A gentleman from my work has asked me to replace the throttle body on his 2007 Mini Cooper S. It looks like a straightforward job and we have a cool workplace so I plan to do it over lunches in a shady part of the parking lot.
Does anyone have experience with this? Is it for any reason not so straightforward? Or will I need special tools? Also, is there a particularly good source for a throttle body online? I found pelicanparts.com at about $250
well the new one is in and the car fired right up.
I talked to a local shop that would flash it for $100 if I needed -- if you're in the KC area it was George's Imports (kcsaab.com). FWIW it is $800 for Mini to do the swap, $156 - 200 for two local shops to do it if you supply the part, which is almost always cheaper than getting the part thru them. No warranty on it through them though. The other place I called was Royal Automotive in Lee's Summit, MO. They've always been cool about me bringing in my own parts.
Anyway, it's throwing a code now and I can't find my code reader and it's late. Under hard acceleration it's not getting past 5,500 RPM and therefore not shifting; it just stays there at 5,500rpm in each gear, like it doesn't have enough power to get any faster. The only time it did was down a big hill. If I manu-matically shift it it begins to accelerate again until it gets to 5500
Also the intake manifold was grimy with oil so that's not a good sign.
Any thoughts about the acceleration bit?
Also, I'm pretty sure I reconnected everything that was there when I got to it but does anyone know if there's like an overflow line that comes up from the transmission?
like here:
As you can see, this job clearly did not go well.
I'm surprised no one took the bait on that picture... as in I DID NOT DO THAT TO A CAR JUST TRYING TO CHANGE THE THROTTLE BODY. I found the picture online looking for one that showed what I was looking at. In any event, the thought of doing that to a car just for the TB made me cry laughing so hard, granted it was midnight, but still.
Any leads on that line? Or a good instruction manual for them? The Mini forum has been silent too.
It's hard to guess without a code. Most of the forums say you need to flash it when you've changed the TB. From what you're descibing it may need the flash to reset all the inputs with the new TB.
Just spitballing, but I wonder if with the new TB, the range of the butterfly is different from the old one and the ECU thinks it's open all the way, but it's still slightly closed? Resetting it would make the ECU relearn it?
-Rob
It turns out that the majority was due to a zombie CEL from when the old TB was on. I got the codes cleared and it runs way better.
I'm still getting a P129E code, perhaps because I didn't replace the TB gasket. Dangit. The guy on youtube didn't!! Oh well, doing it all over again
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