Oh boy have i brought a problem car ?

[colinw]

I thought i would be happy with the purchase of my 08 plate mini cooper s. But alas no the list of problems is increasing by the day.

First day of getting it was the flat tyre indicator which stayed on. This was booked into the garage and reset.

Last Saturday i booked it in for a passanger window problem that closes then opens. It was booked in for this morning to be sorted out.

In the meantime since last Saturday i noticed the break pedal travel seems to change while i'm driving around, it either feels normal or it feels like there is a slight play in the pedal before the normal travel bit, or like there is two stages to the travel instead of one. It's noticable when i first get in the car in the morning, or when i haven't breaked for some time while driving around.

Yesterday just as i was driving out of my works car park for a fraction of a second it was like the whole car died but came back to life, it was milliseconds, i thought what the ???

This morning i got in the car and started it up ready to drive to the garage and the engine sounded like there was no oil in it, a loud horrible metal clanking noise that seemed to increase with revs, i thought oh no now what, and i was like this for about 5 minutes of driving before it went quiet ???

Finally i'm sat at the garage this morning and mentioned these other issues as well. four and a half hours later i enquire if it might be done yet, and they said they never fixed the window problem as this takes a good two hours to do and the guy who i dealt with last week should not have booked you in on a Saturday for this type of job !!!!

So for the whole morning what they done was run an engine diagnostics check and checked the oil and breaks, and cleaned the car

So it's back in on Wednesday now for two days as they say they need to run a longer diagnostics on it. I have to explain it all again to the mechanic when i drop it off.

My stress level is quite high at the moment, i must say this is not a good start at all.

[solidsponge]

Im sure you can sort out your car issues eventually, its just unlucky. Almost every european brand car has issues, itll be fine once you get those things done.

[pete3055]

The engine rattle seems to be quite common and is often mentioned on this forum . Some have called it a death rattle and I have seen at least 2 that have had their engines replaced !
I have had it a couple of times , the first was a bit scary and called a breakdown service only to find it had stopped when he got there . Second time , I just drove through it and it disappeared , kept the revs down. My local garage ( not a dealer ship ) diagnosed it as a heat shield vibrating when cold but expanding when hot and I no longer worry about it .
The miniseconds dying is also quite common . They are designed to run very rich so when cold the excess fuel can cause this effect , almost like a flood or backfire. Again , I don't worry about it now, with my mileage I get a petrol treatment at each service and it gets rid of all the build ups caused by this. I never use supermarket petrol which seems to add to this and always use the ones with extra additives like Shell .
The brakes , I have never experienced , but sounds like a build up of brake dust.

Enjoy the car , they are great and all told give very little problems . From my experience , keep your services up to date and don't necessarily rely on dealers to do this , find a local garage that you can trust and cut your costs by half!

Cheers

[colinw]

Quote: Originally Posted by pete3055 (original)

The engine rattle seems to be quite common and is often mentioned on this forum . Some have called it a death rattle and I have seen at least 2 that have had their engines replaced !
I have had it a couple of times , the first was a bit scary and called a breakdown service only to find it had stopped when he got there . Second time , I just drove through it and it disappeared , kept the revs down. My local garage ( not a dealer ship ) diagnosed it as a heat shield vibrating when cold but expanding when hot and I no longer worry about it .
The miniseconds dying is also quite common . They are designed to run very rich so when cold the excess fuel can cause this effect , almost like a flood or backfire. Again , I don't worry about it now, with my mileage I get a petrol treatment at each service and it gets rid of all the build ups caused by this. I never use supermarket petrol which seems to add to this and always use the ones with extra additives like Shell .
The brakes , I have never experienced , but sounds like a build up of brake dust.

Enjoy the car , they are great and all told give very little problems . From my experience , keep your services up to date and don't necessarily rely on dealers to do this , find a local garage that you can trust and cut your costs by half!

Cheers

Ok thanks for the reply, well i have not tried it today but yesterday was the first time in the two weeks of owning it that i got the rattle, but it was only 11 deg c yesterday so god know what it would have sounded like if say 0 deg c ? It does sound a bit rough when first starting it most mornings but gets quieter after a few seconds.

Anyway i think as i have a years warranty i think i will be at the garage quite a lot. The break thing is hard to explain really, nothing to do with the breaks just in reference to the break pedal travel itself prior to actually breaking.

I have had a link sent to me regarding engine rattle, quite a long thread and not good reading. I will mention the heat sheild and other things that have been mentioned in the rattle thread.

I still wish i had kept my vectra now, just drove it and drove it for years, no problems.

Thanks anyway.

[Stortford]

Check the rocker seats that make contact with the valves because my one had a tap which led to a rattle and then boom, the things stopped and wouldnt start.

After inspection I can only assume that one of the rocker seats came away and caused the timing chain to slip off the crank sprocket.

Knackered valves and chain replacement needed.

Engine is almost out and ready for rebuild.

[Snowie]

Quote: Originally Posted by Stortford (original)

Check the rocker seats that make contact with the valves because my one had a tap which led to a rattle and then boom, the things stopped and wouldnt start.

After inspection I can only assume that one of the rocker seats came away and caused the timing chain to slip off the crank sprocket.

Knackered valves and chain replacement needed.

Engine is almost out and ready for rebuild.

You are confusing things - The thread is second Gen and from your other posts i see you have a first gen Cooper

The engine noise on second gen is always on the S and not on the Cooper

Sorry to hear of your problems but it probably explains the other problems you have been experiencing - why carry on running an engine that was down of compression on one leg without knowing the reasons !!!!!

[AndyTheGreek]

Engine noise could be the timing chain tensioner, very common failure rate.

[colinw]

Just an update on my car. The garage had it for the last three days, i gave them a list of issues to be resolved. Mainly so i have a record of it as well.

They done a mini softare update to fix the window up down issue, not tested it as yet, so i had to redo my radio presets and pair my phone up again etc.

They done a longer engine disgnostics on it, and maybe even heard how rough it sounded the next morning ? anyway they ended up replacing the timing chain and the timing chain tensioner.

They also found while doing the above a wiring loom that had a wire damage to it and bare wires were exposed and may have been shorting out. This was caused when the loom was first clipped into place, the clip itself damaged it on assy. They only found this out when they removed the timing chain housing.

They could not really find much wrong with my brake pedal travel query, but the strange this is they loaned me a brand new mini one deisel car while mine was being done and as i had it for three days i noticed it doing nearly the same thing as well sometimes, so whatever i am experiencing maybe the norm ?

Driving back yesterday from the garage i don't know if i was imagining things but my car seemed to be lacking in power compared to when i dropped it off, i don't know if a software reset or new timing chain could cause this, i wouldn't have thought so ? i will try it out again today when i go out.

Anyway i started it up this morning 8 deg c, quite cold, and it started up like a kitten compared to what it has been like, no clanking, no deisel noise. So i'll see how it goes as time goes by, but so far so good.

The only thing i did also mention to them which i still have is when the engine is running a small squeeking noise, I'll keep an eye on it anyway.

Fingers crossed

[colinw]

Next update, i tested the passenger window and now it's worse that before !!

It no longer goes up on it's own after you just flick the up window switch.

I have to hold the up switch to close it now.

While the engine is running or the key is in the ignition it used to close on it's own but sometimes open again a bit.

How can they do a software update to fix it, and say it's fixed now, when actually it's worse that before ??

So back to the garage for the forth time in four weeks.

Oh boy