$660??? Geeez....... So you should be okay for the next ????? thousand miles??? Yes, I'm sure it could be worse. They gave you a loaner??? Nice dealer. Did you buy your car from them?

 

$1050??? That is insane. This sounds like a defect alright. Do you mind me asking how many miles are on your yours? I'd definitely shop around to another dealer. Even if you have to travel a bit.

 

Does anyone know what causes the pump to fail? Or is it the cooling fan that fails????

 

the next closest Mini dealership is 200 miles away :-(

77k miles on stock pump.
they didnt' look at the car, just quoted me over the phone

 

I'd still call the other dealer for a quote. Heck, I'd drive 400 miles to save $400. That's about 1 tank of gas to make the trip?? A full tank of premium is $44 where I am located. Call them anyway. Or order the new pump and fan from another dealer where its cheaper, have it shipped to you and just pay the labor at your local dealer if you don't want to (or can't) make the drive.

 

just filed my complaint to the safecar, from what I learnt here, guess I should go fix and keep the receipt for possible refund if the recall went through.

 

$660 isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I didn't purchase my car new or from that dealer. The loaner was nicer than my car so its hard to complain about that and it was free. Just put $10 of gas into it. The pump lasted almost to 90k miles so as long as it doesn't go out before that number I'll probably never have to worry about it again. Problem is because the pump didn't stop running and drained the battery twice it killed the battery. Its having a hard time cold cranking now.

 

You went to a nice dealer indeed! I've called quite a few dealers about service and they don't give loaners unless the vehicle was purchased from them. Mini dealers must be a different breed.

 

i just called up and emailed couple dealers here and got both quote of ~1000 for the replacement. Guess I have to eat that and hope for the recall will go thru, but dont know when. :(

 

How can it be $340 more than what I paid at a dealer? You in downtown NY or LA? Did they quote you for a new steering rack or pump or pump and fan...

 

Exactly, hey FS-Mini,
See below from earlier in this thread. Maybe you should call this dealer in NY and see if you can buy the part from them, have it shipped to you and just pay for labor at your local dealer.


It's worth a try. $400 for the pump instead of whatever they're overcharging you for......

 

Thanks for advice, however I got it fixed already. Overall cost is ~1000 + tax. Part was about 600 and 400 labor.

Not sure is due to this visit to fix, now my right hand side HID headlight leveling is not working, just found tonight the left hand side is working but the right hand side one is pointing down all the time. :( All the sudden I am getting all the issues one at a time and my MCS is relatively low mileage (~47K for over 6yrs)

 

Finally heard back from Classic MINI after taking my car in and paying $60 just to hear that my power steering pump is non-functional (o'rly?)

MINI HAS DECLINED to be of any assistance on the repair because I am now out of warranty. That is true, but shouldn't the fact that I mentioned the noisy pump on 03/18/10 when the car had 47,865 miles on it and again on 07/21/10 when the car had 54,540 on it mean something? That and the fact that there is an open investigation on the car specifically because of the high number of failures on this specific part?

I am not looking for a freebie, but something along the lines of them paying for the defective part and me covering the cost of installation. I wonder if this is worth escalating or if I would just wasting my own time...

 

I'm having the same issue. Pump Failure that is. It's been going on for quite some time, but I didn't realize what it was, just that the power steering was going on and then coming back on etc... What finally kicked me in the butt to research it (i'm NOT a car person) was the fact that I now hear a high-pitched 'wheee'ing sound and my battery (pretty new) was completely dead this morning.

I called the only Mini Dealership in WA and they quoted me 1300$.
I called a local mechanic here in town and after he called around he quoted me 1095$ He says the part, new and updated, is 800$. Installing it isn't a problem, the cost is almost all associated with the part.

Is this something I need to call it, as it says on the first page of this thread? Is that still working?

Also, big question here, can I continue to drive the car just disconnect a lead from the battery so that it won't drain?

 

I have a 04 Mini Cooper S with 138,000 mi. that had this problem. The pump would stay on all the time. Even after the car was shut off. The pump is supposed to run only when you are turning the steering wheel. This is a good gas saver when it works. But after running the battery dead or not running at all it is a big problem.

I fixed the problem my self but it takes a bit of work. The main problem is that the electric motor that powers the pump is a totally sealed unit with no vents like a normal motor. This is probably because of where is located under the car and exposed to water and debris. This is also why it has to have an outside fan blowwing on it to try to keep it cool. Most electric motors have a fan built in to the end of the housing to blow air over the inside to cool it. But with no vents, the outside fan is used. As the brushes in the motor wear the graphite dust from them has no place to go. The housing packs up full of this dust until it can get the to circuit board that controls turning the motor on and off. Because graphite dust is a great conductor it shorts out the board and then the pump can get stuck on or off. I took my pump apart and found it packed full, I mean full of dust. I had a pile about an 1” deep on my bench. I fixed mine by blowing out the dust and cleaning the circuit board. It has been working good for about 8 months now.

Warning. It is quite a little bit of work to do this repair. You have to remove the pump and take the electric motor apart from the pump and then to get to the circuit board you have to clip the main wires that are attached to it. These wires will then have to be soldered back together. So while this might not be a job for many it will give you some of the reasons for the pump not working right. Im sorry but I don’t have many pictures as I was in a hurry to get my car running. But I do have a few bad cell phone pictures. One picture is of the top of the electic motor where the brushes are before I cut the wires to remove it an one that shows the main red wires after I had cut them to remove the top to get to the board. The gold bars in the first pic are the holders for the brushes. All 4 of the dust makers. LOL The next picture you can see the circut board in the back.
Hope this can help some.

 

Couple more pictures.
One of all the dust and one of the housing full of dust.

 

I would be more inclined to do this as maintenance if we could find a source for the brushes. Any clues?

Rich

 

has anyone tried to run a inline filter on the intake line from the resevoir? Depending on how much pressure it runs at it might be easy protection

 

I wouldn't consider this a maintenance item, more of a last ditch effort. Mainly because of the effort and time required to R and R this thing.
Plus my brushes had about half left, so if it went 100,000+ on half the brushes by 200,000+ miles I'm thinking you would probably need a rebuilt pump too. Although the pump looked really clean inside with no scoring so who knows.
Although if you know a place that does electric motor repair they might be able to get some new brushes for you but I'm not sure. Like I said I just needed to get back on the road.

 

Mine fluttered in and out for a few weeks and finally went around new years at around 125,000 miles on my 2002 R50.......

 

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you. My '05 Cooper S, with 51,000 started to have a power-steering issue about 2 weeks ago. I will basically be driving when all of a sudden my steering wheel will really tighten up, and make steering damn near impossible. I took it to my mechanic who has a 04 Cooper and an '11 Countryman. He said I had absolutely no oil in my car, even though my mini said I still had about 2500 miles before one was needed, also, no warning lights ever came on. In researching my issue, I was directed here, read all the previous posts and immediatley put in a complaint to the NHTSA, I also emailed Mini as well wondering why no recall has ever been called for.

Right now the issue comes and goes with no warning...I am extremely disgusted at BMW, I had thought better of them. I guess it will take someone getting into a fatal accident to have them investigate this. And that's just a damn shame.

Thank you for letting me vent...

 

I replaced my power steering pump this weekend. Fairly easy install, with the biggest challenges being the low pressure hose and the general lack of room to maneuver. I bought a reconditioned unit on eBay for just under $390 and did it on ramps in my garage.

I am still very disappointed in MINI/BMW for not helping me out on this. I did not expect them to cover the repair fully, but would have liked them to do do something like pay for the clearly substandard part and I would have covered the labor. I also would have liked them to give more than one damn attempt at returning my calls and emails!

 

i jut filed my complaint today, power steering went out last night. UGH!

 

Mine went out while still in warranty. Nearest dealer is 150 miles. So they truck came out, loaded her up, when she arrived, of course, it was working fine, and since they couldn't get the problem to replicate, they sent it back.

About a month later, happened again. Sent car back up to the next state. Told them to keep it until it happened. Four days later, it did.

Oy. I guess the point of my long tale is unless it failed for the dealer, and mine always failed intermittently, they weren't going to fix it. This was back in... '06. When it was already a well-known problem. I found the attitude rather wanting even though I was lucky enough to get it fixed in warranty.

 

Sorry all: I think I found my answer on another post!