Is this transmission really that bad? im looking at a 2003 MC with 68,000 with the CVT transmission, what were the actual defects of the tranny or poor engineering and tended to fail, does anyone here have this tranny whats your personal opinion on it

 

Did you see this post?
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...e-oil-pan.html

 

wow never seen that before, so im guessing i should be looking for a 5 or 6 speed trans, how does the 5 speed in the MC or the 6 speed in the MCS hold up?

 

The Getrag 5 speed in the 05 & 06 Cooper appears to be a good box. Although a local friend had one lose 1st gear requiring replacement of the trans. The earlier cars have a Midlands box that is supposed to be failure prone. The Getrag 6 speed box seems like a good one.

Stay far, far away fron the CVT.

 

The Aisin built auto in the MCS is far more reliable than the CVT.

 

Avoid the CVT, and the Midlands manual. I had a CVT, and got the "$7500 for repair or buy a new car" spiel.

 

I'm guessing the 03 had the midlands manual I think I'm gonna have to go with that and staying far away from the CVT

 

Take note of the almost 200 comments posted on this blog!
http://newmini.wordpress.com/2008/01...sion-problems/


a

 

As stated in another CVT forum, we own a 03 MC with CVT tranny. Mfgr was ZF out of Belgium i believe. We had the Fluid Changed @ 27-30K as recomended by both Mini & ZF. Like anything ; If you take care of it & service it & do not abuse it you should be fine.

 

Don't give out false information... Lots of people took care of their CVT tranny but it crapped out regardless.

CVT = Bad news period, why even take a chance on something that may burn your pocket eventually. The average CVT repair (I should say Tranny Replacement) is around 7,000.00 -8,000.00.

My 2 Cents.

 

thanks for the info guys, and as far as the MCS autos were they all the same fom 02-05 for the cooper S or did those have the CVT to??

 

ok so all this reading is making me not want to buy a mini anymore, especially reading some of those 200 comments, can someone break down to me what years and what trannys auto, man 5 speed 6 speed etc were good, so i dont run into problems

 

MCS autos all use the near-bulletproof Aisin transmission.

 

this applies to even the 02-04 cooper s had the Aisin trannies

 

**

 

All MCS autos have and always used the reliable Aisin 6 speed auto from the beginning.

 

Almost 100K miles on my 03's 6spd.....so far so good.

 

I didn't want to take a chance so I traded my 2003 Cooper for a new Clubman....very pleased with the new product.