BMW is recalling 235,000 Mini vehicles worldwide – 29,868 in the UK – because of a fault with an electric water pump.

The fault, which could be a fire risk in some cases, is known to affect vehicles, including the Cooper S and John Cooper Works models, built between March 2006 and January 2011.

- BBC Article

The following models are affected:

2007-11 / Cooper S (Dec 2006 – Oct 2010)

2008-11 / Cooper S Clubman (Dec 2007 – Oct 2010)

2009-11 / Cooper S Convertible (Dec 2008 – Oct 2010)

2009-11 / John Cooper Works (JCW) (Jun 2008 – Oct 2010)

2009-11 / John Cooper Works (JCW) Clubman (Jun 2008 – Oct 2010)

2009-11 / John Cooper Works (JCW) Convertible (Apr 2009 – Oct 2010)

2011 / Cooper S Countryman (Nov 2010 – Jan 2011)

- MotoringFile

The fault first made itself known as I was nearing the end of a long journey to visit family late on a Friday night. A series of warnings relating to a lack of ABS, tyre pressure and cruise control appeared on the computer. These were joined by an engine management warning the following morning when I dropped the car off at the nearest BMW garage on the off chance that they could take a look at it before their workshops closed at lunchtime.

Polo Courtesy Car

Benham BMW found a courtesy car for me, which was impressive given the lack of notice. Unusually it was VW Polo, but I wasn’t going to complain. Unfortunately they weren’t able to find time to diagnose the fault, so I drove the MINI back to Oxford on the Sunday evening with the dashboard illuminated like a Christmas tree. Benham did give the MINI the most thorough wash and hoover it’d seen for quite a few months, and told me not to worry about refuelling the Polo, which made up for the lack of a repaired car.  The following week I left it in the capable hands of the independent I used for the broken shock, it was diagnosed and fixed the same day for the slightly painful sum of £190.

MINI Bike Carrier

Exploded F1 Car

More photos on Flickr…

Passed with no advisories.

I mentioned it to Oxford MINI when the car went in for its second service, they very kindly took a look at it FOC and greased some of the contact points around the strut. They reckoned if the noise didn’t go away within the next few days then a new shock would be required and provided me with an estimate of £265.

I wasn’t entirely convinced about the noise being shock related, the squeak only seemed to occur when the chassis was flexing slightly, rather than the suspension compressing heavily. I was hoping the problem was actually a dry bush on the antiroll bar. So I took the MINI to a local BMW/MINI specialist for a second opinion.

Unfortunately I was wrong, the shock had well and truly had it, the specialist blamed my run-flat tyres for its premature demise. Thankfully his price of £155 using genuine parts was less painful than Oxford MINI and I’ve hopefully now found a reliable ex-BMW mechanic for any future issues.

Service was covered by the TLC package, brake fluid wasn’t. Although at £56 Oxford MINI were nearly half the price of the BMW dealership I visited for a new tyre earlier in the month.

Was given a Cooper D for the day, with the new BMW engine. It was actually quite a giggle, very responsive, and quite nippy, albeit in short bursts.

2011 Cooper D

The updated interior is also an improvement, the small tweaks to the dash are subtle but make the overall finish seem more expensive. I personally prefer the black finish over the grey of the R56.

2011 Cooper D Interior

A colleague has recently been returning some fairly impressive figures from his diesel Golf (70mpg!) so this spurred me into wondering what I could get out of the MINI if I was a bit more careful with my heavy right foot.

A 90 mile journey through rush hour traffic one evening looked like a good real world test. The route included some slow town driving in heavy traffic, some dual carriageways including a few bottlenecks approaching roundabouts, a long motorway stint and finally some more dual carriageway and town driving in sparser evening traffic.

Around town I was careful to keep my revs down and brake as little as possible, on the motorway I stuck religiously to 70mph, or under in congestion. I realise knocking my speed down to 60 or 50mph would work wonders for my MPG, but that isn’t what I’d consider a real world test.

I think I scuppered my chances of recording anything amazingly high by using cruise control for most of the motorway leg of the journey. The cruise control system seems to be very inefficient in the way it climbs hills (fair enough, it can’t predict them). Also, tapping the resume button after being held up by slower moving traffic makes the car boot it to get back to your previous cruising speed as quickly as possible, crippling your average MPG reading.

46mpg

I discovered that driving economically is frustrating but strangely addictive in equal measures. My final figure of 46mpg isn’t that impressive, but even a 9mpg improvement over my previous average of 37mpg is a saving of bit over £3 at the current fuel prices for this journey alone. It’s also a lot better than the rather shocking 26.6mpg I managed in the E93 320i I borrowed that weekend!

E93 320i

The £3 saving didn’t go particularly far towards the new tyre the MINI required the following weekend. Benham BMW (who I was close to at the time) knocked their price down from £147 to £133. Still rather painful for a 16″ runflat.

Due to other tyres being replaced at different intervals, probably due to a puncture before my ownership, I’ve now been able to swap the tyres around so that I’m left with the same amount of tread across each axle. The rear tyre which was replaced this time had worn unevenly on the outer edge, suggesting a positive camber issue. Hopefully nothing severe as the wear only became apparent over 30k miles, but my next task will be to get the alignment checked and sorted.

Obligatory car in front of entrance to factory photo

MINI - Built in Oxford

OX4 Racing MINI

The one millionth MINI

Inside the T-Building

The back of an R56 dashboard

MINI Art Car

Furry MINI

Wrong, but oddly quite cool

MINI Tea Party

MINI Connected in a MINI Countryman

Some more photos of the other non-MINI vehicles on the display, including the rather ugly Aston Martin Cygnet can be found here…

• Cheap supermarket screenwash, even when used neat and supposedly good down to -25c freezes solid a long way before that.
• Heated washer jets are of no use when the rest of the system is frozen solid.
• The screenwash reservoir for the MINI is in front of the nearside wheelarch and will never really defrost from the heat of the engine.
• Genuine BMW screenwash is cheap (around £2.20 a litre), when used neat it is rated down to -63c, I emptied a litre into my empty screenwash bottle and topped the rest up with water. I’ve had no freezing issues since.

At one point I was convinced I must have blown the pump as my screenwash hadn’t worked for a few days and the top of the reservoir filler had been liquid for a while. Luckily I hadn’t, but here are the repair instructions if you find yourself in the same position. Looks like an easy swap:

• Overview of windscreen washer system.
• Remove wheelarch liner.
• Replace windscreen washer pump.

Whilst I was hunting for the repair instructions for the pump I  found details for how to correctly set up the washer nozzles. The special tool could probably be substituted with a pin:

• Front washer jet nozzles
• Rear washer jet nozzle

I didn’t swap the discs this time as they still seemed quite healthy. The TIS instructions cover the process with more accuracy than I can, so as per usual the links are here:

Overview of rear brakes.
Replacing rear pads.
Replacing rear brake pad sensor.
Rear brake torque settings.

The instructions do gloss over the replacement of the pad wear sensor. As with the front brakes there is only one sensor, however the connector is well concealed quite a distance from the rear axle. To gain access to the connector I had to remove several fixings so that I could flex the under tray of the car down enough to get my arm in and fumble around for the connector. One of these fixings requires a T20 Torx bit for removal.

You will require the following parts:

1 x Repair kit, brake pads: 34216778327
1 x Brake pad wear sensor: 34356789330

You will also need some brake pad paste/copper slip to prevent brake squeal due to the pads vibrating. I’ve used a tube of ‘Ceratec’ which is manufactured by Mintex for a few years now on several vehicles without any problems.

Rear caliper and pads removed.

Here is the drivers side (right hand drive MINI) brake assembly with the handbrake bowden cable, the pad wear sensor, the caliper and the pads removed. The handbrake bowden cable is relatively easy to detach. As with the front brakes the pads and retaining springs are nice and easy to remove and insert.

Old pads and new pads.

The old pads were around 3/4 worn when removed, the car was beeping and displaying an error message on startup, constantly showing an error on the rev counter and constantly illuminating the handbrake warning light. I think BMW must have a policy to annoy people into servicing their vehicles.

New pads installed.

As mentioned earlier the rear calipers on the R56 require a special rewind tool to retract the pistons. So the G-clamp and block of wood method that I used on the front brakes won’t do. I’d heard reports that a pair of needle nosed pliers or the tool for changing the disc on an angle grinder could be used instead. I’m not using the MINI daily at the moment (hence the film of rust on the discs) so I thought I’d have a go at bodging the piston rewind before coughing up for the proper tool.

DIY piston rewind.

First of all a word of warning, this method is obviously not authorised or recommended by BMW or myself, please be aware that you could damage the caliper by applying pressure incorrectly or slipping. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I removed the cap from the brake fluid expansion cap, remember to keep an eye on the level whilst rewinding. I then brandished a pair of needle nose pliers and started to rotate the piston clockwise. Apply a moderate amount of force and the piston will turn, but it won’t retract, I had to put most of my body weight behind the pliers whilst turning and eventually it started to retract.

Finished.

Once reassembled reset the service warning using the easy to follow unofficial instructions, or the the slightly more confusing official instructions.

Remember to tighten the two bolts that hold the caliper on to the correct torque and refit the expansion tank cap if you removed it. I hope these brief instructions and photos prove useful.