I have an '03 Cooper with the CVT. Drove it home from work yesterday, no problems.

Went to go for a ride today, started the car, backed out of the driveway, went to put it into Drive to go forward, but it wouldn't go. It was like there was something stuck between Neutral and Drive, and the shifter just wouldn't go into Drive.

I eventually had to put it in Neutral and push it to the curb, and take my wife's car out.

Does anyone know what might be going on to prevent it from physically moving the stick into Drive? Is this one of the dreaded CVT transmission failures that I'm reading about?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Does this car have the brake/shifter lockout? The one where you have to put your foot on the brake in order to move the shiter? It could be a problem with that, since it seems the transmission works and moves the car.

If you have the owners manual, look in there, I think there's a way to manually disable the lockout - for emergency use only of course.

 

Yeah, it does have the thing where you have to press the brake to move the shifter, and that's working as advertised to get it from Park to Neutral. It's just refusing to go that one step further into Drive, foot on the brake or no.

I figured the transmission was probably ok, since I was able to move the car in reverse and no "Check Engine" light was on.

 

Can you hear or feel the lockout switch when you put the brake on to change to D?

 

Could something have fallen into the linkage? A pen, or a coin or something? How hard is it to take the cover up and look?

 

Pulling the cover off is easy, just grab around the circumference and pull up. Be sure not to pull the leather out of the ring, because it is pretty much impossible to put back.

 

I got the car towed to the shop this morning, they looked at it, and said that something in the transmission itself has broken to keep it from going into Drive.

Sigh - looks like the '03 CVT bug has bitten me. Dunno if it's worth the $6k to fix it.

 

If its just part of the transmission, they probably won't replace the whole thing, thus saving you a couple thousand dollars.

 

The way they were talking, they were going to replace the whole thing, $7k with new parts. They were looking around for older parts before giving me a quote, though.

 

Is there any alternative to a full transmission replacement on the 03 CVT? Is it really true that you can't repair them, only replace them?

 

I haven't seen anyone offer to fix them, I don't think you can even buy parts for them - but I cannot for the life of me understand why these things cost $7K - that's just so nuts!

You might find a used one somewhere, but those are pretty spendy too, and you never know what you're getting - it might last 5 miles or 50,000.

Just for info, did you have your fluid changed regularly at the dealership?

People who have high miles with no trouble with their CVT's claim regular dealer transmission oil changes...

 

I did get service, and had an 80,000 mile service (which was pretty expensive) done a few months ago.

 

Well, I had the non-dealer shop crack the transmission open, since there's no way I can afford to put $6000-$9000 into a new transmission on this thing, in the hopes that they'd find it was just a missing bolt or something else simple. They described it as "shredded" inside, with a lot of debris in the pan. So no repairs for me.

I guess the next step is to see if I can find any enterprising MINI fan who wants to buy the thing as a fixer-upper project and see if I can get any money back on it.

 

Talked to the shop - they took the transmission apart to see if they could find out what was wrong with it, and they said that the drive belt had just "shredded itself" - a cup or more of metal debris in the transmission.

The guy at the shop said he was surprised that the belt had lasted as long as it had, given the technology, which could explain why others are seeing their CVTs die at 50-90,000 miles.

 

That sucks.
I don't understand why they would not make replacement parts for the CVT transmission ( do know I just don't like how they do it).

Is there any option to use one of the later autos in its place?
I know $7 grand is a lot so maybe you can change the transmission rather than using another CVT.

 

For anyone following this story, I spoke with the service manager at my local dealer (MINI of San Antonio), and she was calling up the chain to see if there was anything they could do.

I got the call back today that they had looked at it, and my car was "too old" for them to offer any sort of help on fixing the dead CVT. So apparently the designed useful life of a 2003 MINI Cooper CVT is under seven years.

Not much else I can do but park the thing in the garage (I could barely get it to go forward enough to straighten out after it was unloaded off of the flatbed) and try writing a letter to MINI USA corporate. I'm not optimistic.

 

I don't know if this is worth anything to you.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/03-MI...Q5fAccessories

 

That internal drive belt self-destructing is probably THE most common cause of the CVT failures.

 

Sounds like you are going through what I just did a few months ago. I ended up buying a new transmission from MINI and installed it myself. Total cost was about $4500-5000 with about 20% off list prices. I contacted MINI, the dealership, etc , did all the crap they asked and their response was the same thing "car is too old". Trying to obtain parts for the transmission is near impossible, and come with a hefty price tag. Here is my thread: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-solution.html

 

I wish I had the mechanical ability to do something like that, but alas, no dice. My only hope is to wait for either a class-action lawsuit or a recall.

I ended up paying cash for a 2001 Saturn with 190k miles on it to drive around.

 

Man, that is harsh. How many miles are on your car?

 

88,000 and change.

 

hey this guy can get you a used one for 1300 his name is Ryan his number is 281 706 2469 he said to text him because he's at work till 4pm. You would have to make a trip to houston to get it

 

Just to follow up on this, I sent a certified letter to MINI USA last week, detailing my problems and basically asking them "Do you think a MINI should suffer massive transmission failure at 88,000 miles? Do you think a 2003 car is 'too old' to offer any help on? Doesn't the MINI name stand for more quality than this?"

Got a call back from them this morning. Their response was the same - "No, we don't see anything odd about another CVT failure at under 100,000 miles. The car is too old for us to offer any sort of grace period. Sucks to be you."

So that's MINI's response to what appears to be a serious engineering failure affecting those early CVTs. They're not going to own up to the problem and offer any sort of help.

So I'll be in a position where I have the car parked for the next year or so, making payments, and hopefully will be able to get it down to a point where I can sell it for parts and pay off the loan. This will be the last MINI I own. I went ahead and paid $1,500 cash for a 2001 Saturn with 190,000 miles on it for my daily driver. And it's on its original transmission, too.

 

No consolation for you but this was about the response we got from Ford on a Windstar van we had. The transmission when at 88k. The district rep eventually called me and almost yelled at me because I was even asking for any help.
Does not make your experience any easier but at least it is common and not just a MINI thing.