I went to get an oil change at 5,000 miles because I didn’t want to wait 10k like Mini scheduled maintenance would suggest. Anyways when we got under the car I noticed that there was some transmission fluid residue on the casing. I took it into the dealer and after inspection I received a phone call stating that they were going to replace the entire unit. The transmission was shifting fine and this seemed a bit extreme to me. Is there some sort of recall or is this standard procedure for the dealers to do? I have been without my car for 1 week and counting.

 

I would not worry about it too much. You are much better off with an entirely brand new unit, than one with just replaced components.

 

Likely the seal between the two transmission case halves started leaking. Mini doesn't open up the transmission for anything they always just replace. Supposedly there aren't any published torque specs for the transmission so I'm not sure anybody rebuilds them either. Probably just easier for them to just replace instead of worrying about messing something up opening up the transmission to fix the leak.

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Just out of curiosity, you said it was shifting fine so you have manual trans?
Let us know if they replaced any clutch component's when you get it back.

 

UPDATE: They replaced the entire transmission about a week and a half ago (no clutch components were changed). On Saturday while my car was undergoing a muffler delete, I went to look at the transmission casing and sure enough the thing is leaking once again. There is transmission oil residue on the casing. This is beginning to get frustrating as they had my car for 7 days last time around.

 

That looks like it could have been a remanufactured trans. I don't remember any sealant sticking out of the two case halves like that red stuff in the picture. They could have not sealed it back up properly. Sorry you're having so many issues with it