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Experience with strut tower fixing, recommendations

25K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  JohnnyC 
#1 ·
Hello, I know I don't post often but that's mainly due to finding so much information already. Anyway, here goes...

My 2005 Mini Cooper S (manual, if it matters to you) has got some strut tower mushrooming. It wasn't much until I hit an absolutely MASSIVE pothole in the rain yesterday and now the vehicle has a slight pull to that side. I can take pictures if you like but you know how the tower's supposed to be flat? Well, neither is.

Anyway, I'm going to call the dealer and see if that kind of repair is covered by my extended warranty but I'm willing to bet it's probably not and as my local dealer charged $120 USD per hour for labor alone it'd cost a shedload to have them fix it.


Looking around I've seen that it's a pretty common and apparently not very scary problem, you just have to reinforce/repair the strut tower with some additional bracing. My problem is that I've found a few and cannot decide on whether to try it or not. I've got money to spend, what's most important is that it's done right, but if I can save a little change from not having to go to the dealer that'd be nice (and it looks simple enough).

Here's what I've found that looks interesting:
Madness MINI Cooper S Strut Tower Reinforcement Plates

These "claim" to be the best. The installation instructions I'm not sure exactly where I found but basically just say, "jack the car, use a couple of common wrenches, remove strut, place plate on to of strut and underneath tower, and tighten it down." It's 3.5mm steel so I do not doubt that it's probably pretty tough stuff, but I'm skeptical as to whether that'll really make the strut tower flat again like it's supposed to be and fix my problem. Call my skeptical, but for $100 I just want to make sure I'm not just ****ing my money away.

I've never dealt with Mini Madness but they seem to be reputable. If you do not have direct experience with this particular product does anyone have experience with their other products? Would you trust them and their claim? Looks like a nifty, simple fix and that'd be very nice indeed.

Second, while less preferable I've found this as well: M7 Strut Tower Reinforcement Plates - Way Motor Works
This looks a little more "serious" but again from someone I've never dealt with and there's no installation instructions I could quickly/easily find so I'm not sure if I can install these in my driveway or if I'd have to buy them and then pay the dealer to put them on. I've heard them referenced before but always as a preventative, never as a "fix" so I have no idea if they'd work.


Any other suggestions? My mushrooming isn't quite this bad
but it's not far off and has a noticeable impact on my steering, something I'd like fixed.


Thanks for your time and responses, even if it's a simple, "did you see this thread?" To that I'll answer in advance no, I haven't seen a thread asking about these two (or others) for fixing but if there's another I'd be more than happy to research it if someone would point the way. Your experience and replies are well appreciated.
 
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#3 ·
Thank you for the link, I saw those over at Mini Mania. The thing that bothers me is that all of them, save the Mini Madness ones, advertise being "protection," not, "correction." I mean I'm all for prevention but a lot of us already have mushroomed (to one degree or another) towers. That's why I thought the Mini Madness ones looked fascinating since they claim to fix the mushrooming *and* guard against it in the future.

After looking around they effectively look like supersized, wide-flange versions of these: Under Tower Indurators ? CravenSpeed Online
 
#4 ·
I have the M7 ones on my car, but my towers had barely started to flex so it wasn't a problem getting them on. No fixing required. If your towers are slightly mushroomed and you can get the MINI Madness plates on underneath, you should be good to go. Note your front ride height is raised about 1/8" due to the thickness of the plates. Not generally a big deal. You should tighten the bolts periodically as the towers will eventually flatten themselves out.

With the above tower plates, such as the M7 ones, you need to flatten the mushrooming out first. They only reinforce the flatness of the top of the towers.

Others have used adjustable or fixed camber plates to do the reinforcement.

I guess the best way is to have a sandwich. Under the tower and over the tower but then, there would be the question of needing longer bolts, added weight, etc.

Of the different methods to reinforce the towers, I don't think I've seen anywhere where somebody who has installed them come back and say the reinforcement didn't work and their towers are mushroomed again. So I suspect all the methods are effective.

But you need to consider how serious this problem really is. If it was such a serious issue, there probably should be a safety recall on this, but we've heard nothing. When I questioned my dealer service, they told me they have had a few mushroom tower incidences, but not as many as some have been made to believe.
 
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#5 ·
Wow, thanks for all the info. I called my dealer today, they said that my extended warranty ($50 deductible) would cover the majority of the work (the replacement/reinforcement from underneath) but that they would straighten the tower itself out as well, but that would probably be out of pocket. Oddly enough he couldn't tell me how much each part would be, but he said the maximum for the *complete* job would be $900 USD, the "majority" of which would be covered by the strut removal, reinforcement, so forth, so it sounds like it'd be closer to about $500 for the dealer to do it all. Not great, but then they've done this before and I trust them. Mostly I wanted a comparison, though.

I think the towers, while not awful, are unfortunately mushroomed to where the M7 style just wouldn't go on easily right now so I'd be stuck with the Mini Madness plates. I can take a picture if anyone cares to take a look but I think you all probably know the what the situation usually looks like already from others here.

Do you really think they'd eventually flatten out the tower over time? If so I think I may just go for that approach and not worry about going to the dealer. That might be the reason the Madness folks say not to take a 2x4 to "flatten" the tower since it's already damaged and wouldn't help; I was rather curious about why they recommend that when everyone else (including the dealer) says to flatten the tower while you've got it out.



Again, thanks for the info, I'm glad you folks were able to see this and give me a bit of advice. I'm a do-it-yourselfer but unfortunately since I don't have a garage anymore I have to do a lot more research in the community beforehand. You folks make my life a lot easier, which I and my wife thank you for.


Please, though, if anyone else has any other thoughts/experiences I've got about two weeks before I can get the money to afford repair either way so please feel free to share, I'd love to talk about this more since again most people do preventative, not fixing.
 
#6 ·
Before MINI Madness came out with their under-tower reinforcement plates, what many did was take a 2x4 piece of wood, place it on top of the tower and hammer the tower flat. Then put on the M7 plates. My thoughts of that process was it might induce metal fatique.

The MINI dealer where I am said if it was mushroomed badly, it would cost about $600 to fix. I believe they actually take it to a body shop to cut out the old, and weld on a new top of the tower. Additional reinforcement plates not included. I'm not sure though.
 
#7 ·
That makes a lot of sense, beken, and I had to same concerns about the 2x4 method. Naturally bending it back with the weight of the screws and road travel would be okay I imagine since it's slow and natural but the hammering concept always sounded like a bad idea (relatively speaking). This would explain why Madness says don't do that since it would follow that they'd naturally flatten themselves out against the large, oversized plates (looks really like they're designed to accommodate the entire tower, never thought about why until you mentioned to keep tightening the screws).

My dealer said they'd sandwich the whole thing but then again the ceiling cost was $900, so you can easily see where they'd charge for the plates.

With your advice here and some thought I've decided to definitely go with the Mini Madness plates and report back regularly on their success/failure. Doesn't look like a hard job at all, it'd save money, and while I love my dealer that's just a bit much money for me right now (we just had to have the head rebuilt on our VW Golf TDI...damn timing belt on an interference diesel engine).

If it eventually straightens the towers themselves out I may get the M7 plates and long bolts anyway. The additional ride height sounds pretty unnoticeable and a sandwich method in the long run sounds best. Call me nuts but I believe in building as rock solid a machine as you can since you trust your life to it every time you get in it. ;)


On a side note, I still love this forum. First place I go whenever I've got questions about my Mini. All of you, including you lurkers, rock.
 
#9 ·
....I've decided to definitely go with the Mini Madness plates and report back regularly on their success/failure. Doesn't look like a hard job at all, it'd save money, .....
If it eventually straightens the towers themselves out I may get the M7 plates and long bolts anyway. .
Yes....please to report back with your results. That is how forums such as MINI2 continue to grow and become a great body of knowledge.

One point I should add, be careful when installing longer bolts and then closing the bonnet. I have read and heard from other MINI owners about the bolts being too long and pushing a dent up into their bonnet (hood) when slamming the bonnet shut.

mrjasey: The M7 strut brace has the strut tower reinforcement plates built in to the mounting points so you should need no additional plates. However, in an R53, the bar needs to clear a lot of things (such as the air cleaner) and may push up ever so slightly on your bonnet. There is very little clearance between the air cleaner box and the bonnet. Adding an additional piece of equipment on top can push up or dent your bonnet. So measure carefully. There are solutions on this forum to get around this issue. So feel free to do a search on MINI2.
 
#11 ·
Have a look at this link !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Fnlyf01-g

Don't worry about hammering the metal cold, just take your time. What the strut plates do is "re-invent the wheel" type of design of the strut towers of the pre 03/2002 Mini strut tower plates.

If you ever get the chance to look at the pre 03/2002 mounts, you will wonder why they ever went to the current post 03/2002 design.

As per the pics, the OEM original plates pre 03/2002 are about 4mm thick and all pressed steel with minimal rubber in the actual mount where the shock fits.

These are from my 2002 R50 which I had replaced with Megan Coil overs.

Sadly, the cost of steel was obviously more expensive than rubber so bean counters opted for profit margin over sensible design so by adding any of the indurators/plates UNDER the shock tower will aid in prevention of further damage.
 

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