Do you think the CVT failure issue is a common problem or something that has been blown out of proportion?

I own a 2005 r50 with a CVT. I never worried until being on the forums. Just wondered what everyones opinion is on this issue....

 

The CVT owners I know personally (three) have been quite happy with theirs. Two of those MINIs are '04s and one I believe is an '02.

 

that is good to hear!

 

I am NOT worried about mine. Have to admit getting a bit spooked after all the gloom and doom of the forums. Some of it coming from non-owners of this type of equipment. Spent about $1600 on the EW just in case, plus it will help out is the PWR STRG or WTR PMP go out, which is about SOP with any old car. I had to replace the steering box and water pump on my 96 Ram and even added this "special brace" to help prevent future failures of the pitman bearing.
When these things are made in heaven then we can stop worrying about failures. Until then we'll have to accept that man made stuff may or may not fail. Enjoy your ride and hopefully you called Warranty Direct and negotiated a more palatable EW program to ease your mind.

 

Our first MINI was a 2002 R50 CVT (Pepper white/Black) that we ordered and bought brand new in August 2002. We put 45K miles and drove it DAILY for nearly 6 years with no problems of any kind

It was my wife's daily driver and we took it in many long distance road trip vacations. It was a sweet "Plain Jane" base Cooper.

I sold it in February to a fellow NAMer out in California last February (To get our Clubman S), and to the best of my knowledge, the car now carves the canyons near Los Angeles with no problems whatsoever.

So the moral of the story with the CVT is maintenance, maintenance and maintenance. I changed the transmission oil at 26K miles as preventive measure and that helped a lot with reliability.

The CVT is prone to premature failure and your best bet is to change that transmission oil every 25K miles or so, regardless of what the dealer says that it is a "lifetime" fluid

Enjoy your car.

 

This ^^^ is good advice.

A local CVT owning friend just had their CVT die. Lucky for them they are still under warranty.

I wonder why MINI stopped using the CVT when they switched to the R56? Hmm.

 

at how many miles did it die?

I have 44k on mine and need it to last 75-100k

 

Two 2006 Coopers with CVT transmissions, each with about 36,000 miles on them. No signs of any problems yet and I give mine quite a workout in the sport and manual modes.

 

It died at 38K. Some last much longer some don't.