5 year old BMW virtually worthless!

LMS123

Thanks everyone. We have no idea what the fault is. The cam sensor seems to flag up problems. That has been replaced twice both by an independent garage and by BMW. Also the sensors have been swapped around to see if the fault travelled with the sensor. It didn't, but each time the car was fine for a while. Initially it went a few months with no problems but now the engine failure comes on within a mile, despite BMW saying they'd given it a good test drive. The emissions sensor is flagging up now. The stop/start doesn't work any more. and it's slow on ignition. She was told to change the battery a couple of weeks back. That made starting ok and the stop/start worked again but then the sensor problem occured within a week and she was back to square one with no stop/start, poor ignition and "engine failure". It's not exactly in limp mode but has loss of power and an intermittent rattling noise at the back which isn't from the exhaust which she's been told could be the heat baffle, but it's not loose. So that hasn't been remedied either. When the faults are "cleared" it runs fine until the "engine failure" reoccurs which initially was after a few weeks and now is within a mile.
As you can tell, I haven't a clue what I'm talking about! Each garage she's been to has told her to sell it but she can't whilst it's in this pitiful state. She's also been told this is basically a Peugeot engine and BMW charge BMW prices for it. So much for "you get what you pay for"!
We'll look in to the miles/kms idea on the mileage discrepancy. Hadn't thought of that, and I'll suggest she tries to contact Mini but she just wants this thing fixed and no-one seems to know how to do that or is willing to risk it. Is it an electrical fault or mechanical? She can't get an answer.

LMS123

Tacpot12........she tried asking for at least a partial refund on the "repair" that BMW did i.e. replacing a cam sensor that wasn't faulty but got nowhere. They said that was the fault that came up and they replaced it,end of, despite her telling them prior to them looking at it on their computer that it had recently been replaced and also that the sensors had been swapped around. They were going to charge her again for it's 2nd visit within 3 days but she refused to pay again as their computer came up with an emissions error, which is also historical. They didn't argue much on that one. 

AdrianC

LMS123 said:

The stop/start doesn't work any more. and it's slow on ignition. She was told to change the battery a couple of weeks back. That made starting ok and the stop/start worked again but then the sensor problem occured within a week and she was back to square one with no stop/start, poor ignition and "engine failure".

Stop-start needs everything to be just right to work.
Active fault codes? It won't work.
Low battery? It won't work.

She's also been told this is basically a Peugeot engine and BMW charge BMW prices for it.

Which shape of Clubman is it?
You say it's 5yo, but... The model changed in 2014/5.
Does it have two doors on the driver's side (rear opens backwards), one the other? Old shape, R55.
Does it have two doors each side? New shape, F54.
If it's the old shape, then it will have the "Prince" BMW/PSA joint-venture engine, turbocharged if it's a Cooper S.
If it's the new shape, then it will have the BMW three-cylinder, four-cylinder if it's a Cooper S.

LMS123

65 plate. New shape. 31000 miles. who knows what's going on! She's hoping it gets stolen! Even then, they'd probably bring it back!

. .

Goudy

Poor starting, lack of power, emissions problems and the rattling in the exhaust (pinging/pre detonation) sound like a fueling or timing problem, but throw in the cam position sensor issues that keeps coming back might narrow it more down to timing of the valves.

I presume this engine has some sort of cam phase adjustment, maybe this have failed or the cam chain has stretched.

BOWFER

A colleague's wife's Mini is displaying EXACTLY the same issue and were told it was camchain/timing issue that is common.
He was actually told the camchain had jumped a tooth and thrown the timing out, but this seems very unlikely to me and I dismissed it as a mechanic trying to shut them up.
He's also been quoted thousands to fix it.
I'd suggest going onto a Mini forum.
My colleague is in the process of trading the car in for something else.

motorguy

Money_Grabber13579 said:

wonder is it a possible wiring loom failure? I know someone else who needed to have it all replaced in a similar aged mini as it was throwing up all sorts of random fault lights and it seemed that the design allowed water ingress and rotted the wiring. Not saying it is definitely that but might be worth investigating if nothing else seems obvious.

I'd this replaced on a year old VW Golf.  Ran perfectly but once in a blue moon the engine would die.  Happened once when i was overtaking someone.  The main dealer had to get VW involved who used remote diagnostics on it and they replaced the wiring loom.  Cant have been cheap but was under warranty.

k12479

Who did she originally buy the car from?

LMS123

Thanks everyone for your time and comments. The situation now is that she's trading it in at the BMW dealers. They obviously know all the faults and have offered her a reasonable deal considering she had few other options. She just wanted her car mending but it appears that would be expensive and time consuming with no guarantee of success. But many thanks again for all your help.

Flight3287462

I suspect it needs a bit of Italian tuning.  Our wee Nissan Note with the 1.2 Supercharged engine was showing a similar fault it had done about 1200 miles last year and a trip to my garage clear the fault code and some heavy right foot driving sorted the problem.