I just received an email from a friend that the transmission on his 03 MCS went out and is going to cost him $1700 for replacement.

The comment above is all he said so I have not a clue what the actual problem is, but my question is has there been any trend in transmission problems or is this a fluke thing.

 

No surprise there. I think there are many transmission and clutch problems on the 03 MCS. Mine went at 28K miles but was covered under warranty. I don't drive my car hard and it shouldn't happen at this milage but it did. The dealer said they had seen a few but would not give me exact numbers. He also told me that if it wasn't under warranty it would have cost me $1800 to fix. I don't plan on keeping the car past the warranty period.

 

My 2003 MCS's tranny is just fine, thank you! I drive it fairly softly, I guess. Please keep us informed about your friend's experiences with his tranny, sndwave. Thanks! :smile:


Clo/Wanda

 

Aha, then the 6-speed Getrag is not so robust? Hope this is just one of very few isolated cases.

 

If the transmission is covered under warranty for 4 years or 50,000 miles, its difficult to believe that this '03 has over 50,000 miles, If he is being asked to pay for it himself something is missing from the story. If it is being replaced under warranty, it is not "costing" anything, plus he gets a new transmission with zero miles on it. I don't get the tragedy here. My transmission in my Land Rover went out at 85,000 miles. Thanks to my 7 year/100,000 mile warranty, I had it rebuilt for free. Bad it went out, but now I have a car with 85,000 miles and a like-new tranny (plus a new clutch I put in cheaply since the tranny was already out.) I'm not kicking.


Does this car have over 50K miles? Did he perhaps race it on the side?

 

So we don't have the whole story. And we should not jump to conclusions.

 

The transmission failure rates for both the MC and the MCS have been higher than I would have expected. I personally know at least five people (2 MC, 3 MCS) that are on their second gear box.

The last time I was at the local dealer, they were replacing the transmission on a 2005 MCS.

I'm not bad-mouthing MINI. I love my car and will probably get another MINI after this one. I'm just surprised at how many people have had transmission problems.

 

I know that I had prollems with my Midlands 5-speed in my MC... grinding when shifting into 2nd gear when the tranny was hot. Figuring it was that the synchros weren't spinning up because they got gummy, I drained the 'lifetime gearbox fluid' and replaced it with Redline MTL. Haven't had the issue since then, even with autocrossing and DE's in 100 degree temps...

IMHO, it's worth changing the tranny lube every year if you motor with spirit or do any kind of motorsports - I'll be doing mine every year when I flush my brake system...