With the new wife came her 2002 Mini. A beautiful red thing with black top (the car, not the wife).

Anyway, it's a base model (non-S) with automatic transmission. I believe those came with a CVT style transmission. And with my googled knowledge, is an "infinite-gear", meaning there is no real 1, 2, 3, etc. gear.

The problems are now multiplying.....

1. When shifting into Drive, it has a lurch. Reverse seems to be smooth.
2. When driving between 50 to 70 (yes, a large range), which is most of the typical speeds around here, it cannot figure out which "gear" to be in. The RPM's spike and fall as it constantly "gears" up and down. I thought CVT did not have shift points but it definitely feels like it cannot figure out which gear to be in at that range.
3. When I put it into M/S, it will not shift up. If I am at speed and put it into M/S, it will show my current gear but will not go up, only down.

Taking to a Mini dealership, they told me the belt was stretched and I needed to drop $7300 on a new transmission with labor.

After driving away, the thought occurred to me....if the belt was stretched, would it not effect the entire range from 0 to 100? Not just one particular area? And why can't I upshift in M/S?

I have seen some threads in which people push this and that to reset the driving behavior. Is there any external software, connectors, etc that I need to do that or would it even help?

Thoughts?

 

Junk it...or trade it if it still passes the trade in test...
There was a class action lawsuit....now settled over it....
Regular fluid changes and gentle driving seem to extend the life of the cvt's...by once the dammagevis done...its over.

 

The belt alone runs about $600.00

Looks like finding a complete transmission is a little harder, but you would think a complete trans runs $3950.00 but there is a core required (they ship the refurb-ed trans when they receive your old one) And one without core is $5550.00 so pulling one and replacing one, say 8 hours at $50.00 an hour that is $400.00..

So... I would have to support the idea of trading in...

Best of luck no matter what you decide..

Motor on!

 

I'm sure the car is not worth $7300 and even if it were, dumping that much into a 12 year old car is crazy. But the Mini dealer's price is going to be full retail for the parts and top $$ for the labor. I'll bet a local indy shop can source a working CVT and install it for a lot less money. For a car this old I might consider just buying a used transmission but if you plan on keeping it, a rebuilt one of probably worth the extra money. If you can find an indy shop that has repaired one of these then replacing the belt, which seems to be the main issue with these, is possibly a good idea.

Shop around and see what's available in your area but the Mini dealer is the last place I'd go for this kind of service!

 

Learn how to rebuild it your self. They are really not that complicated, but there is a right way and a wrong way to take them apart and reassemble.I rebuilt mine and have never worked on a mini before. Rebuild it before the belt blows apart. Search youtube for info about cvt rebuilding and adaption. I had to buy a video on how to reassemble the transmission.