Hello! First of all, thanks for having such an awesome community.

I just bought an 2006 R53 Auto. The guy that I bought it from recently had the transmission (around 3 month) ago rebuilt for around $4-5 thousand dollars and did some other repairs in a Euro car shop nearby, totalling around $8k. I could not pass on a deal like that!

After driving it for two days (less than 50 miles) I started noticing that the transmission kinda hesitated going into second gear - but I am not sure if it is just my lack of experience in Mini’s and that’s the way it is supposed to be - the shift took around half of a second.

So, I was driving and the car started acting weird - felt like transmission was slipping in first and second gear pressing the pedal raised the RPMs, however I felt no power applied to the wheels, the car jerked etc.

I switched it into an manual mode, the car shifted, however after driving for 30 seconds the car just stalled while I was on the road. The speed was around 15-20mph and the RPMs were around 2-3k - I honestly don’t remember since it was a stressful situation. I tried to start the car and the starter did not even try to spin. I pushed the car into neutral and pushed it in into a driveway of a gas station.

I turned off the car, put the key back in and then it started without any issues.

My questions are:

Can a car stall being in a manual mode because of my lack of experience of manual and I dropped the RPMs too low or it is some other issue?

Did the starter not turn because the car thought it was already on (the ignition was on and key was in driving position, it just the RPMs were at 0 when it died in manual mode) -some kind of a protection? I tried to turn the starter on while the car was on later just to test it and the starter made absolutely no noise, so I think it could be some form of a protection?

Is the gearbox supposed to be that slow from 1st to 2nd gear?

Any possible diagnosis?

Thank you so much!

 

First of all find a shop that deals in Minis. Just because they deal with Euro cars does not mean they know about Minis. The starter will only work if you are in park or neutral. The transmission dose not shift very fast . It sounds like you were stalling the car by to low rpm's for the gear you were in. Where you in sport mode or auto mode? I would take the car back to the shop and tell them about your problems. They should have some kind of warranty for they work.

 

There’s a very specific method for setting the fluid level properly and it’s critical the fluid is within the correct temp range. Also, there are adjustments which can be made to the valve body when there are shifting issues. A new valve body isn’t necessarily plug and play without some adjustments. The shop might have just put in a new valve body and filled the transmission without the fluid being in the proper temp range which might be causing the problems.

The first thing I would do is make sure the transmission fluid is at the proper level.

There are a couple of good YouTube videos about setting the fluid level. Search for Aisin 09G or VW Aisin since the VW’s have essentially the same trans, but in greater numbers out on the road.