Wow, I have no idea what happened, but I was driving down the street shifting like I normally do when all of a sudden I COMPLETELY lost power. It seemed as though my car was stuck in nuetral. When I push the accelerator nothing happened. There seemed to be a lil bit of ?spooling? as I could hear it from the engine, but no power/torque whatsoever. I felt like a horse with no legs, had the will, but no means. I even tried shifting it back to drive, nuetral, sport drive. I then stopped somewhere and turned off the car for a few seconds, but still had the same problem even when reversing. What seemed to be happening was a major lag. When I was trying to go forwards I would hold the accelerator a bit with no response, but after like 10 seconds or so there would be a random jerk, the jerk was not consistent with how often I pushed the accelerator though, it didn't happen much during my the power loss. However, after driving the car for a minute or two everything went back to normal.



Has anyone experienced this? The car is good now, but I'm guessing I should take it to the shop sometime soon.

I've never had any problems with the CVT. It's an October build, 2005 MC.

 

I had a similar issue with a BMW 330i Auto Sport tranny. I turned the car over and the RPMs were all over the place and I had to floor it to make it move. I ended up calling BMW roadside assistance and the tech said the engine ECU died. This issue didn't resolve itself as yours did. I don't know if this helps but I thought of this happening to me when I read your post.

 

thanks for the comment. I'm guessing nothing "died" since the car seems fine now. I also don't think it was the gas or anything, since I get gas from pretty much the same place, unless it was just a bad batch. Well, still hoping for more comments.

 

My 04 did it once when I first got it, then a year later it happened every day, just like you described. I had Mini roadiside take it to the dealer (100 miles away), at first they did not see it happen, then a day after it happened, after replacing the control module which did not fix it. They replaced the CVT, it is now riding perfect since (replaced 3 montha ago).

Definitly take it to the dealer, if it is far away have roadside take it for you. The dealer also payed for a rental (1 week).

You can do a search here under Major CVT lag for the full story. A lot of people here told me it was normal. IT IS NOT NORMAL! It should act like a regular transmission. Now it goes right into gear.

Let me know the outcome!!

Mulcher

 

I don't have a CVT,but my 03MC did the same thing after plowing through a snow storm,stopped the car,left it running while I did a quick shovel of where I park,got in the car to drive it up the driveway,no power,and the idle sounded very laboured.Got the car to it's parking spot,turned it off and on 3 times,and the idle was better,took it around the block,all was fine.When I had the car into the dealer,and had them check for codes,a blocked
air intake came up.Must have swallowed some snow,and sitting let it ice up.Then I had to cycle the ECU to clear it.

 

yeesh, definitely need to get to the dealer. The only thing was I didn't want to waste my time with taking it since it most likely won't happen while it's there. Hopefully they'll be able to find something and fix it.

how sad. My MINI was ALMOST perfect, besides paintwork and now I have this.

 

Hey,your MINI is perfect,they all need some dealer time.
They may be able to get this problem from the ECU,If it made a code go off.
I have had big and small issues with my MC,dealer has been great.
The car has never failed me

 

2002 Cooper CVT, 28K miles, ZERO problemos...

 

Sounds like it went into BMWs Famous "Limp Mode" I had that happen to me on a Z4 but it was fine after I restarted the engine... Take it to the dealer... it should have recorded some faults... have them read it.

 

sure.... SHOVE it in my face why don't you!

 

it must be famous. I had this problem when I was driving my uncle's 540. But in that case it simply died after limping and I had to push it a few blocks home.

 

update:

well it happened again today. was at a light and tried to go at green. It went for a small microsecond, enough for me to move about 7 feet, but then i couldn't go.

had to restart it and afterwards it was fine. The check engine light came on for the lag/stall, but it went off after the restart. I was wonderiing if anybody knows if I can still pull a code with autozone even though the light is out now. any help is appreciated

 

sounds like the CVT equivalent of getting stuck in high gear.

we have some machines at work that are driven by a similar dual-conical sprocket belt system and if it's not spooled back down to low-speed before cutting the drive motor, "bad stuff" happens. Either the motor stalls (being electric, they'll overheat and fry themselves -- probably not likely with a gas motor) or the belt can slip and glaze. Or, with a mindful operator, the machine can be cranked down to a low speed. This is almost totally comparable to cranking too fast through the derailleur on a bicycle. Changing the gears with too low of a speed or no power applied at all will cause massive slippage followed by an eventual hard engagement of the gear. I think this is what happened in the parent poster's situation. For some reason, the tranny either got stuck in too high of a ratio or not fully engaged on a low ratio then eventually properly engaged into the correct position with a pop.