Timing?
 

In my daughters 2007 Mini Cooper sedan, non-turbo with 86,000 miles I have 0 compression on Cylinder 2. Could this be a timing chain issue? Two of the other cylinders are reading good compression, one other one is reading slightly low.

The car code is random misfires cylinder 2 and sometimes cylinder 4. The car was running rough. So I replaced all the plugs, swapped coils, changed the cam sensors, change the vanos valves, pulled and cleaned all the injectors and cleaned the engine air filter.

I can't see a leak to outside on the head gasket. It did seem to be going through coolant, so I tested the coolant with a chemical tester and it didn't turn color, so looks ok.

There does seem to be some liquid coming out the exhaust (gasoline?). So I am suspecting it is an exhaust valve (s) issue. At that point I did the compression test.

I pulled the valve cover and checked for broken lifter springs, but they seem ok.

I just brought it to a garage and asked them to do a leak test and put a bore scope into #2 cylinder to see if they can see anything.

I figure the car was worth about $4K, so I am reluctant to have my daughter sink too much $ into repairs. It is unfortunate, she spent $8K on it 4 yrs ago. It is a sharp looking car, red, with white stripes and full moon roof.

Should I ask the garage to put it to top dead center and see if the timing is off?

Timing is pretty straight forward on an R56. When you have the valve cover off you can check to make sure the cam shafts are aligned. This obviously isn't 100% because you don't have the flywheel pin inserted, but if your cam shafts are aligned, your timing chain is tight, your timing chain guide is in good shape, and you don't hear the timing chain slapping; it prob isn't from timing.

If the car is high mileage and you haven't had the intake blasted, your intake valves could have enough carbon build up that they are not sealing properly. The bore scope will be able to show you what the carbon situation is.