Just thought I'd drop the St. Louis MINI crowd a quick note to say if you're looking for repair work to be done on your out of warranty MINI, take it to Bimmers R' Us on S. Kingshighway. I'm in the middle of experiencing the grim reality of a new transmission, clutch, flywheel and throw-out bearing on my '02 Cooper, and can say that they are a pleasant surprise after dealing with the dealer. Greg Shroud and his crew are great people, and he has been more than sympathetic to my angst over doing this much work to Bowser, and has gone out of his way to try and reduce the cost to me.

Perhaps if I get it back soon enough, and my wife gets over the shock of the repair bill, we'll be out on Saturday for the Rallye.

-Paul

 

Ouch, I feel your pain. Hope you can make it tomorrow. Dan

 

Unfortunately, I won't be there. Bowser is still at Bimmers. This afternoon Greg called to let me know that they were finished with the transmission and were getting the last parts put back on, but they wanted to take it around the block and check things out before I came to pick it up, as they thought something wasn't quite right. 30 minutes later, Greg called me back to let me know they had found that the passenger CV axle was binding and needed replacing.

After having done as much work as I have in the past 3 days, I went down the street (I work a block away) and he was more than happy to throw it up on the lift and show me exactly what was wrong, and it was definitely binding. Turning the front wheel it would get tight, bind, and then pop, lurching the whole engine in the process. I'm pretty sure that the differential going bad caused the CV to bind up.

So Bowser is spending a few more days at Bimmers, and we'll be missing the Rallye. We'll have to catch everyone on the next event.