I've been having trouble for the last 2 or 3 months with putting my car into reverse. About every 1 in 4 cold starts, the car simply won't engage reverse. The shifter will go slighty into the reverse gate and won't budge any farther. I can try over and over again and it just won't go all the way in. If I row the gears for a moment, it will generally then allow me to put the car in reverse.

It doesn't happen as often on warm starts, but it does happen occasionally.

I have a B&M shifter that I installed in January, and the problems started around April.

Has anyone else had this happen with Midlands trannies on the Cooper?

It might be worth mentioning that I'm already on my 2nd tranny. This one's a rebuild.

 

You know, I just got rid of my 2003 Cooper about a month ago. I had 54K+ miles on it when I traded it in. I never had a problem with it, except a clunk when taking off in first. It used to worry me, but I kind of just put it in the back of my mind. I too had a B&M shifter on mine. I just couldn't keep the midland. Some people like them, but there are too many people out there with failures on theirs, and IMHO, this is unacceptable. It sounds like you might have a worn reverse gear. Reverse is the only gear that doesn't have a syncro, plus the teeth have a straight cut to them. This makes reverse hard to get into in ANY car with a manual tranny. How are the other gears?

 

All other gears are fine. My shift cables aren't bound or frayed, that I can tell, and there's not much more resistance than there was with the stock shifter. It's like there's a hard wall right in the middle of the reverse gate.

The first couple of times it happened, I didn't realize I wan't engaged, and I let off the clutch: one time I got grinding, and the other time the car backed up about 3 feet before the shifter shot back to Neutral.