Whoa… What's This?

Sections: Recalls/Campaigns Apr 17th, 2003 41 Comments

To all those higher mileage MINIs out there…

Have you taken a look on the bottom of your hood recently? I was cleaning out my engine on Sunday and found something fairly troubling.

The images show that the hood has been in contact with the rubber surround in front of the engine and has caused some interesting issues. It's worn through the paint and primer down to the bare metal on one side and is getting close on the other. #1 is the top right, #2 is the top left (where it's worn to bare metal), and 3 & 4 are the respective sides of the rubber molding. Has anyone seen or heard of this happening before?

My dealer is having MINI regional rep come out and take a look in the next couple weeks to determine what exactly is going on. While I have no concern that MINIUSA won't take care of the problem I'm alarmed that it happened in the first place. I suppose there's a very good chance that this is an isolated incident and there's nothing to worry about. But that being said I'd be interested to know if others with higher mileage cars out there are seeing similar symptoms

Update: Thanks to these photo (which were passed onto MINI engineers) we’ve got ourselves an official response and bulletin. Details can be found here.

Written By: MF Staff

http://www.starwars.com Michael S.

Uh oh, not good. Let us know what regional rep has to say. likely “it's due to twisting in the turns, slow down”
Bob

Gabe-

Just checked mine, (2002 MINI Cooper, 10,200 miles), it is doing the same exact thing yours is doing. Let us know whta the rep says!
Val

Ditto. Just checked mine – same exact thing. Let me know…
jeeves

At 7025 miles my MINI exhibits the same wear marks shown in the images posted. This trend is not good.
de la Hamayde Frederic

Hello there, The problem you mention on the engine-hood well I have it also on my Cooper (Belgium – Europe)
Mike

Hi Gabe, Just went out and looked and we have the same wear marks at 5000 wonderful miles. Hummmmmm.
http://users.adelphia.net/~gbmini/images/20030304/MINIinSnow1.JPG Ian Cull

Not trying to upset anyone; but can you explain why this is a BIG problem?
John

same thing on my car 8000km haven't wear down to the bare metal yet but there is definitely unusual wear happening……
Deborah

Yep… add another item to my list! Grrr! My MCS has two rub marks down to bare metal at 15K. Not quite in the same place as yours Gabe, but they seem to be due to the hood resting on that same rubber surround. Any other MCSs?
Deborah

PS for Ian Why is this a problem? Bare metal is going to rust… enough said.
http://bridger.us/mini Gabe

No worries Ian – that's a fair question. But take it from someone who has a '92 BMW 325i with a couple rust spots. Any bare metal on the car anywhere will rust eventually. With the amount of bare metal exposed on my car I would expect it would be too long until I started seeing some small signs of rust. Now if this were in older car outside the warranty I wouldn't think anything of it and do the touch up my self followed by some 3M foam rubber tape to fix the initial problem. That being said the car is fairly new and should be dealt with my the dealer.
Rob

Yup I've got 'em, too. 21,000 miles. I noticed the rubber seems to trap dirt and grit at these points, as well, adding to the sandpaper affect. A major re-thinking of this by BMW should be in order, and a permanent fix for our cars, also. Even 21K is too early in a car's life for this kind of problem, especially when it's not on a normally high-risk area. Ah, well, flying the 'A' model is always interesting.
http://bridger.us/mini Gabe

Agree 100% Rob. But I have faith (hopefully not naive) that BMW/MINI will take care of the issue and make the necessary corrections.
http://www.club-nouvelle-mini.com Laurent

Same problems on different cars of the Club-Nouvelle-MINI
Shawn

Same here. 3200 miles and definite signs of wear starting to appear on my MCS.
Frank

We have 6,500+ miles in our Cooper CVT and I haven't noticed any unsual “wear” under the bonnet, but will definetely check again later.

Also it will be helpful for those of you with the “problem” to post your current mileage and actual build date.

The only way I see MINI fixing this is by redesigning the rubber molding that is currently making contact with the hood. I hope this is not an unfixable design issue.
http://bridger.us/mini Gabe

I agree with you Frank. I see no way around not putting in some sort of rubber/foam buffer. If I were fixing this myself that's exactly what I would do. BTW I've got 23,000 miles on mine.
Jim – LTL M CPE

Just checked mine tonight and have just a little wear spot on the right side of the bonnet on the round flat “resting” circle portion of that side. That same side has more wear on the actual rubber as well.

2002 MCS, 5200 miles, July build

I also noticed that the plastic cladding on the right front fender edge is loose, but the other side is tight. Anyone else have this issue?

Jim
Dave

Just checked mine and this is one list I didn't want to be a part of. I have a 03 MCS with 5300 miles and it is beginning to show bare spots. Not as serious as the spots in the photos but doesn't look good.
http://bridger.us/mini Gabe

This has become quite a list. Besides Club-Nouvelle-Mini.com (thanks Laurent) has anyone seen this issue posted on other websites. The first I heard of it was when I opened my hood a week ago. Ã‚Â
Deborah

Gabe, there is a thread on MCO about this too. “paint coming off in engine bay area”
Fairly recent. Hey, Jim! I think we're siamese twins again. My right side is worse than the left too! Can you post a picture or give more description on what's loose? I'm not following you.
steve

Mine is still ok (built mid June, 5500 miles), but I can see black spots where the rubbing is starting.
Jim – LTL M CPE

Deb, I'm not of the digital age yet – i.e. no digital camera or new fangled phone so no pics. The part that's loose is the black cladding on the outside of the wheel well. You know the plastic that is on each wheel arch?
Scott

Seems to me that this should be an easy DYI fix. Just attach some weather-stripping to the bonnet to mesh with the rubber seals.

I fitted some door-seal material to the parts of the bonnet that fit over the wheel arches, and that completely seals out the sand and dirt that normally comes in to the engine bay from the wheel wells. The engine bay stays lots cleaner now.
Steve Rosenblum

I like the weather-stripping idea. Looks like another weekend project for me…
Superdave

I checked yesterday and found the paint wear is there at 7,000 Miles
http://www.matthewgifford.com/ Matthew Gifford

Steve, did you try the weather stripping yet? I want to nip this problem in the bud.
Steve Rosenblum

I overdid MINI events (again) this weekend (Saturday Chicago meeting and Sunday Indianapolis ride), so I have to lay low a bit. Hopefully a trip to the hardware store is in the cards for this weekend since I am busy all week. I will share what I do on the weathersripping with everyone.
John

Gabe, any word from your MINI dealer on fix for this problem?
http://bridger.us/mini Gabe

I just talked to my service rep today actually. He's hoping that the MINI regional rep will be in the area next week and we can meet then. be assured I'll post a follow-up on my site as soon as I know more. I have a feeling this issue will grow dramatically in the next several months.
steve

I added weather stripping today to the hood along the wheel arches to hopefully reduce water and dirt that makes it's way into the engine bay. I will have to wait for bad weather to see how well it works. Next time I see Gabe with his phone, maybe he can snap a few pics for all to see.
http://bridger.us/mini Gabe

Thought I'd let everyone know that this page has been forwarded onto MINI customer relations.
http://bridger.us/mini Gabe

Just received follow-up call from MINIUSA about this issue. It would seem that they are working on getting to the bottom of this sooner rather than later. The representative said that information from posts on this site and others are making their way to engineering and they hope to know more soon. In fact I was told that the photos have been printed out and sent to engineers along with the URL. Sort of funny that I took the photos with my phone :)
tomorthway

mcs 03-03…1400 mi..going to put some armorall on it and see what happens nothing yet
Carlos Siwi

Yes, I saw this problem a long time ago in my mini. Since this is my first car, and have never had the experience with older cars, never thought of rust. But I love my mini and want to keep it forever(is that possible?)but I will definetely see my dealer about this massive rubbing problem. Keep us informed of response from the engineers!
http://www.michiganmini.com Ryan Hammond

Gabe…Thanks for pointing this out. I'm going to post the link on our group's page. Glad to see that MINIUSA is doing there part to fix the issue.
chris

yep mines worn down, i have 36000 miles on my s and it looks as if the dirt gets sandwiched in between the two pices and basically sands off the paint!! i notices this about a month ago!
http://www.somc.on.ca/ paulmon

Seems my car is doing the same thing. Not as bad as the pics here but certainly wearing. What kind of metal is that? It doesn't look shiney to me, it looks almost like plastic. Perhaps it hasn't worn through the primer on mine yet.

Paul
http://bridger.us/mini Gabe

It is actually shiney – these were taken with a camera phone thus the quality isn't the best. I can assure there is no plastic there at all. Mine was worn down to silver metal in 3/4 spots initially with the other spot being worn to the white primer.
bjw408h

Resolution??

I my 34,000 mile MCS is nigh unto the end of free service and I would love to resolve my well worn bonnet underside in advance of 36,000.

Many thanks in advance.
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