Q: Engine sputtering on startup on a 2011 Mini Cooper S

If you value your money, stay away from a Mini dealer service. My neighbor has a Mini and she sometimes goes over to them and gives 5,000 dollars here, 2,000 dollars there. Those Minis are notorious for having bad ignition coils. You can get aftermarket ignition coils for those things for as little as 30 bucks a piece. If I were you, I’d buy four ignition coils first and then put them in.

Anybody can do that. It’s a two-second job, unscrew, screw it back in. That could fix your problem. If it doesn’t, then give the mechanics at YourMechanic a call, and they’ll come and inspect your sputtering issue for you. But a lot of times it is just a bad ignition coil.