I don't see any advantage in replacing anything if it is fine now. I would swap the fluid every 30k or 2 years. Do a couple of cylces of the partial drain/fill. There are lots of people with higher mile original trannies so you could have no issue for as long as you keep the car. Unfortunately there are many of us with early failure.

 

i must report (previously under vgreer alias) that i ended up having to have the trans diagnosed professionally and paid $4,000 for new 4th gear clutch, trans control unit, seals, and valve body. It took my mechanic 3 months to finally get it fixed and after having a separate trans shop diagnose after the repair i find out that my tranny is still toast. The mechanic did not rebuild the trans to the degree i was told and i am now out $4000 while driving a ticking time bomb :( i am disgusted!!! To aspen, i do appreciate the info. I am very thankful for this forum and all that it has done to inform. Anyone want to buy a pepper white 2006 mini cooper s convertible??????

 

Good info; thanks!

 

Just ordered a new valve body from Rev Max and ordered the Transmission Filter Kit (Contains: Filter, Pan Gasket, Drain Plug, Drain Plug Seal, Magnet) from Pelican Parts:

http://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/...0%282005-08%29

Need to get some tranny oil now. Is there anything else I need? Going to try and replace the valve body this weekend.

Thanks.

 

Find the smallest T30 torx key you can find. The left rear pan bolt is the biggest PITA to get out. By smallest I mean an "L" key. Its tight you can do this or drop the subframe.

 

Hmmm.... Have you found one? If so, can you share a pic or a source?

Thanks.

Edit
stumbled upon this post:

Where to get the new bolts? Must they be OE or can I get some grade 8 or whatever from a local supplier?

Thanks.

 

Hi Aspen,


First I'd like to thank you for referring me to valve body builders. I got the good news today, did not need the new valve body they ordered, they nailed the problem down to the solenoids.


So they put in my valve body 2010 solenoids, they said to me these have been updated as of 2010 and newer and even though their bench testing showed my existing solenoids to work for some reason they were intermittently failing.


They're dedication to quality and service was beyond my expectations and the end result was incredible. My car is shifting very smooth in all gears, no flaring cold, hot doesn't matter it feels like the day I drove my car out of the dealership.


I noticed quicker throttle response, faster acceleration seamless shifts between gears.

I was fortunate enough to catch the problem early enough that there was no evidence of any other transmission damage. My "life time fluid" was actually better than average still looked reddish in color.


I would highly recommend valve body builders in Cambridge Ontario to anyone experiencing these symptoms.


www.valvebodybuilders.com


I get a one year warranty with unlimited mileage.




Thanks again.

 

Wow, this has been a miserable experience so far.

I spent a couple of hours just trying to remove the one Torx bolt at the rear corner of the transmission pan that Green referred to. I wound up having to "lower the subframe" by a couple of inches to get my T30 Torx socket to access the bolt.

I swear those f'in engineers and parts people at BMW specifically chose to put a Torx bolt in the 2 most difficult to reach holes on purpose just so we'd give up and take in to one of their over priced dealers. I have a message to those ***** - I hate you.

I had no idea what was involved in "lowering the subframe". I slowly removed bolts and pried to gain the gap that I needed to fit the Torx socket until I basically had every bolt on the frickin subframe and front bumper off. The how to on Pelican Parts made it seem like all you needed to do was loosen those 2 stupid bolts beside the pan. Far from the truth IME... F'in pita.... This is where I wound up:



I did finally manage to get the pan off and called it a day. Too tired to dig into the valve body today.



I left it like that. Will remove the valve body tomorrow and busy some new normal bolts to replace those idiotic Torx bolts.

To be continued...

 

Holy hell, you did more work then needed. I disconnected the lower mount, put a wooden block between the jack and oil pan, and slowly lifted until the engine leaned forward and off to the side enough to get to it. Will say though, that gives you more room to work with when dropping the sub frame like that

 

I know there has to be a better way but I tried exactly what you mentioned and there was not enough room for me to slide the t30 torn socket on my 6" extension. Pls post a pic of the tool you were able to use to help the next guy out.

 

Oh, that's your problem if you used a regular torx socket. Don't use a short shaft, if anything, you could go to NAPA and order and extended torx shaft and get it off, or buy a set of T-handle torx at harbor freight.

http://www.harborfreight.com/6-piece...set-42926.html

 

Yep. that would have helped. Too bad I didn't know before hand. I was actually at HF picking up another pair of jack stands right before starting this. :(

Turns out I also ordered the wrong parts from Pelican Parts. The link I posted is for the regular Cooper, not the S....


How do you remove the tiny connectors off the solenoid valves? They don't seem to want to come off.

 

Those were the biggest pain in the *** for me, must of spend a half hour slowly prying them off, and my arms were tired. You'll need to use two flat, thin screw drivers. One to get into the connector to push down the tiny piece of plastic, and the other to actually get the connector moving. Take your time on them and don't pull them by the wire, you break them, your toast.

 

Yeah, finally managed to get them apart. I grabbed the end with some pliers while pressing the locking piece. Took forever but it's done...

New Valve body is now in, all the electronics are tied up, valve body is in. Need to wait on the filter, gasket and crush washer from Pelican - and rent a car to get around until I am able to finish up. If I had only ordered the correct parts...

 

Hopefully, this is my last dumb question...

I see an 'EP' code in the cluster when I turned the key. What does this mean?

Also, I read earlier about someone having to do an "adaptation update" or something of that nature. What does this mean? Do I need to take the car to the dealer to do something - install some maps or something?

Thanks.

 

The EP stands for Emergency Program and needs it's on-board computer to be checked by a BMW computer program, appropriate to your model, year, etc.

 

Car is buttoned up and I'm starting to fill w/ oil. Extremely slow to pour even w/o the drain plug. I got about 2.5 quarts in about 1.5 hours before it started pissing out the standpipe. That didn't seem right so I inserted and hand tightened the drain plug and finished pouring the 3rd quart.

Questions:
Is pouring in oil really this slow going?
Should it have started leaking out the standpipe with only 2.5 quarts?
I'm expecting it to hold 6 quarts. Is that correct?
Should I be shifting it through the gears during the pour to get the oil moving?

Thanks.

 

i just wanted to mention something i noticed that helped me drive my car till i could fix it. If it gets hot and starts getting rough, Try putting the car in manual and driving it. I would lift the throttle like i was driving a stick when changing gears.. when i did that i did not get a hard shift. i swapped over to a good synthetic and drove like that for a long time like that. Im not sure though if any damage would still be occuring driving like that but it felt better to drive till i fixed it.
also, would this help with the stubborn torx bolt in the corner?

 

I have a 2006 Mini Cooper S with about 109,000 miles on it. For at least the past 5000 miles or so the car was experiencing extremely rough shifting. In October I had a revmax valve body installed and it seemed to completely correct the problem. The car worked liked a dream for the first three or four weeks after install, but now I seem to be experiencing some curious behavior.

About a week ago, I started the car up in the morning and it threw an SES and had the "EP" in the center console tachometer, however, the car at that time seemed to otherwise be fine. I ran a scan and it came back with a P0700 code. I cleared the code and the car was fine. Then I started it up a little later and the car would only work in third gear. I turned the car on and off and everything was fine.

There now seems to be a routine where if the car has sat overnight it will throw an "EP" and only have third gear available, but if the car is turned off and on after approximately five minutes of operation, the "EP" light will still be on, but it will shift normally. After about an hour of operation, if the car is turned off and on all will be fine (i.e., no light and normal shifting).

Also, if I attempt to clear the code, I will not have the "EP" light, but will only have third gear available. I know this because if I attempt to use the paddles it will not shift out of third. I will have normal shifting if I turn the car on and off after about five minutes of operation.

I have been clearing the code every morning, but it will return the next day and its always the P0700 code. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

Wow, I've been following this thread on-n-off. Can't believe this is an Aisin transmission. I feel bad for those of you who have had problems with it. Makes me nervous to consider buying a '12 VW Beetle with the same trans.

 

If you are speaking of the VW DSG transmisson , it is different and far superior to what Mini put in our cars.

 

Depends on the model, only the 2.0 TSI and TDI versions are paired with the DSG. The 2.5L has the traditional auto from Aisin, the same unit as Mini but different specs (gear ratios, etc).

DSG, though improved, is still a problem today... a $8k problem. Fun gearbox though!

 

The big difference between VW and Mini is that VW has service intervals for the Aisin transmission. It is just a simple drain and fill if a hard problem arises we change the valve body.

DSG's as well have a service interval that includes a filter.

DSG's arent 8k

-Mini owner/mechanic who works at a VW dealer.

 

Can anybody answer for the reason why our transmissions are $7,000+? they are over 5 years old, and yet it seems that they aren't going down in price.

 

Simple... Supply and Demand.

Transmission is actually about $4500 +/-