The title says most of it. My parents borrowed my car for a trip and were driving on the highway when they heard a sound similar to when you are driving on a gravel road (ting ting ting etc..) The sound stopped after only a few seconds but then smoke started coming out from behind the car at which point my dad pulled over. He had the car towed to a dealership in Alexandria VA and rented a car to come back to NYC where we live.

After speaking with the service rep there, they said that differential (stock) had broken and the pieces of it cracked the bell housing. Now they want over $7500 for a new tranny!!

This a STOCK R53 (2005 41,xxx miles, 6spd) except for wheels, tires and exhaust. I've read about a lot of problems on the forums but have never heard of this happening... Can anyone offer some more insight??

 

So I am assuming that your car is out of warranty? If it isn't you should be able to get this for much cheaper than that. Even the CVT auto is cheaper than that. Look up your local club and post there for a good local mechanic. Hope it works out ok.

 

You can get a used tranny for not a ton of money. Your only the second person I have heard of this happening to, and the other guy had it happen to him while he was autocrossing.

 

I've got some used 04 MCS trans that you can get a good price on, but right now I don't have any 05 trans.

$7500 it a bit too expensive, but at a dealer what can I say.

 

This is interesting, cause I know on the R56 Challenge cars (don't know about when the R53's were running) are running the same tranny as the R56 JCW. There has to have been a prior defect or something. I'd be investigating the crap outta that tranny through a 3rd party.

Either way, best of luck to you to figuring this out!

 

NEWS! okay so, the dealership knocked to price down to "warranty" which would have been about 5900 with parts and labor AND MINI is giving us a 2500 credit AND a new clutch and flywheel so now the price with all parts and labor will be 3400! More than half off of the original quote.. I'm pleased with the savings, but it still sucks that it had to even happen to begin with, s**t happens. I guess my luck was going to run out sometime since I've never had a car break down on me.

 

Did you ask them why it broke apart in the first place? I would be pressing the hell out of them for a real answer, not "well it broke apart, please swipe your credit card here".

 

Personally I would try asking MINI for a little more help. The fact that they have already offered to lower the price leads me to believe that they feel somewhat responsible. Your MINI was 9,000 miles from the end of warranty. Yes over the time limit, but that didn't cause this.