My 2009 Clubby S has been pretty trouble free over the last 89K miles. The other day I was headed home and took my favorite roundabout onramp, and just as I give it the wellie it dropped a cylinder. I limped on home about 4 miles and pulled into the driveway. I went into the shop and got my inexpensive little HF code reader and plugged it in - result - miss on cylinder 4. Well, no kidding! I had only put about 25K on the new plugs and still had the original set that I replaced at around 60K, they still looked new so I swapped in one of those and fired it up.....no change so I knew it wasn't the plug. Moving up the order of expense I swapped the coil pak from #3 and #4, still missed (Aha!) of course, so I drove it around the block to make sure it set the code. Sure enough, miss on cyl 3 was now set in the code reader. At least I knew then it wasn't an internal engine failure! Yay. I called the dealer and they had the part in stock for $85 plus tax...…..hmmmm. Went online and found the exact OEM part on Amazon for $25, so I bought 2, figuring it would be a good idea to have a spare. These are not prone to failure - in fact the failure rate is extremely low unlike the millions of these Bosch replaced for Audi, VW and the like. Still,, when it goes it does not recover, so I think it's just a good spare to have onboard, especially since I do so many long distance runs to Mini events pulling my classic. Swapping one out takes all of about 1 minute, you simply pull the cap up and it pushes the connector off the pins, Twist the coil as you pull up and off it comes. Installation is the reverse as Haynes famously says. I fired it up and sure enough it ran as smooth as buttah! Just in time for the Mini/MINI run this weekend. It's supposed to be really HOT Sunday so I was dreading but resigned to driving the classic as I have a celebration of life to attend immediately after the event. I'll probably drive the classic anyways - if it's not TOO hot - but now at least I have a choice.
Hey Dave did #3 or #4 post have any corrosion ? I clean the posts on mine and and put a thin coat of Dielectric gel on every oil change. I only change my oil every 6 months since I only put 5k on the car a year.
Unlike the earlier cars that just have one coil for all 4 cylinders, on the turbo cars they have a coil on each plug, the connections were clean...they're sealed really well. I may tear it apart and see if I can find where it failed, but that may destroy it and all the evidence of the failure point. It was a sudden thing, no warning or leadup to it - one minute it worked, the next it was dead.
[QUOTE="Minidave, post: 416564, member: 1292"....I may tear it apart and see if I can find where it failed, but that may destroy it and all the evidence of the failure point. It was a sudden thing, no warning or leadup to it - one minute it worked, the next it was dead.[/QUOTE] That's a great way to learn. I do that too. Even if you are not able to repair it and have a spare, you've learned what can happen and maybe even devise a way to prevent such a failure in the future. Was that $85 for one coil? You only replace one? That's a lot less than the same part for my E60 BMW. I'm still on my original factory coil on my R53 MINI. Was thinking of replacing it anyways but when I checked with the dealer about buying a pack, they would not sell me one because they insisted I buy new mounting bolts with it. But the mounting bolts are no longer available unless they order them from Germany. Glad you got it all sorted out.
You can buy those coils for your car online, you don't have to go thru the dealer and for sure you don't have to replace the mounting bolts - that's ridiculous. On the later model cars you have a separate coil for each sparkplug, mounted on the plug itself, rather than one coil that fires all four cylinders mounted on the valve cover, like your car. It actually was $89 plus tax from my dealer, and that was for one coil - I bought two OEM coils off Amazon for $50 delivered, so I have one in the engine and one spare in the boot, just in case. Chances are I'll never use it but as I plan to just keep this car "forever", who knows, it may come in handy some day.
As I'm sure you're aware, Murphy's Law states that as long as you have a spare you'll never experience another failure of the same part... Thanks for sharing!