[BertyH69]

Hi all, just joined the forum, typically because we have a problem, my wife's 2012 Countryman's engine blew a couple of days ago. Hoping that someone has heard of the issues before and can use this to guide us on what to do, i.e. repair, replace or cut our losses.

Bit of background, we've owned the car for about 5 years, bought from cooper mini in Norwich as an approved car, low mileage, top of the range for its year.

My wife doesn't do many miles, when we bought it, it'd done 32,000 it's now on just over 50,000. Always serviced at cooper, when the car indicated service required (which I never liked, and reading up looks like a bad move re. Oil changes). Just had its first service 3 weeks ago at a local mini independent specialist.

Anyway, the other day, car started making a strange noise, followed by power loss and misfiring. Wife was about 5 miles from home and managed to limp it home. No warning lights came on at all.

When I got home from work and checked the car, there was no coolant at all in the header tank, and I suspected the head gasket had gone. Tried topping up with just water, as knew it would need to be drained anyway, and it was like pouring water down the plughole. It took 5 X 2 litre bottles of water, without raising the level in the header at all. Checked underneath to see if it was leaking, i.e burst rad or hose, but nothing. Checked inside the oil filler and could see the level rising up above the camshaft!

So the water is pouring straight into the oil side, I'm guessing a cracked block or head?

Has anyone heard of anything like this before with this engine? Is it toast?

Thanks and regards,
BertyH69

 

[mike1967]

might be the oil cooler or oil filter housing bolted on front of block if its petrol, if its diesel egr cooler might be cracked, as car has been driven on for 5 miles no coolant in it engine will be toast and most likely dropped valve seats out of head and most likely cracked it as well, common for thermostat to water pump link pipe at rear of engine to crack after 8 years ish an d cause such leaks as made of plastic,

 

[BertyH69]

Thanks for the reply Mike, it's a normally aspirated petrol. 1.6. so in your opinion, is it worth trying to repair it? My local specialist won't touch anything secondhand i.e. fitting a used engine, but they will fit a new or recon engine. I think it'll be uneconomical to try and repair this engine?

 

[mike1967]

Thanks for the reply Mike, it's a normally aspirated petrol. 1.6. so in your opinion, is it worth trying to repair it? My local specialist won't touch anything secondhand i.e. fitting a used engine, but they will fit a new or recon engine. I think it'll be uneconomical to try and repair this engine?

be surprised what I have repaired over the years , yours has the n16 prince engine in it, possible its just a head gasket failure more likely to be linked with oil cooler ,, best way forward if it was in front of my would be spend a morning pulling it a part , ie pull oil filter housing off see if thats the issue , if its not then go deeper ,, ie head off and see what stands out, when head is off can send it away for crack testing,, if that passes then cylinder block most likely , i have replaced cylinder blocks before on cars that have cracked a liner, ie fitted n12 b16 block to a n16 head with a block mod to allow the oil pump harness through on n12 base plate, ie easier to find a n12 b16 engine than a n16 engine for right money, as you can see there are a few cheaper ways around it, i bought a n16 engine'd mini a while ago with engine in boot and last owner told me to scrap the whole engine as a way forward,, all i done was to replace the head with a earlier engine and done a refresh on it all new rings and bearings etc and timing chain etc,
the trouble with fitting a so called low miles engines ie 50k if can find one it will be in realm's of needing timing chain and stem seals and also the piston ring mod on them to be sure it future proof ,, below links are some of the mini's i've sorted , in my spare time from work,

mini one 1.4 rebuild 2008 & 2009 cooper s jcw

pics below has been my day , mini one 1.4 with 94000 miles on it failed mot emissions running very rich and misfire, never had timing chain before and is so far stretched it has destroyed the cat melted a big hole through middle also oil burning stem seals and piston rings, so today removed the...

www.mini2.com

another mini r56 cooper s oil burning misfires for repair,

today received another cooper s for engine refresh , it got the norm eml light on got a misfire and loves its engine oil, not far off gallons of oil to the mile lol, owner also wants it remapped so will do that at same time ie around 210bhp at wheels, and will be stop using oil and back to...

www.mini2.com

another mini cooper s 90k needing engine refresh

so my next one in half way finished all stripped all pistons out and bores honed pistons cleaned ready for new rings sets ie 3 piece oil control rings as per do away with the crap bmw single piece flexi oil rings,, this convert reduces oil use by 90% on normally driven cars, in the above pics...

www.mini2.com

2012 countryman cooper s all4 smoking eating oil

my latest mini is in and ready for stripping down and refresh ,, this car has 80k on it and burns around 3 litres of oil to under 800 miles ,, its also feels very flat, I scanned it and flagged a oil pump control solenoid fault codes ,, so it will be having either a full oil pump or at least the...

www.mini2.com

and many more lol

 

[mike1967]

and yes its something I would say worth saving repairing, downside wont know how much it needs until its a part,

 

[mike1967]

must add to this, as engine has been run with coolant in crankcase chances are the engine will be destroyed anyway, if were mine I would strip it and see how far the damage has gone, most likely a engine change will be the out come , finding a good replacement might be the hard bit, as i learned for my self before hence why i ended up doing a mod on oil pump harness hole to crankcase so could use the early bottom end, and a earlier cylinder head as well

 

[BertyH69]

Thanks very much Mike, a lot to think about there!

 

[mike1967]

Thanks very much Mike, a lot to think about there!

guess its down to how much you want the car in your life going forward to what the costs are,

 

[CCroker]

First service in 18,000 miles? Could be a problem.

 

[BertyH69]

I might have well only serviced it once in 18000 miles!

That difference was mileage when we bought it to mileage now. It's been serviced maybe 4 times at mini and once 3 weeks ago with an inde during the period of our ownership, it's never missed a service.

Regardless, result is the same, dead engine.

 

[BertyH69]

Hi all, just to update, I decided to take the rocker cover off to see if I could find anything obvious and I'm glad I did, core plug between the timing gears had popped out. Luckily recovered intact!

Going to try fitting a new plug, flush it all out and see what happens. My wife said it didn't show any indication of overheating, no lights, warning, etc. So fingers crossed.

 

[ExclusiveWorkshops]

you need two plugs for that one really, front one is access plug for second, those can be bought at the dealer,

 

[BertyH69]

Thanks very much, I did wonder how you'd get access in the timing case to drive the new plug in.

Is it possible to do this without removing the engine? I.e. just remove the mount? I've never worked on minis before.