Hey all, been scouring this board for the last few days and been reading through all of the old threads to get some sort of idea for what my next step should be. Just seeing if I can get some input that may be a little different considering the age of the car at this point.

My GF has a 2006 Mini Cooper, automatic trans so from what I gather it is the R50 with CVT. It has 116xxx miles and for the most part, has driven fairly well up until a few days ago. She was on the freeway driving normally when it suddenly 'skipped a gear' (this is how she described it to me, probably not 100% accurate ) and at that point she could only drive around 45mph and anything faster her RPMs were upwards of 4-5k. She didn't want to push the car and got off and after trying to do some over the phone diagnosis, ended up taking the back roads home. So to me it sounded like it wouldn't upshift but this is also the first time I have been around a car with CVT, all my experience is working on various older Nissans, Toyotas and Hondas.

I get behind the wheel and try to drive it around, and sure enough around 45mph I am around 4k rpms and it is not switching gears. I use the sports mode and it can go through 1-6 just fine, I can get up to 60mph now but it is at a consistent 3k rpm (when before it would be around 2.2k-2.5k no?) and any faster the rpms continue to climb, 65mph I am at 4k rpms. I haven't tried to push it any further than that for fear of further damaging the car/trans and hindering any possibly chances of recovery but am willing to gather more data if it helps.

There have been times where the car would jerk into gear when going from Park to Drive on our first commute of the day, but it was pretty intermittent. I have also experienced being 'stuck' in a lower gear maybe one or twice but that remedied itself within a few minutes. The car did develop a 'whining' noise recently when driven above 3k rpms, though many have mentioned that it was probably the idler pulley so I do not believe the two are related. What also cropped up within the last week is a RANCID smell, to which I liken to the smell air coming from the tires, something just fishy(?) and disgusting. I thought it may have been mold/mildew since the car was parked out in some heavy rain for an hour or two, but I have not been able to track it down.

I have not gotten under the car to inspect it yet, but will be doing so either this evening or tomorrow. I have not noticed any leaks below the car, no lights on the dash and it isn't throwing any codes right now. I reset the ECU to see if that would help but no dice. I plugged in the VIN on the owner's lounge and it looks like there hasn't been any dealership service since 2009, at which I think is probably around the time my GF bought the car. All the other paperwork of service does not look to include any sort of transmission fluid flush so that was going to be my first order of business.

All things considered, would the full drain, flush and fill be the logical step to take forward? At this point I figure it is a 'why not, might as well' since if the transmission is on its way out, we probably aren't going to invest the few thousand to get it replaced... hoping for the best though. Thanks for any input.

EDIT: Oh man, I meant to put this thread in the Stock Problems/Issues forum. If a mod could move it there that would be great, sorry!

 

I will move this for you.

As the CVT is not a "friction" type tranny I don't think changing the fluid is going to help now.

 

I'm sure you've already seen where replacing a CVT can be very expensive. I've got a 2006 R50 with more than 140K on it. I've changed the fluid routinely but when I first got it with 26K on it the RPM's were always above 3K when driving more than 55 MPH. A complete fluid change with Redline and a new filter (not knowing if it's been changed or not) along with doing an ECU reset may do the trick. It's certainly a lot cheaper to give it a try than it is to take it to a dealer. If it doesn't work then you're out about $100 but if it works...you're back in business. If you decide to change the fluid/filter plan on it taking the better part of the day since you've never changed it. I can do it in about 3 hours now without disconnecting the motor mounts. I replied to a thread about my experience where I described everything I did and how if you're interested.

Oh...I'd try the ECU reset to see if that works...and then I would do the rest...

 

Thread on resetting the ECU... https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ni-viagra.html

 

Yeah I tried resetting the ECU to no avail, will prob give that another shot after I change the fluids. I am going to test drive the car around a little more and see if there are any improvements and see where to go from there.

 

Thanks! I tried rsetting the ECU already but will give it another go after I change out the fluid. Hoping to squeeze some more mileage out of this car if possible..


Gonna test out the car on a few more roads and see if there are any noticeable differences between D and sport mode and see if it is stuck like I think it is