Hi guys... I just bought a 2007 Cooper S, and I think it's not as fast as it should be. It accelerates smoothly and the turbo seems to be spinning up normally, but it all just seems to lack some punch.
Is there anything obvious that could be the reason for this?
I've tried to get some numbers to compare with ones from various magazines, and they seem to confirm something is amiss. For instance one evo article had 3rd gear acceleration from 40-60 and 50-70 at 2.4 and 2.8 seconds, my best times were 3.1 and 3.6 seconds, and that was slightly downhill.
Might be worth getting your dealer to check the power output figures - they'll be slightly down on what they were when new, but should be pretty close . Also, I've no idea how the overboost function works but maybe it's not kicking in when it should, so ask them to check that too....
Also, measuring the difference between 2.4 seconds and 3.1 doesn't allow for much error - which may be creeping in depending on how you're doing it. Try measuring the 0-60 and 0-100 times which will be longer so any error will have less effect.
Might be worth getting your dealer to check the power output figures - they'll be slightly down on what they were when new, but should be pretty close . Also, I've no idea how the overboost function works but maybe it's not kicking in when it should, so ask them to check that too....
You would need a rolling road for that though, wouldn't you? I've been thinking of having a remap tuning place do it. I would need a remap anyway if it's going to be this slow.
Also, measuring the difference between 2.4 seconds and 3.1 doesn't allow for much error - which may be creeping in depending on how you're doing it. Try measuring the 0-60 and 0-100 times which will be longer so any error will have less effect.
I measured by filming the speedo and timing it afterwards. Not sure how scientifically sound it is, but at least it should have a low error margin.
I did try a couple of 0-60 runs, but I think those would have a lot more variables than straight in-gear acceleration times. The best I got of 3 runs using the Dynolicious app was 7.93 seconds. Not too close to the low 6s I've been reading about.
I would be very interested if you have found out anything further on this. I am experiencing the same problem! I have noticed more than one post about this also. I have a 56 plate cooper S that I bought second hand direct from Mini about 5-6 months ago. The car pulls well, the power delivery is quite smooth but it has no top end power at all. It feels really quick low revs and has bags of torque but after 4000rpm its just got nothing. I part exchanged my 328ci for this car and my old BMW with 120,000 on the clock... and an auto... would easily out pace the Mini and the stats suggest they should be around even. Especially as my Mini is lowish miles and the BM was getting a bit long in the tooth.
I tend to drive without the sport button on most the time how about you? As I understand it this shouldn't effect the overall performance just the throttle response / steering stiffness and in honesty i'm not a fan of the sport button as I find it just makes the throttle less progressive. Also with my sport button on I find with gentle throttle input the power delivery is lumpy. Not sure if this is related?
Would appreciate any views on this as it is difficult to complain to Mini about it as there is nothing 'wrong' with the car and it's been faultless in every other way since purchase... also i'm getting 40mpg out of it which is usually a good indicator that the engine is running well!
Hi, no real updates yet, but it's interesting to see someone else with the same issue, it was hard to find much about this online.
I've ordered an OBD2-USB-thingie that I can hook up to my laptop, so hopefully I can see if there is any strangeness with error codes or boost level values.
Sadly I don't have a sport button, so for me the engine pulls evenly but unspectacularly all the way to 5000 RPM, which seems to fit with this torque curve:
Fuel-wise it uses about about 9.5L/100km (30 MPG), but I haven't been particularly light on the throttle.
I've played around a bit with my OBD2 tool, so far I've only been able to get this old ScanTool-software to work reliably. I've attached some screenshots of the values it reads at idle, but I don't know if anything there is off, so if someone can see something that's not as it should I'd like to know.
In addition I checked some values while accelerating in second gear, the highest value I got for "Intake Manifold Pressure" was around 195-200 kPa, the highest I had for "Absolute Throttle Position" was about 75%. I only did a couple of runs though.
Again, I'm not sure what these numbers mean but 200 kPa is 2 bar or about 28 psi. Is that about normal?
Did you get any results? I have a 2010 Cooper S and I'm facing the same problem. It works perfectly fine all the times, but it's very slow. I drove another Mini, exactly like mine, and it felt a lot faster. I also did a 0-60 and it took about 10 seconds!! Some people told me it might be the catalytic converter, but I checked and it was just fine. I also checked the sparkplugs and the airfilter. Thank you!
I had all these problems on my last 2006 cooper s but I sometimes got ems lights on. Changed all sensors and timing chain to no avail . Last garage suggested it was bottom ended , worn camshaft , so I binned it . The N14 engine in these models was prone to all these issues , the N18 in the later models is more reliable and eefective.
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