[Umbyboy]

Hi guys,

This car has been a nightmare for me so far.

2011 Countryman S all4. 38k miles.

When I bought it, I wasn't aware it consumed a lot of oil.

When the first CEL came up, first garage changed coil and plugs. £300 wasted.

Second garage changed timing chain. 6 months in jumped again.

Third local garage retimed it. Jumped again after a few months.

My bad for not biting the bullet and going to a mini specialist 10-15 miles away at the very start. I finally found a trustworthy reliable specialist in London who did the timing chain for me.

Car was going well but now the turbo is playing up and I am getting, randomly, issues at start.

From time to time when I start the car, it doesn't start immediately. It's random though. Not relating to cold starts. Just randomly. Not sure if this is connected to the turbo.

Secondly, my turbo started whining loudly upon acceleration. The whine has got worth and now it's throwing intermittent half CEL. It comes and goes. Comes when I accelerate hard.

Is the turbo gone? Any advice would be massively appreciated.

I am starting to give up on this car. Have spent over 2k in the last year and it's still not running properly.

Here are the two videos of the issues.

New video by Umberto

photos.app.goo.gl

New video by Umberto

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[mike1967]

first off you said did not realise this car used so much oil, how low did it go before realising this this is very important bit of info to get a true picture of where its at at present,
ie did oil light ever come on was oil below mini mark on stick at any point

 

[Umbyboy]

Before replacing the timing chain, oil was very low. The light came on once or twice.

 

[mike1967]

oh not good that never ends well with them once light has come on its already run with zero oil pressure, the way the engine bearing surfaces work is to have a high pressure oil bed they float in and have a thin layer on the bearings of hard white metal ie .0.05mm thick this all floats when have oil pressure, so when have none they touch metal to metal and over heat and wear away the surfaces just engine to increase the clearances until one day they are to big and oil pressure wont stay up and they knock and grind until goes pop, thats what happens to bottom end, the top end is even worse as oil dont get to camshafts and vanos sprockets and dont lubricate the timing chain correctly so it all wear out, another trick on the prince engine is wears away the oil control rings for camshafts vanos and camshafts as well this effects oil pressure at idle when at worst. oil does a number of things its cools, it lubricates and it cleans as well as on prince engines controls the timing of camshafts, they are low friction tech like all the german cars use these days and a by product of this is use more oil and once oil is every allowed to put the light on its very much down hill from there on it
litre to 300 miles is sort of the norm depending on how hard driven the harder and more revs used the more oil that gets sucked in to the pcv system and some ring blow past

 

[Umbyboy]

The engine is luckily fine. I am worried the lack of oil affected the turbo. Is the whistling/whining sound a sign of failing turbo? Also, can the random non cranking/starting issue be related to this?

It's really odd as most times the car starts immediately.

 

[maximil]

I would guess the turbo bearing have failed due to lack of oil pressure allowing the vanes to touch the casing.
Because of the speed the turbo spins at it only need a momentary loss of oil pressure and it is usually the first thing to fail when this happens.

 

[Umbyboy]

Yeah, new turbo fixed the issue. Lesson learnt. Will check my oil weekly.