I have a production week 2 2008 MCS and my car does not have a steering wheel lock. I'm currently using 2007 R56 Cooper and there is definitely a steering wheel lock that engages upon removing the key fob and disengages upon putting it in. I can actually hear it engage/disengage. the same is not true for my R56 where not only is there no sound, but you cannot even manually engage the lock by turning the steering wheel after the fob is removed.

Does anyone have any info on this?

 

I believe several people have confirmed that 08 does not have the steering wheel lock.

 

Does anyone know why they removed it? Seems like a nice security feature to just toss out.

 

I remember this was brought up in another thread somewhere. My R56 does not have steering wheel lock either.

Pretty dumb to get rid of somehing simple as that without a good explanation!

 

I have an 07 that does not have a steering wheel lock.

 

if you have it or don't, please post not only your model year, i.e. 2007/08 but also production week.

 

I'm not sure what production week i was. My order date was 2/9/08 and delivery 3/19/08. How do i find out my production week? Owners lounge somewhere, maybe?

 

My guess is that they removed the steering wheel lock because too many people couldn't start their car when the steering is under tension (which prevents unlock). With a conventional key, you can't turn the key when the steering is under tension and it's pretty obvious that you need to wiggle the steering wheel to let it unlock. However if you press the start button and nothing happens, it isn't intuitive that you might have to jiggle the steering wheel. MINI dealers probably received too many calls.

 

I don't know the production date of my car which is a 2008 MCS and yes I discovered today infact that there is no steering wheel lock!?! When I shut off the car and turned the steering wheel thinking it would lock but it just kept turning the wheels.All of my past cars had that and I was surprised to find out this doesn't.

Definitely seems to have been either an oversight for discontinuing that feature or some other motive behind it like cost cutting.

 

I don't have it and I don't miss it. 08 Clubman, base, manual.

 

No because on the R56 the steering lock automatically engaged/disengaged upon keyfob removal/entry. You didn't have to wiggle the steering wheel or anything like that. It was painless really.

 

Not if there is some tension on the steering system. Several people mentioned the issue in this thread: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...d.php?t=109818. I'm betting that enough people had an issue with it that MINI disabled the steering lock.

 

Also there were instances where the electronic widgit locked the steering wheel after a brush with another car, or a guard rail, the driver found himself going on down the road with the steering locked. Really glad they left that out of mine.

 

Interesting...maybe due to these reasons they found that it was better to just take it out instead of correcting the problems? Too bad as I really like the feature on this R56 loaner I have.

 

My '05 R53 S has the steering wheel lock but not our '08 Clubman S.

 

So the conclusion is that MINI deleted the steering wheel lock starting sometime in late '07 models and '08 models thus far.

 

Very interesting; I always thought the steering lock was a basic anti-theft feature. It would be curious to know what the whole story is; I wonder if Gabe @ Motoringfile could dig up this sort of info?

 

My theory is that it has something to do with new-fangled motor turnoff thing that's in the Euro cars.

 

We brought this up in the "things you didn't know about your MINI" thread. I think we decided the manual talks about the steering wheel lock, but we don't have it. I have an Aug 07 build, if that helps.

 

Your Aug 07 build doesn't have it? That's quite far back and strange because the loaner I had the other day was a September '07 build and it did have it.

 

Do you really need a steering wheel lock anymore?

 

yeah i'd feel better having one.

 

Well, use one of these . I once had a co-worker who used "The Club" but only put it on for show and never actually locked it. It was pretty funny to watch her get in the car and simply collapse it and take it off without unlocking.

 

There's gotta be some advantage of having no wheel lock that we haven't thought of yet. If it was to fix the sticky lock issue, BMW could've just made it possible to allow the engine to start no matter what, and once the engine is started, the wheel could be easily turned to un-stick the lock.

Maybe, in a situation where the electrical died completely, and you're in the middle of the street, you can still turn the steering wheel while pushing the car to the side of the road.

 

My car has comfort access and no steering wheel lock. I wonder if this is something they removed for that feature. For those without comfort access, does your steering wheel lock?