I've had the strangest experience for the last year with my 2014 Mini Cooper F56 with the engine stalling on startup.

The problem begins if I haven't driven the car for several hours. When I start the car and I shift the car out of park RPMs will immediately drop and the engine will rock, revving itself, trying to prevent a stall. The interesting part is that this goes away if I let the car idle in park for about 20 seconds. It get more interesting because this problem is not consistent. Its only when I leave the car for several hours without driving it. Typically my days look like this: I start the car in the AM, let it "warm up", for the lack of a better word, then drive it and all is good. The rest of the entire day, the car doesnt require to be "warmed up".

What i've ruled out is:

- Engine Air Filter
- It's not relative to the AM or outside temps.

Another interesting note: While I let the car "warm up", you can audibly hear the RPMs drop from ~1200 to ~800. When this drop occurs, this is my cue that the car is ready to be driven. When I shift the car into drive or reverse, no problems occur.

Any advice at what this could be!?

Thanks!
Zach

 

I'm no Mini engine expert, but that sounds like maybe it's a slightly leaky intake boot? how many miles on the car?

 

Hi Leshrak,

75K, started around 50K.

 

Ah yeah, might want to check the rubber intake boot for cracks. It's possibly also a good time to look at replacing other rubber air and coolant hoses, etc., that degrade over time.

here's the diagram for the air intake hoses on the cooper s 2014 engine, you should be able to visually confirm whether they look good or not I think:
https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sho...diagId=13_1570

 

Wow, thank you so much. Ill make sure to look at these hoses.

What's so strange to me... is that this issue only occurs after a window of inactivity (6-8 hours). It's only after this window, startup is rocky, but can be avoided if I let the engine idle for 20 seconds before shifting into gear. I wonder if the computer could be compensating for a hose leak.

 

It's possible, I'm not 100% sure it's that though (just sounds like similar symptoms, at least at first). If it were a bad leak, I'd think it would probably be rough idling at other times as well, but you may be right about the adjustments. I'm just going by my previous experience (on mostly BMW engines)

 

Hey zac , any update on the issue ? Did u find any solution ? Im facing exact same issue on my 2017 Mini Cooper s with jcw tune , my car have done only 18k kms .

 

We have a 2010 Cooper Clubman Auto and first start of the day, you drive off and there can be some rough running heard then if you stop at lights or similar within the first 2 miles the car will stall. It will start up again OK and not have any issues for the rest of the day???? Anyone else had this?