By the way, for all of you wondering how to check the transmission fluid temperature when you refill, can I suggest these two items:

1. ($11) ELM327 OBDII bluetooth adapter, like this one:
2. ($5) Torque Pro app for Android. https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...g.prowl.torque

With an outlay of $16, you can not only read your trans fluid temperature from the ECU (which gets it from the thermometer inside the valve body), but all sorts of other cool stuff like reading ECU codes and clearing them.

This combo will pay for itself over and over again if you do any kind of work on your own cars. Any car after like 2000 or so has the standard OBDII interface.

If you have an iPhone I can't help you. I think there are similar apps for the iPhone, but I refuse to join that cult, sorry!

 

Sorry I missed this question earlier - have not been on here much lately.

I waited till after the Christmas holidays to spend the $$ for the valve job. I went to Multi State Transmission in Naperville (just off Odgen). They were recommended by RevMax. Although, they did not put a rebuilt VB by RevMax in - they actually rebuilt my VB and reinstalled it!! This gave me more piece of mind knowing I was getting my VB (with only 65k miles) vs an unknown rebuilt VB with who knows how many miles on it. They gave me an 18mth warranty.

I've been driving it for about 1000 miles thus far and it's fine (though when it shifts from 3rd to 4th it does so at 4000RPMs compared to about 3500RPMs before the VB job). Multistate had me in & out for about $1200. I left the car with him while I was on vaca so he had a full week to do the job. If in a rush he probably could do it in 2 or 3 days.

 

I replaced my valve body with a reman one from RevMax. Very easy to do, if you are able to get your trans pan off of the car. Since I had previously removed my pan as part of a flush, this was a non-issue.

The old valve body came out easy, following the Bentley instructions and the new one went in easily enough, simply by reversing those instructions.

I refilled the fluid to the correct level (from the top of the trans case) to the correct temperature with a running engine, then sealed everything back up and put all the pieces back together. I reset the adaptations using a cable I got from eBay (it came with Inpa), and executed the procedure to re-teach the ECU the idiosyncrasies of the new valve body.

Car runs great now, no hard shifts or surges. Hopefully I caught this early enough that there was no lasting damage to the trans. Also, hopefully the reman'ed VB with the upgraded parts will last a bit longer this time.

All told, about an hour to remove and replace the valve body, 30 mins to refill the trans and put all the pieces together, then an hour of driving around.

Quick and clean, thanks for the guidance to everyone here.

 

Hi SingleMalt,
Well done. How did you get the trans to fill in only 1/2hour? What did you use to get the fluid into that hole without backing out?
It took me hours to do with a funnel.

 

I found a piece of tubing laying around that was the perfect size to literally screw into that fill hole. By screwing the tubing in, it made a good enough seal that fluid did not leak out.

I jammed a big funnel into the other end of the tubing, and held it over my head to let gravity do as much work as possible.

I also pre-warmed the transmission fluid by letting the bottles sit in a 5-gal bucket filled with hot water for about 30 minutes. The warm fluid had much lower viscosity and combined with the height of the funnel, made it flow into the trans case pretty easily.

This was actually my 3rd fluid change on this vehicle (and the second in 3 weeks ), so I am getting pretty comfortable with the process.

 

Update on the above. The Mini does not report trans temp over standard OBDII. I used a surface temperature monitor on the bottom of the trans pan to measure fluid temp.

I'm not sure if a BMW cable and Inpa would work for monitoring the fluid temp, I didn't try.

The OBDII and Torque are good for lots of other stuff though

 

I bought this funnel from Target for a buck (yes, one dollar). It is long enough to reach the ATF fill plug. AND, more importantly, the outlet fits perfectly into the fill hole - fits very snugly so the fluid does not run out. I would have paid $100 for this - almost like it was made for filling the ATF on a Mini. Note that I did cut a notch out of the top to give it more room and allow it to stand perpendicular.

http://www.target.com/webapp/wcs/sto...5/-/A-13740977

 

Oooo, I like that. I'll get one next time I am at Target. That will come in handy for lots of purposes, not just filling up the Mini's trans.

 

Hello everyone, I have a 05 Mini Cooper S with the 6 speed auto. It has 55k miles on it and the transmission was slipping in the standard drive mode, and it would slam when going into reverse once it heated up. After reading this thread I decided to do the Rev Max VB swap. I made sure the car was level and the ATF was at the correct level when I was done with the swap. I backed the car up 2 times to get it out of my back yard and then took it for about a 5 mile drive just to see if it was better. It seemed to be much better, no slipping. Right as I was slowing down to turn into my drive way it downshifted very violently. So I stopped the car on the street then attempted to shift into park and then reverse. That's when I realized that I had lost reverse. At this point I was just past my drive way so I decided to drive it around the block to get it back in the driveway. Again it up shifted just fine. Then as I slowed down to make a stop it violently downshifted, almost as if it was trying to go to reverse or park. The car never totally stopped, maybe for a brief second, and then let go back to first gear. I got the car home and let it cool off. Then started it up again and tried to shift to reverse but still nothing. Has anyone had this problem or maybe a solution to the problem? I would call Rev Max, but they wont be in till Monday. I was hoping someone has the fix and maybe I could get it going this weekend.

 

I ended up getting my fluid changed for about $600.00 about 2 months after this post. (end of November) There was no improvement and the shop recommended a new transmission. My husband actually thought it was running worse on the almost 200 mile drive back to Casper than it did on the way to the shop in Denver. Since the MINI wasn't stranding me and my daily commute is short (about 5 miles) and I have AAA and an alternate car if things got worse, I decided to just keep driving it until I couldn't or it was a more convenient time to take it back to Denver. About 3 months later (February) I realized it was no longer bucking and shifting hard into reverse! I am a little nervous about traveling far this summer but as long as the problem doesn't start again I will.

Now I have to decide if I am just going to get another fluid change in another 50,000 miles if the problem doesn't reoccur before then! That will be about 130,000 miles, I plan on keeping this MINI until death do we part. Hers or mine......

 

The Dealer charged you $600 to change the ATF???? WTF... I had my entire Valve Body rebuilt for only $1200 at a local transmission shop (Chicago burbs).

Really, REALLY, suggest that you find a trustworthy shop that is dedicated to transmissions. If you take it to a general shop (Firestone or Meineke types) they are just going to outsource it to a transmission place and upcharge you.

 

It was done at a well respected aftermarket Denver area import shop called Peak Eurosport. The MINI dealer was going to charge more.

 

If this was done at a respected shop I would ask them what type of ATF was used also. You want to make sure you use a good synthetic ATF. Also I would have it changed every 30k-40k. Most of the problems with these transmissions occur in the valve body failing. Which usually is from not changing your ATF in a timely manner.. Don't follow what MINI recommends in there changing intervals. That would sure kill your transmission..

 

OK, then it is 40,000 miles unless there are problems sooner.

Any ideas on why it took a couple of months to "fix". I was really resigned to the idea that the valve body or transmission needed replacing.

 

I have posted similar issues with my trans and did three flushes. Nothing worked, like 1der, my commute was 5 miles one way. My transmission finally quit, luckily I live down an isolated WY road and could reverse home, only a couple miles.

I bit the bullet and got another transmission. Working on putting it in myself since there are not any reputable transmission shops within close driving, that would actually work on it.

Almost got it swapped, was thinking on what I needed to do next and like usual I'm thinking of step 120 instead of 68.

How has anyone warmed up the transmission oil before installing it. I have used hot water but it didn't work very well.

P.S. It is nice to see another Wyomingite on this site ( 1der ).

 

On your old transmission did you try and change out your valve body first?

 

Nice to see you here too, NEWY! Not too many of us with MINIs! Sorry your transmission quit. Hope you are back to motoring again soon.

 

Are you saying it took a few months before the transmission started to shift better?

 

I kind of lucked out. A friend got his hand on a wrecked one that was still drivable and he sold me that one. I honestly probably over filled the trans on one or two of the flushes, I think. I figured since I had the opportunity to put a lesser mileage transmission in I would do it, only 35,000 miles on it.

Probably a good thing cause my water pump was leaking very badly, a couple of the super charger gaskets were bad, the drive belt was getting bad and the PCV valve was puking oil into the super charger. I'm also putting in a 15% pulley, changing the thermostat and gasket, putting in new tensioner, new water pump, and all kinds of maintenance.

 

YES! It took a few months! The ride back from Denver was worse than the drive to Denver! I have only had 2 bad shifts in the last 2 months, and no problem with reverse at all! If getting the valve body or transmission replaced had been more convenient I would never have given it the opportunity to "fix".

 

WOW! That was lucky! Great find! And in Wyoming! Do you have any parts you are interested in selling? Namely front seats. If so, what kind of upholstery are on them and did the air bags deploy in the accident? Also, do they have seat heaters?

 

My friend did his and it took sometime to smooth out.. But things are well for him now.

 

FWIW, the valve body that I just replaced (see above) had only 49,000 miles on it before it crapped out.

These things are prone to failure. I've been driving it for a week now, and it is like brand new. Seems like I caught it before it could do any lasting damage to the gears and clutches in the trans itself.

 

A little update,
I had my VB replaced about a year ago. It has been generally good, but with a slightly jerky 1-2 shift at medium throttle and a 400 rpm flare up on 2-3. So I decide to verify that the fluid level was OK. I put the car level with the engine running, had it warm, but not hot, opened the drain plug and fluid comes out very quickly. I drained about 18 oz and it was still coming so I put the plug back in. Maybe the standpipe was not put in by the shop or maybe it was just way overfilled?
So I have been driving for 3 days now and the cars shifts much much better, the flare is gone and the 1-2 jerkyness is 80% gone. I think it was overfilled and that this tranny really is sensitive to fill level.
I am going to verify that the standpipe is indeed in place and let some more drain out to the proper level when I have time.

So even a tranny specialist can get the fill procedure wrong on these things. I suspect they just pumped in a bunch of fluid and called it good.

 

With the symptoms you described that is what it will do when over filled. You want to check it at the correct temp. There are some shops that don't know that part! With out the correct amount of ATF the transmission will shift very erratic..