My S Keeps braking down

[rcheek77]

I am NOT Happy with BMW at the moment......last month power steering fluid leaked and went everywhere in the engine bay, so had to be recovered. On thursday I had to drive back from Holland and the thing kept overheating as there was a leak in the cooling water tank so i had to keep topping it up every hour or so and keep my heating on full blast inside the car and it had to be recovered again yesterday.
2 recoveries in 2 months is bl**dy rediculous for only a 2 year old car!!
I just wondered if anyone else has had such unreliability problems with your cars and if there is somewhere that I can have a moan at BMW Mini.
I'm seriously considering changing cars and I've only had the S since Feb.
cheers

[onasled]

Actually, what you have just gone through just sounds typical. These are two of what I have seen to be the most two common problems with the MCS, and I just got back from having the same two fixed on my car.
The expansion tanks were faulty in these cars and it's a free fix to upgrade to the new ones, as far as I know.

Stick with it, as your just getting the pain in the ass stuff out of the way now. At least that what I keep telling myself ....

[xnetco]

I would talk to BMW. I've had my MCS for about 4 months now and done over 8K of miles. My only problem has been the seat rattling.

[Vitesse]

Yeah, My MCS is 2 years old in Jan 05 and had the fluid disappear for the power steering seems to be a bit of a problem for early cars up to about Mar03. I had the complete rack changed under warranty, I would not be happy with them just filling it up and sending you on the way if that's what they did?

[MaltaCooperS]

well i guess I can join the club because I am very very annoyed with BMW in Malta.
My car will be 2 years old in Jan 05.

Lat month my power steering failed and had to be fixed twice. The second time they replaced the steering pump under warranty. Now it works but with a squeeky noise!!

This weekend my car overheated. BMW told me its a faulty coolant overflow tank. they told me I could drive it home and top it up and it up not to overheat abd it weould be fixed next week. However the car ovewreheated badly on the way here so I just had to park it a kilometre from home. I am now really worried that i ruined my engine for life since before I stoped all these strange noises were coming from the engline likea cough!!

i really hope its nothing and i wont need some engine rebuiold or something. i drove for only a couple of minutes on red then stopped.

What do you guys think?




P.S. my driver seat squeeks too....anything else?

[Cooper_si]

flippin heck ! ! !

my header tank cap leaks ALL the time...ive got it so tight now i cant get the thing off,

mines a jan 03 and cant see anything other than that so far...hoping i havnt jinxed my car saying that

[MaltaCooperS]

well the worst thing of all is that although my car will be 2 years old in Jan 05, it only has 4000 miles on the clock since I tried to keep it as new as possible, So if I got all these problems now.....its seems like i'm in for a rough ride.....

[tertiusk]

I have read about some quality problems that seems to keep surfacing...

Used to own a 03 S Works, loved the car but thought that in modern day to have a motoring manufacture launching a car with obvious quality/ reliability problems to be unacceptable. Engine management upgrade 38/39!? So I sold it and bought new Audi A3 TDI.Done about 20k without so much as a rattle. Not as brutal as the works, but still pretty swift with brilliant road holding. Oh yes, my fuel bill has been halved.

Mini still evokes emotion when I see one...

[Rich-UK]

The power steering fluid magically disappeared from the tank in my Mar 03 MCS, MINI recovery filled it up again and it's back at BMW (again ) to have it looked at properly. The bloke said it probably leaked into the steering system as there's no sign of an oil leak. I look forward to seeing what state the car comes back in this time.

Good car, rubbish dealers

[Vitesse]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rich-UK

Good car, rubbish dealers

Rich I disagree that all the dealers are rubbish. As I said in my previous mail, I wasn't sure I even had a problem with my steering, it just seemed a little bit noisier. I went to the dealers to ask them what they thought, after they had a look they decided to change the complete rack because most of the oil had disappeared. Booked it in the following day they collected from the house, carried out all the work, washed it and returned it to my house.

I can't praise my dealer enough from presales to aftersales, they have always been superb.

[PamWells]

Hi all,

We have one of the first UK S's (September'02) and have had the expansion tank problem, radio replaced, clonky steering fixed, new tyres rather prematurely.... It has now developed an extremely annoying rattle that seems to come from somewhere near the boot lock (as far as we can tell). It's a fun car - and when we bought it we had planned to keep it for as long as we could - but we're now seriously worried that it's going to cost us a fortune in out of warranty repairs in future.

It's going in for a service next week - so we have the dealer's attention.

Can anyone suggest a check-list of 'known problems' that we should ask them to check out for us while they are at it - and before the warranty runs out?

Cheers

Pam

[Cooper_si]

good idea of a thread there pam.....

funny to see that u mention about a rattle from the boot...ive also got one but cant locate the noise...its so annoying and u cant plat loud music all the time hey

[Loui]

Si could be the boot latch the one on my red cooper went an i think the one on my current car is on its way out too