I have a 2002 Cooper that I just took on a short trip to go backpacking. On the way, I heard something that sounded like I ran over a license plate once or twice. Once we got to Red River Gorge, on the way to the trail, there was a loud clacking sound and it dumped transmission fluid all over the road. I pulled off to the side and later we got a tow dolly to bring the car back to Cincinnati. We took two attempts to drive it on the dolly and the car drove, but struggled. When trying to roll the car on the dolly the right wheel locked up some and required extra effort to roll it past. After getting it home, I got it up on jacks. The under carriage is saturated, so I can't really tell where the leak is located, but I can hear a grating in the long axle on the passenger side. My question is, does it sound like a transmission issue or an axle issue? If it is transmission related, what is the likelihood of having to replace the whole thing?

 

If you don't see an obvious hole in the case, I'm guessing it might be the axle that was making the noise and then perhaps the stress of the axle failing caused the axle seal on that side of the transmission to fail. They are either a weak spot or easy to put in wrong. When the clutch on my wife's R50 was replaced they failed to put in the seal correctly and it leaked until we brought it back under warranty and made them put a new one in that didn't leak.

That said- I have not heard of a catastrophic seal failure before.

Val