There was an article in USA today that there is a Federal investigation going on because power steering on as many as 80,000 2004 & 2005 Mini's could fail. There was discussion of both hydraulic and electric steering. Do these models have electric or hydraulic power steering? Is this a concern or is it another of those "much ado about nothing" that the media loves so much?

 

I see a major recall on the horizon, which really blows because I had mine changed last week, I hope to at least recoup some money if it does go down.

 

Pump is electric so it doesn't add a load to the engine ( belt ) robbing it from HP and torque. It is a borrowed "technology" from Range Rover.

The system is hydraulic as with most cars.

The circuit board for the pump is housed inside the pump itself, which gets hot, and to make matters worse the pump is sandwiched in a hot area of the engine bay as well.

A small fan, much like a fan attached to your computers CPU only bit larger, is mounted outside the pump in the area of the circuit board to concentrate some cool air in that location. Unfortunately the fan's bearing is exposed to the elements and environmental hazzards like rocks, sand and other debris so it has a tendency to get gunked up and then seize. Normally when this happens it also blows the fuse for the fan.

Eventually, due to the lack of additional cooling air on the circuit board, it cracks, seizing the pump.

While some consider this to be a major flaw of design, I always considered it the lesser of two evils with respect to the performance gains. At every oil change I just make sure it is spinning freely, and test it by turning on the A/C. If working properly, the PS fan will come on about 30 seconds after you turn the A/C on. But you have to get under there and do a visual for this as the radiator cooling fan is on the same circut, comes on at the same time and makes lots of noise.

 

Mine had to be replaced as well... I have less than 35,000 miles... if there is a recall could we get $$$ back, maybe the reason it failed was part and parcel of the possible recall issue?

 

Why would they stop at 2005 if the '06 year was (as far as I know) identical?

I thought no changes were made until 2007.

 

Mine failed in the warranty period, so back in early '07. A month after I bought it used. It was a known issue back then.

Nothing like your steering going out while driving... That said, it had to go to the dealer twice (on the back of a truck and two hours away) twice, because they couldn't get the problem to replicate while they had it, and wouldn't replace until it did.

 

Because adding the number of additional car costs BMW more.. manufacturers always try to reduce the hit and if the 06 model year happens to have less sales or less recorded failures (so far) then they can argue to narrow the scope.

*I have no idea if 2004/05 have the highest failure rate, more likely the most cars still on the road with failures like maybe more 02/03 cars are retired? Crashed? Guessing...