Cooper S Engine Clean.

[wilkij1975]

Hi all

The wife has just bought a 2011 Cooper S and the engine management light has come on a few times (it goes out after a while). I took it across to my local garage and they diagnosed that it needs an engine decoke. They mentioned about this walnut decoking which when I Google it it seems not many people do it or not in my area anyway.

Is it worth doing or are the other cleaning options like Terraclean worth a go? I'd rather try this than having the engine taken apart as one independant said that would run to 4 figures!

[steveo3002]

walnut blasting isnt the same thing as terraclean

[wilkij1975]

Yeah I know but am finding it hard to find someone near to me that does the walnut clean where as there are Terraclean places near by.

[kayzee]

Where abouts are you?

[mon the fish]

You don't need the engine apart to walnut blast it. AFAIK BMW dealers now do this as it's such a common issue. If you can't find anyone else to do it, might be worth giving your local dealer a call

From what I've heard, it costs anywhere between £400-600. You'll need to get it done, as it'll only get worse and the car won't run right. The joys of direct injection

[Hammy98]

Terraclean seems to be effective in minimizing the carbon buildup when done every 10k or so if using their new method for direct injection engines.

If the engine is already struggling a bit (you mentioned EML, rough idle?) then a walnut blast would be the way to go. Mini and BMW service centers should have the machine needed for this as it was a known issue with the Prince engine used in the Cooper S and Citroen DS3 - think the 114i/116i used it as well.

I had the Citroen which suffered from the same problem, I'd get it done asap as it gets worse as time goes on.

Using super unleaded helped the hesitation and rough idle a bit as well.

[wilkij1975]

I'm in Northamptonshire, close to Bedford who do do it I've found this afternoon. £350 all in and £96 if I want them to diagnose it again.

The diagnosis I got from my local garage was super knocking on cylinder 4 so pretty sure it needs the clean although I have seen mention of the HPFP and timing chain issues causing this super knocking?

[vikingaero]

The consensus is that Terraclean is only marginal on N14 Cowpat S's. It really does need a walnut decoke. A lot of BMW/MINI dealers now do it although they don't actively market it, so ask until you find one.

[Dr Interceptor]

Walnut blasting can be done for well under £300, see below.

http://lohen.co.uk/shop/gen-2-mini/servicing-repai...

Lohen are fantastic, just a shame they're so far up north.

[wilkij1975]

Yeah I found them pretty much straight away. Is at least a 2 hour trip for me though and if you want the full service it's £350 same as the Mini garage in Bedford. Not sure you get the same bits included at the Mini garage but it's only 20 minutes away.

I still need to find out if we can do this as a warranty claim with the garage we bought the car from? We've only had it 6 or 7 weeks and got the standard 3 month warranty.

[wilkij1975]

Mini are now saying they need to do their own diagnostic. For £96 I bet they fecking do!

[steve-5snwi]

On a 2011 car shouldn't you have the N18 engine ? They don't usually need a dekoke.

[wilkij1975]

OK that's interesting.

I'll see what the Mini diagnostic chucks out at us. If it's not a decoke and something else at least it should be covered by the warranty from where we bought it.

[wilkij1975]

So just had the call from Mini and it appears not to be an engine decoke that's needed after all. They said it needs a new thermostat and HPFP at £230 and just over £900 repectively!

After just paying out £1000 for a couple of sensors on my BMW, I'm wondering what the hell you pay a premium for these cars for?!?

I won't be getting Mini to do the work as I'm sure it can be done for a lot less than that but have to see if this will be covered by the garage we bought it from first.

[MrC986]

wilkij1975 said:

So just had the call from Mini and it appears not to be an engine decoke that's needed after all. They said it needs a new thermostat and HPFP at £230 and just over £900 repectively!

After just paying out £1000 for a couple of sensors on my BMW, I'm wondering what the hell you pay a premium for these cars for?!?

I won't be getting Mini to do the work as I'm sure it can be done for a lot less than that but have to see if this will be covered by the garage we bought it from first.

I can understand your frustration - the Mini R56 Cooper S (N14 & N18 engines) has a poor rep for reliability on HPFPs and it isn't helped by the fact they stuffed the prices up last year! Mine went on an 07 MCS and I bought the pump from BMS and had my local garage fit it - I think the pump was just over £500 and less than 1 hrs labour to fit. I've not had a thermostat need replacing yet, though I'm having a decoke check this week to double check all the extra ponies are still present & correct that I bad when mine was improved A good garage should be able to easily fit a new HPFP IMO and as you say, your first point of call is the supplying dealer as the normal indicator is poor running on initial start up from cold before they fail, plus hesitancy under load.

BTW, If you look on Fleabay, the prices currently seem to have dropped again & you may find a pump for sub £400 plus fitting if the supplying dealer won't stump up. Fingers crossed on getting the dealer to sort.

[wilkij1975]

Yeah very frustrating. If the car was a few years older they may have done n on an extended warranty. They gave me an estimate for the work along with other bits that came out of the safety inspection and it came to a mind boggling £2700!!!

More frustrating is that when I picked the car up, they'd buggered the trim on the hand brake lever and weren't going to tell me! They said they'd have to check it wasn't noted down as being broken when I left it but it bloody wasn't!

[creepy coupe]

Check the PVC valve and they're a common problem on the N14 engine.