ok guys, ive got a wierd one for ya... today I was driving on the garden state parkway for about an hour back from waterfest (which I was judging) When I turned onto my street (a right) I began to feel and hear this grinding/clunking noise that scared the crap out of me. So I proceeded to drive very slowly and anytime I would turn the wheel the noise would return, untill I had made a lap around my block and then all of a sudden the noise was gone, and everything felt the same as normal. As I am not a trained mechanic I have no idea what some noises mean and this was one of them...
QUESTION 1) Has anybody had a similar problem, and what was it diagnosed as?
QUESTION 2) If it has not happened to you but you know MCS's from 04' and you think you know what the problem is, could you please tell me?

 

bump

 

Was it a high pitched grinding? I had that once after a turn. I stopped. Backed up quickly and stomped on the brakes. Turns out a rock lodged somewhere in the front disc assembly. It chucked it out never to be heard from since!

 

I am no expert, but I had a similar noise last summer from a broken drop link grinding against the inner wheel. The noise would only occur on certain turns, when the centrifical weight of the car would press down on the drop link causing it to grind/clunk.
So I would check to make sure your swaybar and droplinks are on tight.

 

Something new to help me with...
Pulling out of work yesterday I hear a very loud clunk (so I was pulling out a bit spiritedly) and I pull over. I turn the car back on and I cant get it into gear, so I play with it a little and I finally figure out that I can fanegle the car into gear by playing with the clutch and gas a little. So, I drive the car very carefully over to the Mini Dealership and park it. heres the wierd part, if the car is off I can move the gearshift freely, if its on however It is like it isnt lined up quite right and I have to play with it and push pretty hard to get it into gear. All of the gears work however once I am into them...

 

Sounds like a clutch problem. If the car is running that means that the input shaft is spinning and if the clutch isn't engaging and disengaging properly you will have a hard time getting it into gear since the shaft will continue to spin. I had my clutch go out after a coupel instance sof the clunking grinding type noises. It happened a couple fo times where it started working again after playing with it for a little bit. It finally went out the last time adn I had it towed into the dealershipand they said that I need a whoel new clutch and slave cylinder. All covered under warrantee thank god!