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Citing examples of BMW and Mini Cooper issues
Many automotive shops get intimidated when faced with the task of working on a European vehicle. Some of the reasons for this is they aren’t familiar with the vehicle, they don’t have the correct tools, or they quite possibly think that a European vehicle is so much out of the norm or completely different from the Asian and domestic vehicles that they are accustomed to. Keep in mind, a combustion engine is a combustion engine. They are all predominantly the same. The differences between all the different car manufacturers are what they attach to their engine systems. Those differences are what differentiates them from the others. You still have a block, pistons, crankshaft, cylinder heads and manifolds. Fuel delivery, ignition and emission systems can be drastically different from what a typical domestic or Asian vehicle can have. In this article I want to talk about the BMW and Mini Cooper car lines and some of the driv-
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By Edwin Hazzard
ability issues that are associated with these vehicles. Yes… contrary to some of the beliefs, these Euro vehicles do have issues just like their cousins over the pond (see Figure 1). The BMW marque has been around since 1916 while the Mini Cooper counterpart started around 1959. It wasn’t until 2002 that BMW first introduced the “new” Mini Cooper and the Mini Cooper S. So to automotive repair shops, the Mini Cooper is relatively new. Remember, anything that is relatively new can be intimidating… right? So let’s look at some of the drivability issues on some of these cars and determine what we need to do to repair them. Just like any vehicle that you bring into your service bay you have to first and foremost understand the vehicle’s control system so you can properly diagnose it. Doing a quick 10 minute read in your service information system can go a long way in aiding your diagnosis.
