The engineers of the CVT say change the fluid every 45,000km (about 28k miles). See page 11 of this doc:

http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/dept/pse/...F%20040323.pdf

It is the DEALERS who are misinformed and not to be trusted if they say it's a lifetime fluid. Older fluid will not transfer heat as well. Hotter transmission = quicker failure.

 

Most are failing at about 80K miles so if you know someone with 100K on the same tranny it wont be working for very much longer. It's really not the transmission at all, but the lack of scheduled maintenance like any other transmission. There isn't some MINI magic making their transmissions different from any other manufacturer.

No different than making a supercharger with voids full of "life time lubrication" which cannot be accessed w/o the complete dissasembly of cars front end....8 hr job for 6 oz of fluid no planned maintenance system in place...

And then there are the Life Time PCV valves.....Every other manufacturer has a scheduled maintence interval for it's replacement. It vents pressures in the engine preventing the failure of O-rings and gaskets which result in oil leaks...sound familiar ? Yet apparenlty the ones in our car are again..."lifetime."

 

I have 130k miles on my Caliber's Jatco CVT2...the first fluid exchange in the owner's manual says 120k miles, but that's under the severe driving schedule. What was the deal with the MINI's CVT?

 

I had nearly the same issue a few weeks ago. I have an 08 MCS as well. I bought it last September and the warranty expired in Jan 2012. I was cruising at highway speed (approx 65mph) when I noticed a significant power drop. At first I thought the turbo blew (I am at about 46,600 miles and I hear turbos sometimes fail around 50,000 miles). But the turbo was fine. The car struggled to idle and I knew something was wrong. I thought is was just carbon build up that was causing a cylinder to misfire. On my way over to the dealership I got a yellow CEL (this is after approx 15 miles of driving). Yellow CEL means that the car needs to be serviced but it's not an immediate problem. The dealership told me the cylinder is misfiring because there is no compression to that cylinder. The next day they had told me that the connecting rod in cylinder three exploded a sent metal into the rest of the engine and that I would need to replace the engine which would be at approx $6500 plus tax. I opted to replace the engine with a JCW engine because I had planned on modding the car later on. I told the dealership I was willing to pay labor, tax, and the difference in cost between the engines, but that I didn't think I should pay for a new engine since I bought this car as a certified pre-owned car and if it weren't for its age this would be covered under mileage warranty. I was told MINI wouldn't even help me out with the JCW engine when I thought I was being more than reasonable by offering to pay for labor, tax, and the difference (afterall I didn't have to upgrade and they would make money even if they covered some of the cost). I was told they would only cover 75% of the cost of a standard MCS engine. I would contact MINI really pissed off. I just got my car back today and I am calling to ask MINI to cover 20% of my incurred costs. Personally, I would replace the engine. Because at least that would be under warranty rather than just the replacement parts, and it seems you are looking at the same costs.

 

I you are out of warranty and they will cover 75% of the cost of a standard MCS engine I'd say you should take that asap.

 

How come then, MINI has reduced the oil change intervals to around 10K miles in the N18 engines?

 

Probably because it got confusing as to when the scheduled maintenance kicked in: a year, or when the light came on? And out of warranty people can't figure out how to reset the timer. 10k is easy. Oil changes are cheap.

 

Is the above poster out of warranty? If the car is CPO, wasn't the warranty extended to 6 years/100,000 miles? That's what the MINI Next page says...

 

UPDATE:
Well I had my meeting today with the service manager at MINI of Allentown. They have pretty much dropped the whole oil arguement since there is no way they can prove or disprove that it caused the problem. They are now saying that the timing belt basically "stretched" causing it to jump timing and for lack of a better term destroy the engine.

Mini has agreed to put 2k towards the repair instead of the original 500 they offered. The dealership is going to knock money off the labor so it would cost us about 3k to get the car fixed. They would be doing a rebuild not a engine swap.

I am just really concerned at this point since it was such a catastrophic engine failure, that there might be something else that they couldn't see and a couple months or a year down the road we could be in the same boat. So they are in the process of running numbers for us on a new Countryman All 4.

Thanks for all of the feedback and i will keep you guys updated.

 

After a complete engine rebuild, it is unlikely that there would be "something else that they couldn't see". They'll see everything and check everything when the engine is apart, they don't want to do it all over. Your rebuilt engine will be assembled with more care than a new engine and will probably last longer.

Dave

 

I would assume that there is a warranty on the engine rebuild. $3k is a much more manageable number.

 

Did your wife hear the death rattle in the morning before this happened?

 

What about the BMW and Mini OEM 5W30 oils - I assume both those are on the list (and also assume it's the same oil)?

 

I would push for a factory remanufactured engine, not a dealer rebuild. How many do they do? Probably not many. Factory reman should be very solid as it's probably same factory that builds the original motor.

 

Yes she did.. The car always sounded a little rough when it was cold out, but would go away as it warmed up. This time instead of going away it got worse and died.

 

I read these stories, realizing it's the "minority report" of ownership, but I can't help wondering how MINI/BMW is going to avoid a costly Class Action settlement.

Too common, too often just outside warranty.

 

I have always been pro mini... My wife and I have had 3 of them since 2004. Whenever someone asks me about my car I always tell them how much I love it and how reliable it is. I understand that with ANY car you can end up with a catastrophic engine failure, but after researching this issue I am finding that it is apparently more common than I thought.

I now plan on taking my JCW to the dealer for any little noise the engine makes while it is still under warranty. They will be sick of seeing me, but there is no way this is going to happen to me again.

 

Glad that things are slowly working in your favor. $3000 is still hard to take, but it's better than $7000 I guess!

I asked the service manager at my dealership about that, and he said it was still 15k miles. Is there a bulletin or announcement from Mini that I can show him?