

thanks roland i was trying not to name names and didnt think it could of been interpreted as your company.

I wish i had of come down to you now but as they were closer i decided to go there.

I dont know too much about engines but what else could of caused my car to go so badly wrong that it's blown? or can there be no question there was something wrong with the ecu re-map which caused it to run too lean?

[Tonyt3]

Alex, good luck with your car mate....


however, you might, respectfully to those that have spent well over £4000 tuning their engines, wish to change your signature....

"John Cooper Works but mine works better! " doesn't look good...

[roland2003]

Hi Alex, IMO over advance on the ignition timing is more likely to blow the piston. At 5500 the injectors are not maxed out,(so is not that) and the system is in open loop so no nothing to do with feedback from the 02 sensors either.
We had an MCS in recently with another tuners 220 conversion on, it too had blown up and was 'unrepairable' other than a new block /rebore. However we did repair it without doing either . Im still gobsmacked to this day how good it was afterwards. ie perfect compression, no noise, no burning oil.
Best Regards Roland GTT
ps Can't speak for what other tuners tell you, but with GTT 210 and upwards we always tell the customer he/she MUST run minimum 97 Ron. IMO Optimax is best ,which is 98 Ron.

[Rickys'S]

Alex,

Im sorry to hear about your probs mate, that is totally unaceptable from the tuner in question!

Like Roland says it always seems to be no 1 that goes first, but if your car was tuned properly and set up right you can get a lot of power with no detonation!

I hope you get them to sort it out mate.....just on another note i have ran my car on 1 whole track day with the gtt cai filter and sometimes run it with no filter at all, i do have 2 spare s/c mind but thats not the point, my car has never blown up wether i run a filter or not!

They are talking rubbish about the filter!

.

[St00ge]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rickys'S

They are talking rubbish about the filter!

.

Amen to that.

A13EX, If a "reputable" tuner is saying that, they don't know anything about cars. There is a sensor to tell the ECU how much air is coming in, and an intake will change the values, for certain, but won't trick the computer in any way . Imagine this scenario. Stock filter + Colder day = colder air = higher density intake charge. Surely BMW are smart enough to know how to deal with colder days . Well in short, colder day + stock intake = Everyday + aftermarket intake

[A13EX F Cooper S]

maybe i should change my ignature to john cooper works but mine DID work better for 200 miles

on a serious note i know modern engines should deal with different amounts of air etc without any problems.

I was running optimax at the time.

Do you think it is unreasonable for me to ask them to fix the car for me I dont want a second hand engine fitted as that is 1 the easy way out and 2 gonna make my car difficult to sell.

I was thinking of asking for the engine block to be re-bored and new pistons fitted, then a head off ebay fitted rather than trying to repair that one.