Hey all,

I just picked up my first mini cooper as a fun weekend project/commuter car. I have researched and read countless threads, watches a lot of videos and i'm hoping to get some insight from you veteran owners out there with the 6-speed auto.

The Cooper is a 2006, with 121k miles.
When it's cold, the car shifts a little sticky between 1-2 and 2-3 when in standard "D" mode.
Once it gets warm, or when driving in traffic, the gear shifts get very rough and bumpy. RPMs will hang, then shift hard. or it will downshift very hard as if you were to just drop the clutch in a manual without rev matching.
If I put it in sport mode and drive with the paddle shifters, once I take over everything seems to be fine.

I did 2 cycles of a fluid flush, what came out was pretty much black, after 2 cycles its a nicer dark red.

I'm wondering from those of you experienced owners, do I get a revmax valve body? or should I just start shopping for a used transmission?

Also on the r53, can you reset the drive preferences from the cluster? Will that help?

Any and all insight will help!

 

Adjusting the valve body might help clear things up. https://www.sonnax.com/tech_resource...n-fwd-6-speeds

 

Oh wow I had no idea the valves themselves were adjustable, can these adjustments be made with just the pan off or do I need to pull the whole body? Thanks RB! I assume the shifting OK when cold has to do with thicker fluid if the valve bodies; so in theory i need to adjust the wear in the valves once the fluid heats up and thins out?

 

If it shifts OK cold but harsh when it is warm then the valve body is worn. As the fluid thins out, it starts seeping past the solenoid valves. The same thing happened to ours back in 2011. This was before there was much info on what was going on and we spent over $4k getting the trans rebuilt.

 

Is an adjustment something to explore? Or do i just buy the revmax?

 

If it is a situation of fluid getting around the solenoid, you'll need to replace the valve body.

 

I haven't needed to adjust my valve body yet, but it looks like you can do it by just dropping the pan from this post: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4415489

You'll get more fluid out of the trans with the pan drop, too. Also, the fluid temp must be within a specified range when setting the fluid level or it will be over/under filled which can cause shifting issues.

 

Is there any way to test this? Or would i just assume seals are shot if the behavior is the same after adjust?

 

This is my bible, I did A LOT of reading through this over the past couple days, great tips and tricks on removal/install I just didnt see the part about adjusting; thanks!

 

Bringing this thread back to life.. have only had a manual R50, R53, and R55, with no experience as to the automatic tranny's on these. Driving out to look at an 06 justa automatic this week with 57k miles on it...looks to be in decent shape. Any anecdotal advice on the life of these Aisin trans? I have read conflicting threads as to whether its better or worse than the CVT from earlier years. Some say just change the ATF every 30k and you're good.

Any tests I can do while out there? The car is for my sister so I'd love to not have to swap a tranny in 6 months lol.

Thanks

 

The CVT is a ZF, not an Aisin. Based on all the problems I've heard of with them, I don't think I would ever recommend that anyone buy one of the R50 CVTs unless a manual swap was planned. I do happen to abhor CVTs though, so I'm a bit biased.

What do you mean by "CVT from earlier years"? BMW used the same trans for the entire run.

 

Sounds like they're abhorred for good reason! After some looking around, it seemed like there was a switch from the CVT everyone hated to the Aisin, however based on your comment on some more reading, it sounds like all R50 automatics had the notoriously abhorrent CVT?

 

BMW added the Aisin option to facelift R53s (or at least it was MY2005, IIRC). The base cars didn't get a true slushbox until the second gen hardtops came out in 2007.

Way actually offers a conversion kit for the CVT to manual swap, which I think says something about how reliable they are.

 

True I guess that explains why I finally saw a "good deal" for a low miles rust free mini cooper near me !

 

Haha. Well, there are still CVT cars kicking around that are running and driving, so presumably they didn't all die. And maybe changing the fluid every 30k is enough, but there are enough horror stories that it gives me pause. It reminds me of Acura guys changing trans fluid every few oil changes in an effort to keep those POS autos from eating themselves.