Had the gear oil changed in my 04 MC at 30k-don't know if it had ever been changed before, bought it used.
Had some significant metal shavings on the magnetic plug. Going to run it a few days and flush it out again. Any recommendations as to what to run gear oil wise?

 

The type of gear oil should be listed in your owners manual. As far as the metal shavings go that is not uncommon. As long as there were no large chunks of metal I wouldn't worry.

 

MINI recommends BMW MTF 94. I run Redline MTL as do many others with no issues. As for the shavings, the PO (previous owner) or you might have missed shifts, etc that caused small pieces of the gears to grind off. Tiny shavings are ok, big shavings are a problem as Crashton said. Change the fluid now and then see what it looks like in another 30k miles.

 

My MCS had no shavings at 50k miles but it doesn't have magnetic drain bolts either. My Lotus Europa had a bunch of tiny shavings like you and it only has 17k on the clock (although it is 37 years old).

 

I'm going to flush it out in about a week and reinstall Redline MT. Hopefully there won't be too many shavings second time around. Pretty evident the guy before me didn't pay much attention. Seems like a cheap way to keep your tranny nice and fresh.

 

you better keep an eye on it ... had the same problem and need a tranmission repair. Ron

 

My original mini had a magnetic drain plug and always had metal shavings that looked like fur ( you know like on an animal ) or frost and that was normal. The new MINI may not be that way but very fine particles may be normal with the magnetic plugs.