I bought my first Mini Cooper about a month ago. It's an '04 MC with only 16,000 miles on it. I noticed within the past week or so that the power steering is whining and it's getting harder to turn the wheel when I'm pulling out of my driveway. My problem is that I live about 2-1/2 hrs from the nearest Mini Dealer. I have a warrenty with the place where i bought it, but I'm wondering if they're somewhat easy to fix because they don't normally work on Mini's. I'm assuming it's the power steering pump, right?

Any opinions are greatly appreciated!

 

If your pump didn't totally quit working, but works and is just noisey...And I suspect that if you drive it for a while the fluid gets hot, expands and seems to work better.

I'd bet that your PS rack is leaking and you are low on fluid.

HTH,

Chad