Our Florida Mini doesn't like the cold, or at least it has decided to show us that starting cars in the freezing WI winter weather isn't a nice thing to do to your precious little car. No leak until a few days ago, following a cold start in the driveway it now leaves large 2 square foot oil stains under the car where you let it idle. At night while parked, almost no leak. Next day same thing, fluid level in reservoir falling each day. Checked again overnight while parked to ID where the leak is, but hardly any oil leaking while parked. Filled up the reservoir last night with the expensive pentosin juice to make sure it doesn't run out. It took about 250ml to get the level a little above the full mark to make sure it won't run low today. So, the strong leak only appears to be evident while the engine/pump are running and the system is under pressure. I checked the PS troubleshooting doc but no mention of this scenario. Hose failure? Are the hoses even connected to the high pressure side of the system? Leaking appears to be car center, so I hope it's not the rack seals. Any suggestions other than to clean it up, put it on jack stands and run it to see what happens? Any known issues that have these symptoms?
It sounds like your PS hose clamps. The crimp clamps mini puts on them are crap. It is a PITA but get them off and put normal clamps you can tighten down. The hoses are probably contracting in the cold and leaking. Plus the crimp clamps get lose in time and can't be tightened. I got rid of mine long ago and put good clamps on, no more leak
got similar replies from others I consulted with. Sure hoping it's a simple fix like that (messy, PITA, but cheap). Other suggested leak would be a loose banjo bolt on the high pressure line, but that's difficult to correlate with the sudden onset when it got real cold here.
After cleaning it all off nicely and doing a test drive, we replaced the feed line clamp at the pump and that reduced the leak, but we still see oil coming down the other line. It's not very cold right now, so perhaps we didn't really fix anything with that clamp change. However, the location of where the oil is pooling after a good cleanup is a good indicator that we are dealing with a hose seal problem Plan is to replace both lines and all clamps next weekend when parts arrive here. Also found an engine oil leak around the oil filter housing, plus the usual leakage from the front where CPS and dip stick O-rings are most likely failed. Those are all spring projects, as there is very little leakage. 30k mile car and everything leaks... We did for a moment consider the PS delete kit. Maybe try it in summer, not now.