So the dreaded CVT gremlin reared its ugly head for me yesterday about 20 minutes into a 7-hour drive home from Long Beach to Sacramento. Got my 2004 base cooper with 75k miles towed to Long Beach Mini and rented a car to get me and the mrs. back home for work today. Tech called and they say I need a new tranny for the bargain price of $7500.

Here's the situation: I still owe $15k on the car, trade-in places it about $11k to $12k (the engine only has 55k miles on it-long story) so I'm upside down $4k already. Now that number will become $11,500 after repairs. What's a guy to do? BTW - in the year and a half I've owned this car, I've now replaced the Power Steering Pump, Radiator and Thermostat.

Suck it up? Abandon the loan and tell the repo guy the address in LB? Is it good money after bad or just the cost of having a go kart?

I'm waiting for a quote from Walter at Valley Motorwerks here in town (who's awesome!) for a refurb tranny and his labor's about $40 cheaper per hour than the dealership in Long Beach. Anyone know a good transport vendor?

Any help much appreciated!

 

Heres what I have learned of late about MINI Trans. All of the rebuilds come out of a MINI Dealer and they are giving repair shops very little off retail on the price of the tranny. The job books out, the book rate, at 10 hours +/- so you can save about $400 bucks there. That $400 is about the cost of getting a buddy with a truck and trailer to drive there and bring it home for you.

Should you do it? Not sure, if you had an extended warranty you'd be much better off, but that's for the next car or this MINI after the repair.

If you plan on keeping this MINI for a long time, might be worth it, not sure you want to take the hit on credit for sending an address to the repo man.

Might cost less to have a 5 or 6 speed put in it.

Our local indy shop can do a R50 5 speed trans for about $3500.00

 

I would say that it definitely isn't worth the hit on your credit. I'd call around and see what a few independent MINI shops would charge to do the job. You can try Danny at minicorsa who isn't too far from Long Beach. There are a few more shops in the SoCal area but I've only had experience with minicorsa and it's all been positive.

 

May want to work the dealer a bit and ask if Mini is willing to help with any of the bill. Seeing how prone the Auto Trans is to issues I would think they may step up with something. They sure aren't going to offer it though, you'll need to ask, and you may need to call Mini direct and ask someone for help 866.ASK.MINI