Hello everyone and happy to meet you all. My wife has her heart set on a red Mini Cooper however she prefers that it is automatic, so that rules out the S. Our price range pretty much sets us for a 1st gen Cooper but upon researching the reliability of the CVT, I've come across quite a number of horror stories of failed transmissions and repair bills upward of 7 thousand dollars. Wowza
I wanted to get some input from you guys, are the CVT trannies really problematic, or is it poor maintenance [I've read they require special transmission fluid].

Thanks everyone! Any other words of advice/what to look out for is more than welcome, we want our purchase to be a smart and happy one.

 

Yes you can get an R53 MCS with an automatic. They use a conventional torque converter automatic & not that blasted CVT. From what I remember the auto MCS started in 05.

My advice would be to stay away from a CVT equipped MINI. Other's will tell you they are great.

PS: Welcome to NAM!!!

 

Run from any CVT, unless you have 8K in cash you dont need
Welcome

 

Yes, any S with an auto is a 6 speed Aisin built unit which has proven to be very reliable.

 

2003 bone stock MC with CVT, going strong at 161K, transmission oil changed at 100K secondary to greasing deer and smashing oil cooler. Good luck.

 

Nothing is immune to failure. If you find a nice CVT equipped 1st Gen consider an extended warranty from a reputable vendor. Many here including myself have EW from Warranty Direct. I got it specifically to help with any possible failures during the life of the loan that I took out to purchase the car.
Also consider preventative maintenance to the trans at a MINI dealer. I believe it is a fluid and filter change. There is a specific procedure for filling and bleeding the trans (so I have read) and it is probably best left to the appropriate service people.
As far as reliability, some plastic part broke at 65K in my 96 Dodge 1500 pickup. It resulted in a complete overhaul at a cost to my extended warranty company of $1500. Some may have gotten stuck paying the full replacement on failed CVTs but there are some that have been responsible for a much lower contribution to the BMW R&D effort. I think it depends on your relationship with the MINI dealer...maybe its luck.
All I know is that I like my CVT MINI. It is pretty quick and fun to drive. I am one that does not find rowing a shift lever on a daily basis fun. Its OK but I have other vehicles for that...

 

My CVT has 70,000 miles and it is a pleasure to drive - I've researched the CVT and it is a quality transmission - the manufacturer recommends that the fluid be changed every 28,000 miles (dealers do it at 25,000 - 30,000 then at 100,000)
I have mine scheduled to be done in October ($204.00)

There have been reports of failures but there are a lot of CVT's doing just great.

 

Most of the CVT issues center on the 02-03 models. I'd stay away from those years. My 06 CVT has 75000 flawless miles on it.

 

Due to some of the stories on NAM, I purchased an extended warranty. That being said, I love my CVT. I would wager that a lot, if not most, of the people saying stay away have never had one. Correct me, and I apologize if I am wrong about that. There are transmission failures across the board, automatic and manual.

 

I bought my Mini in November 2007 with a CVT after having done tons of research on the Mini itself. I needed an automatic due to a bad left hip that makes shifting painful after awhile. I continued to research the Mini after I bought it because of the CVT. This is what I have found out:

The CVT requires periodic transmission fluid changes. Probably every 25-30K. Most of the people that had failures never mentioned if they changed the fluid regularly or not. I would venture to guess they did not.

The CVT is not only in the Mini it is in other cars as well. I specifically remember the Prius having a CVT. CVT's are used in Hybrids because of the torque to drive ratio. Mini is not the only place these are used.

OK the 2002 Mini with CVT had problems. The 2002 had problems everywhere. Any first year model is prone to multiple failures in multiple areas. Check out other 1st year release vehicles with CVT's.

Reliability is totally dependent on driver style. If you abuse the CVT by running it up to 6K RPM every time you take off from a stop light, well eventually it will probably fail. So will any other transmission.

The Extended Warranty is a good deal if only to provide reassurance that if you have a failure you are not going to be out more than the car is worth. I paid $1500 for a 4 year warranty out to 100K. They allowed me to pay $120 a month and have actually fixed my passenger side door actuator while I'm still paying for the warranty. I paid my $100 deductable and they took care of the rest. I highly recommend Warranty Direct. Great folks.

I have a 2004 MC with CVT and 52,000 miles. I love shifting into "Sport" mode to leave some tailgating SOB in his SUV watching with his jaw dropped. The acceleration is great, and using crusie control gives me 32 MPG every day, and 36 MPG on the highway.

I would stay away from the 2002, look for a good deal on a low mileage 2003 or 2004. You might have to travel a bit to find a good one. I bought mine out in Towanda PA, and paid 16K for a 2004 with 37K on it. When I brought it back to DC, it was already worth 4K more than I paid for it. Now that's a deal!

That's my opinion and I'm sticking by it.

 

I just had the CVT fluid changed in my '06 (Chili Red ) at the free Dealer Service @ 28,000 miles and it's running smoother than ever. So far, so good.(But I'll probably buy a new Mini when my bumper-to-bumper warranty expires, just to play it safe). Yeah, there ARE lots of CVT horror stories out there, but mine - fortunately - isn't one of them. Enjoy your Chili Red Baby !!

 

Like I said some people love them.

I wonder why MINI stopped using the CVT on the R56 MINI. If they were so good you'd thing that MINI would still be selling them. Now they use a regular torque converter automatic. Hmmm, I wonder why that is.

 

Cheaper. Why did they change a lot of things? The car is expensive to build. Many of the changes are cheaper to build.

 

I like my Cooper CVT. It's a 9/02 build [an early '03], and, other than having a tranny leak repaired when I first got it used with only 2200 miles on it in April, '04, it has never failed me. I'll probably get an EW, though, just to be on the safe side. Right now, it has just over 38k and was my daily driver until all the horror stories started popping up. So, I got an MCS auto to take over the daily chores. Now I have 2, and each has its own special niche. The Cooper goes mostly to the shows and the MCS does daily duty as well as the Dragon and HPDEs.

 

OK if that helps you feel better. Cheaper, yep.

I'm going to motor on now. Enjoy your CVTs guys & gals.

 

The R53/56 wasn't/isn't offered with a CVT.

The CVT is marvelous, until it fails. If it fails, it has to be replaced. It's quite, quite expensive to replace, more than half the value of an '02 Cooper for a new CVT. The question isn't "Will my CVT fail?" but "Can I afford to replace it if it does?" and "Is it even worth it?"

I bought my '02 Cooper w/ CVT in '06 with around 53,000 miles on it. About 23,000 miles later, the CVT failed. Recently my Cooper was afforded a second chance at life, the replacement (rebuilt) transmission carrying a two year warranty. After that, as far as I'm concerned, regardless of how many times I change the fluid, retaining ownership of the car will be something of a crapshoot.

 

They never changed the CVT model.....if you have a CVT, it's the same transmission that was in the 02-03's. It's the exact same transmission box from ZF. The only reason that you see it more commonly in 02-03's is because they are more likely to be in the higher mileage numbers which is when the CVT starts failing. Any weakness the CVT had in 02 is still present in the 06 CVT.

I drove an 02 CVT for 5 years and then sold it because I was out of warranty, and the way I view it, the CVT is basically a ticking time bomb. It seems inevitable that it's going to run into expensive problems somewhere down the road. By the time you're running into these problems....the repair bills are often more than the cost of the car. It was not a risk I was willing to take. I'd rather trade it in while it was still mobile and get a more reliable MINI. I'd hate to be stuck with a Cooper, a dead CVT, and an $8k repair bill when the car is only worth $6k trade-in with a working tranny.

My overall personal 5 year impression of the CVT is that it's a really cool gadget and a neat invention....but the CVT that MINI chose to use was a bit too weak for the application. It's hard to say that it's acceleration was quick when the 0-60 was lik 9-10 seconds....but it got the job done for an automatic. It was nice to have....but I wouldn't ever get another MINI with a CVT.

 

Our 03 MC with CVT has been trouble free. We like the CVT.

 

I do need to add that mine IS a bit "jerky" from time to time at very slow speeds (like pulling into the garage or backing out of a parking space)...but that seems to have improved since they changed the fluid at the last service.

 

Everyone has an opinion on the CVT's and everyone is entitled to their opinion. I'd like to see the facts! What are the facts on the CVT failures? How many have failed verses how many have been sold? What are the percentages and how do these compare to other transmissions?

Without the FACTS it's all hearsay, and hearsay evidence is not only unreliable it's just plain BS. So who has the facts? BMW? Mini Cooper? Somebody out there knows for sure what the percentage of failures vs percentage sold is.

Now, barring any good hard concrete numbers let me postulate a little theory here. I have a CVT. I also got an extended warranty for my Mini out to 100K. I took out the extended warranty as soon as my dealer warranty ran out at $42,000 miles. The extended warranty covers everything, including the complete cost of replacement for the CVT, which is $7-8K. Now if the CVT's were as unreliable and failure prone as the "experts" on this site say; do you think the extended warranty companies would insure them? If CVT's were failing at even a 12-15% of all sold rate, I doubt that the warranty companies would sell 100% repair warranties for $1500. It simply would not be cost effective for them.

When I bought my extended warranty there were two questions I made sure I asked. The first question was, "Is the CVT transmission replacement covered"? The answer was "yes". The second question I asked was, "Do the CVT's have a high failure rate?", her answer was, "Not any higher than any other transmission. We couldn't afford to insure them if it did."

So why does everyone fear the CVT so much? Because it's different, everyone talks about it. It's like a snowball rolling downhill. You don't hear from the folks with Manual transmissions that have failed, and you don't hear from folks with CVT's that haven't failed. They are still out there, some with 100K+ miles on them.

Ok, so this long winded post is designed to put this overly debated controversy to rest....but it won't until we get the facts. Anyone out there with REAL numbers......?

 

You can find much more info of the failures and the transmission itself over on www.mini2.com where they have a whole forum devoted to the CVT equipped MINI's.

It's a known weak transmission..... Just like the 5-speed midlands that was used in the Coopers at the same time as the CVT was offered. There were a bunch of failures and they acknowledged the weakness so they switched transmissions just as they moved back to normal slushboxes rather than stick with the CVT.

It's not like 90% of the transmissions fail.....but there is a pretty large number of failures reported at 80k+ miles which is pretty low for any transmission to be failing.

 

You don't hear from folks whose manual transmissions have failed because they generally aren't forced to replace the entire unit at a cost of 6-8 thousand dollars. I am not bothered so much by the failure of my CVT as by the impossibility of getting it repaired; instead I (and others) have to shell out an obscene amount of money to get it replaced with something that, for all I know, is just as likely to fail.

No one thinks their CVT is going to fail until, well, it does.

 

This is the most rational and intelligent post I've read on the CVT issue. Yes when a CVT does fail it is very expensive to replace, only because Mini will not allow the manufacturer to sell replacement belts to independent repair shops. Sounds like a restraint of trade/ class action suit issue for a good lawyer to take on.

 

I understand that the CVT wasn't, isn't offered on the R53 or R56. As far as the R53 goes I'd guess that much power would kill one asap. I think the reason behind the R56 not using one is MINI thinks it is problem prone. As far as numbers of failures go, if you have one that goes & have to pay for a replacement out of pocket then that is a enough numbers for most folks.

I'm glad you folks like your CVT's. I don't care for them, but the problem I really have is their alleged habit of dieing an early death.

 

Precisely. I figured the odds were in my favor, and the next thing I knew, my transmission went from functioning to being a statistic.

Whether or not the failure rates are any higher on the relatively miniscule number of CVTs on the road, vs. the hundreds of millions of conventional automatic and manual transmissions in operation is completely besides the point. What I do know is that if your CVT does fail (as any piece of machinery will eventually), it's costs someone a big pile of money to get the car hosting it back on the road again.