Howdy, just found the forum. My daughter just picked up a 2009 Mini Cooper Base model. She loves the car and I am just learning a bit about it as well. Look forward to learning more here on the forums.

 

Welcome!

 

A few weeks in and already elbow deep in the thing. My daughter heard a terrible knocking sound (her words) while driving down our driveway. She immediately turned around and parked the car. She described it as 'the death rattle' after looking it up on the internet. Panicked, I ordered the parts and pulled the valve cover to find the timing chain and tensioners in one piece. Looked around a bit more, ran a diagnostic (bluedriver obd2) and no issues. Looked around the car and found a branch jammed into the rear wheel (our property is covered in trees) between the spokes of the rim. LOL. Think I will start order parts for the chain tensioner though. The car has about 65k miles on it, and the original tensioner from what I can tell, it is a base model but it seems that with all the problems people have its probably a worthwhile investment.

 

Yep, sounds like it was the branch, on those N12 engines they dont really have the timing chain issues. let me know if you need anything else.