What would you do?

"TheTurbochargedSquirrel" (thatsquirrel) 12/01/2016 at 17:00 • Filed to: None

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I’m going to try to bring my Mini over to Mini of Burlington at some point soon to have the power steering recall completed. I’m going to do it here at school since I am 20 mins from a dealer here at school as compared to 1:30 to the closest dealer to my house. The question is whether or not I have them fix my small coolant leak while I am there.

For background on Thanksgiving I noticed a small puddle in front of my drivers front tire. Open the hood and sure enough there was a puddle of coolant on top of my transmission. The Mini shop who does all the work on this car was not open between thanksgiving and when I needed to be back to school so I grabbed a gallon of coolant to top it off and brought that with me to school to manage the coolant level. Based on where the coolant was leaking to my mechanic believes that it is most likely the thermostat housing gasket.

So the question is do I have it fixed at the dealer here or keep an eye on it until I get home for break where my mechanic will fix it probably the week of the 20th. I am going to try to be at the dealer at some point before then anyway for the recall work and having them fix it gives me piece of mind for the next few weeks and the trip home. The catch is that the dealer costs money whereas my mechanic gave me a 12 month warranty for anything that may go wrong with the car (I bought the car from him) so it wouldn’t cost me anything to have it fixed back home. What would you do? Do you pay to have it fixed at the dealer or do you limp it along for 2 weeks and hope it doesn’t deteriorate and prevent you from completing a 220mi drive home where you can have it fixed at no cost? (side note: it got me up here fine on sunday, I am currently unaware of how much coolant it lost on that trip though as I haven’t had an opportunity to check it or drive it since)

Have a rally R50 (which apparently lives in my state) for your time.

EDIT: I just realized that I have a bit of an issue if the recall work takes more than 1 day. I would have to find a friend willing to drive me back and forth to the dealer since I wouldn’t have anywhere to park a loaner (parking pass is a windshield sticker and tied to my plates).

crowmolly > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 12/01/2016 at 17:03

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See if you can get an estimate from the dealer. To be honest that will probably convince you to take it to your Mini mechanic.

Andrew Fails > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 12/01/2016 at 17:46

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I agree with your mechanic’s diagnosis. My thermostat assembly on my R56 separated, and leaked all the coolant out.

DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 12/01/2016 at 17:53

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Idk about minis, but I’d tackle the thermostat yourself. If you can get to it without removing anything you’ll only need to undo a clamp and a couple of bolts.

I always flush the coolant when I do the thermostat, so I don’t know if you’ll have to drain it, but you shouldn’t need to since the upper hose won’t have any coolant in it when the engine’s cold.

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time 12/01/2016 at 18:01

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Oh it will piss coolant everywhere as the thermostat is below the expansion tank. You can see the fill port on the top of the housing in this photo under the intake and next to the battery box. The expansion tank is the clear container on the firewall (#2) and is supposed to be half full when cold.

DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 12/01/2016 at 18:22

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Even then draining it’s easy. Although I looked up a video on how to do it on a R55 Cooper S. It looks about 5x more complicated than any thermostat I’ve done lol.

Edit: here’s the video

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time 12/01/2016 at 18:26

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It wouldn’t be too hard if I had a garage and the proper equipment. Doing it in a dorm parking lot with just this little tool kit would suck.

Also dumping 1.5 gallons of coolant straight onto the ground is highly frowned upon.

MINIGTI > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 12/01/2016 at 18:47

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It’s almost certainly the thermostat housing. I did mine a couple years ago. Only really hard part is getting the clip back on the pipe way in the back under the intake.

And being certain about the electrical connections. The one I bought from the dealer came with an adapter I had to use.

Well worth limping it for 2 weeks if you can get it fixed for free, the part alone is quite expensive.

Keep a jug of premixed and watch the level. You’ll know it’s gone way too low when the heat starts blowing cold. 

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > MINIGTI 12/01/2016 at 18:53

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It’s not leaking bad enough to be the actual housing and the housing itself is completely dry. Its oozing out from where the housing meets the block leading us to believe it is just the gasket. I’m currently running around with a gallon of 50/50 global mix in my trunk and watching the temps carefully (and driving a minimal amount).

DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 12/01/2016 at 19:56

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Idk I hear animals love the taste of anti-freeze! /jk

Orange Exige > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 12/01/2016 at 22:49

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I vote hang in there and get the work done for free only because that’s what I would do. Or at least I would wait till I got home to try to fix it myself.

In all honesty though, I’d just say try to keep track of how much coolant it’s losing (or rather, how much you’re adding) in the next week or two - keeping track of mileage and time - and just do some quick calculations to see how it would far on your couple hour, 200+ mile trip. Maybe it’d take one pitstop to recool (get it? kinda like refuel...) and if so, I’d say it’s probably worth it.

I think I had a minor leak some months to a year ago and either figured out or presumed it to be the thermostat housing so I replaced it myself. I think the R50 has a different housing and gasket, but I’d also think that the process would be about the same as the R53. Not super crazy difficult and not requiring any special tools (if I was able to complete it), but like most Mini engine bay work, it’d just be a considerable amount of labor getting to the damn piece to replace .As such, I’d imagine it’d cost a pretty penny at the dealer (especially compared to $0 at your place). But that’s a common Mini repair so I’d imagine you can get an estimate either from the dealer or at least from other folks online who’ve done it...?

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > Orange Exige 12/01/2016 at 23:12

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The housing itself is only held in with 2 bolts on an R50. The problem is you have to pull the intake, battery, battery box, and a bunch of other in order to get access. And then about 1/3 of the cooling system is above the thermostat meaning that it is going to dump coolant everywhere when you get it off.

My shop specializes in Minis and the owner (who I bought mine from) loves the R50 (I’m kinda jealous of his R50 JCW with a Cooper S 6-speed). He says that it takes them an hour or 2 to swap a thermostat housing in an R50.