1st Gen R53 Cooper S Most liked posts in thread: Engine overheating, spewing coolant

Car has been in the shop and the water pump has failed as well as the drive on the supercharger. So the knocking I heard originally was the drive failing, it stopped (drive failed), then a few minutes later the engine overheated because the pump wasn't working.

So last April I brought it to Helix and I paid over $2,000 to have a new water pump and supercharger installed. Only for it all the fail a year later, needless to say I am not happy at all. After not even 10K miles, both should not fail.

 

Here's a picture of my supercharger gears. There was NO oil inside the gear chamber. After 17,000 miles, it should not be bone dry. So either the bolts were bolted down properly or they didn't fill it with oil.

I am NOT happy.

Here is the link for the company: Supercharger Technologies - Supercharger Rebuilder

And this is the warranty... So even though they will send another rebuilt one they won't pay for labor on the repair. Which at this point could be $700+ for their issue.

I wonder if they will pay for my brand new water pump that I bought for $126 from Way that is not faulty also.

 

They are going to be sending a new one up my way soon (I frankly don't want another one of their products, but then I need to pay for yet another SC). The guy who called me pretty much didn't answer my questions about all the labor and now the broken water pump that their faulty product has caused me. At this point I'm just saying ****** it, I'll pay for it and just get over it. I just want my car back.

 

I need to think about all this, I'll post updates when I have them.


I just emailed Eric at Helix, expressing my frustration but there's nothing else anyone can really do. Why would he be obligated to help since this is the rebuilding companies fault so I have no grudge against Helix (have brought my car there many times with only one issue that was fixed at no charge). I mainly want to make sure no one else has to go through what I am going through with this as it is completely unacceptable.

 

My issue is that I simply can't just suck it up. Being a college student, I work hard but I don't have the time to have a full time job to be able to save enough to get a remanufactured unit. That's what happened last year, that's why I got a rebuilt unit instead of a new one. I simply don't have the money.

 

I appreciate the kind gesture but I always feel weird getting money from people. I'll make it work somehow and be fine.

 

I called Sean at Imperial MINI and he is going to be making me a recharger kit for my supercharger. For those of you who were at MOTD last year, you may remember his vendor stand he had set up. I'm waiting for an invoice of the exact cost but it will be between $200-$300.

So this why I can periodically check the oil and change it. For the cost, this seems like a good compromise to trying to sell the rebuilt one and get another from a different place.

Sean said it will be shipped out next week, so hopefully by next weekend my car will be running again.