I thought it was nothing serious until last week. 1st, 2nd, 3rd gear as soon as I approach 4,000 rpm the gearshift makes a (now) very loud vibration/noise. If I rest my hand on the gearshift and move it just a tad one way or the other, the noise goes away.

It's really pronounced when downshifting too. I have an appt at Mini of Pittsburgh on Thursday for a software install (cold start problem) and a PA State Inspection. I will now delay the inspection and have them look at this little issue.

I'll report back what they find, since I seem to remember another thread about this.

Has anyone else had this sort of thing looked at? If so, what was the problem?

Thanks.

 

Wow! It sure sounds like there is something jacked up in your trans. Not cool and not cheep to fix. Thank god for warrenty work. I hate to sound so glum about that, but usually a vibration from the shifter means this.

Frank

 

Please report back ASAP. I got the exact same issue. I could not descrive it better. Right at 4000RPM.....I need to make an appt.
But I will delay to here from you. Thanks in advance.

MiniBlue

 

Just so you know, I'm off to Mini of Pittsburgh tomorrow to have this looked at. 135 mile drive from here so I'll have plenty of time to evaluate the problem on my way down.

What I've been able to see so far is
Noticeable at around 4000 rpm in 1st gear
Not noticeable in 2nd gear
VERY noticeable from 3800 to 4200 rpm in 3rd gear. 3rd gears is by far the worst.
Not noticeable in 4th gear
In 5th gear? well at that speed the road noise is a bit too much to hear anything but wind and road.

The service guys are going to think I'm nuts!

 

I’m with MINI USA. I’m sorry to read about your problem with your gearshift. If you want our assistance, please phone us at (866) ASK MINI.

 

My conversation with the service guy went something like this:

Me: "So you need to order a part?"
Him: "Yeah"

Me: "So was it broken"
Him: "No, a bad part"

Me: "In the gearshift?"
Him: "Yeah"

Not exactly overflowing with specific details was he? But apparrently it wasn't serious enough for him to prevent me from driving 160 miles home, so sometime next week when the part comes in (whatever that mysterious part might be) I'll be driving back to Pittsburgh. (not really a bad thing, several hours of motoring )

Overall impression, being my first visit to Mini service was good though. They did re-program the DME to cure the cold start problem I mentioned, and they did program DRL's and central unlocking ($18.75 for each feature, nice work if you can get it!)