Hey folks , I'm new to this board, but I searched the forum first and wasnt able to find an answer to my problem. My girl just got an 04 mini s and I wanted to start her off with a fresh oil change. I took it to my usual guy who has worked on my Bmw 3 series pretty extensively. He pulled the drain plug out and it was stripped. Since the pan is alum. he felt he couldnt rethread it.I called the dealer [a non mini dealer] she bought it from and had ittowed there. They were able to rethread it and put in the royal purpleI had gotten for it. Their guy said it probably got stripped being taken out by my guy. Is it possible to strip a bolt coming out? I mean assuming it wasnt turned the wrong way first with some crazy amount of torque! To further complicate things, going through the glove box I found paper work for an oil pan replacement at the Mini dealership an hour away in San Antonio by the previous owner... My question is, is this something unusual, is there something different in the mini drain plug from say my 3 series drain plug? The oil change is coming up again soon and my guy is trustworthy and a hell of a lot cheaper than the local BMW dealer. Plus they always poo poo any other oil than the recommended... Any help is greatly appreciated. Walt

 

Shouldn't be any different than any other car.

 

The whole thing does sound a little wierd. Maybe the old owner was a gorilla who used a 1/2" breaker bar to tighten the drain plug.
I dont see why you couldn't install a heli-coil.