Hello, I just returned from an autox in which the transmission on my July 04 build, 2005 MCS literally broke to pieces on course. It was not during or even soon after a shift or launch. It happened while the car was making a turn. We heard a clunk sound and then the car limped to the side. Meanwhile, pieces of my gearbox exploded and fell out from under the car. Of course, fluid was everywhere.

Upon close inspection of the remnants of my transmission, I found that the shaft that holds the two spider gears appears to have been chewed on both ends to the point where I believe one of the gears just fell off / was sheared off and caused the resulting catastrophe.

I've tried searching and can find no one else who had this particular problem. Is this shaft known to be weak or am I just lucky?

Based on the appearance of the damage it would appear to be caused by a weak metal in the original part that has caused progressive wear over time. This fits observation, as we had taken the car in to the dealer several months ago, complaining about excessive motion in the drive train. They replaced a couple of motor mounts and this seemed to help some... However the underlying problem was still there. The dealer refused to closely examine the transmission because they claimed the problem was with a worn clutch, which I disagreed with. They wanted $900 to even look at the thing!

The original complaint to the service dept. detailled a problem in the gear box because that was clearly where it felt like it was coming from. The car was difficult to shift into gear in the morning and would get easier as the vehicle warmed up. I am also wondering based on this wear if the "clink" sound we used to hear when taking off in first gear may also have been related to this as the source of that sound never was tracked down...

So this leads us to present day. A dead gear box, a perfectly fine clutch, an undriveable car. I just wish the dealer would have taken us more seriously and looked into the problem more.

My car has about 48K miles. Since it is an early 05 it does not have the LSD. It also has absolutely no mods. It is autoxed, but I don't feel it is abused.

Here are some pics of my gearbox:

 

Odd....

That looks exactly like what happened to my 05 MC with a getrag box. All of the same parts.

I came to the concusion on my car that the diff pin slid out causing the differential to in a sense, implode on itself, then blow up.

 

exactly! That's exactly what I think happened. Hopefully, the dealer will fix this under warranty. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

 

They fixed mine under warranty, then i promptly sold the car and upgraded to an S.

Your the first ive heard of the S's with a catastrophic tranny failure.

From the looks of the pin shown it was allowed to move back and forth, and it looks to have worn away the metal because of this. Perhaps a C-clip or a snap ring came loose, or a bearing failed.

I wasnt able to do a thorough inspecion of my tranny after it was out of the car, only what i saw from the car on the lift at the dealer.

If it was a diff failure, it shold be clearly centered around the areas where the driveshafts enter the tranny. if its not, it could have been many things.

But from the looks of it, and a diff pin thats destroyed like yours and spider gears that just fell out, I would think its safe to say it was a final drive diff failure.

 

Bring the clutch along with you. If the dealer stated (in writing) that your original complaint was due to a burned clutch, the absence of a burned clutch should make the original diagnosis problematic and if there is any pushback on warranty coverage, you can claim that you raised the transmission problem when you first raised it and that the transmission should have been replaced when the complaint was first raised. Also, DO NOT mention that you were tracking the car when the transmission failed.

 

 

I'll second that.....all of it.....excellent advice.

 

He said / she said... The dealer says MINI USA is denying the claim and that the problem was "probably due to an over-rev condition". WHAT?! For starters, how exactly does one over-rev a drive-by-wire car? Second, how would a simple over-rev blow a transaxle and not hurt the motor?! Finally, what in the world in their PROOF?! I know this is a tough concept to grasp, but one really should have a solid reason for making a diagnosis, other than "We really don't want to pay for that." Wow.

MINI USA says they "rely on the dealerships to make these sort of determinations for us". This is exactly the opposite of what the dealership told me when I called them. Amazing. So nobody is actually responsible for making this determination or everybody is? Now I am playing the "Let's wait them out and see what happens" game. I am patient. This is their problem to fix.

Any advice on how to handle this is greatly appreciated. The problem is clearly a progressive failure in the piece that connects the spider gears, a problem that has manifested over many months and was actually brought to the dealer before for inspection and they decided it was the clutch. I'm just sad at this point.

 

It makes me so mad just hearing your delema, and I'm a pretty calm person. Sorry man.

 

Pay the dealer or pay a lawyer.........name the dealership please.

 

dealer's gonna take care of it yeah?

 

you have the innitial complaint in writing? then call a lawyer and a couple phone calls should be all that's neccessary.

 

The dealer is MINI of Pittsburgh, aka P&W. In the interest of fairness, I will keep this post updated and post glowing words of praise if the dealer ever comes around.

The dealer is fully aware that I autox. In fact, I have attended a few autoxs that were indirectly sponsored by this dealer through the local mini club. Since MINI Usa promotes the car's autox prowess and since the local dealer promotes autox, I don't understand how they can deny me because I am doing what the car is advertised to do. And since they can find no mods on my car, it appears they are trying to deny me based on some trumped up excuse. "overreving?" How could that happen and not cause any damage to the engine? plus, it didn't happen due to a missed shift it didn't happen when launching. It happened during a turn.

 

howdy their sorry to hear of this problem

basically you can over rev an engine by accedent by simply downshifting while going to fast for the lower gear you pute it in like if yer going 70 and pute in in 1st gear basically the egine will rev super fast and blow, dosent matter about the drive by wire, that only helps when accelerating so if you were going to fast and egine braked into a turn and thru it in first gear you may have a problem in that respect but that was just to answer your queschin about how to over rev a drive by wire car

anywho

while i worked at the mini dealer for a while i found out a cool little thing on our mini computers

they record EVERYTHING they can tell the dealer rpm's how hard the gas was applied and how you were driving, so basically they can tell if the car looked as if it was being auto x

its really scary

the car told the dealer my car stalled because of low fuel and showed how much fuel was in the tank witch caused a miss fire then stall in the morning and other things

that adaptive logic on your computer logs driving habits and also shows the dealer how your driving witch has been the reason why they denied claimes at my dealer a while ago !

be carfull their watching !!!

but i say stick with it or try another dealer if possible
my dealer lies sometimes or just dosent know what their talking about (they lied to me about waranty work) i go to another dealer and they fix it so its really up to you if you want to stick with them or try another, id try another since they dont sound very helpfull anyway

 

I think the key is going to be demonstrating that the damage to the transmission was progressive, and didn't occur all at once while you were out on the track. If it's obvious to a transmission expert (which I am *not*) that the damage occured over a period of time, that would make their "over-revving" argument harder to justify.

I know you said that the dealer is aware that you race your car, but was that explicitly given as a reason for not covering the repair? Or did they just examine the parts, say "looks like an over-rev to me" and leave it at that?

Scott

 

To the best of my knowledge, (my husband and I have both been dealing with them) they didn't mention the autox, even though I know the service guy remembers me from an event just last weekend. He pretty much just chalked it up to an over-rev.

I don't think I ever even downshifted while on an autox course. I shift once, to second and just leave it there.

 

I would seek a second opinion, or dealership. Are there any other dealerships in Pittsburgh?

Also, as the Magnusson warranty act (forgot its' real name), clearly states, the burden of proof is on the DEALER. It is within your right for them to prove to you that you over-revved your engine, causing the failure of the transmission.

If your computer really does record everything, as one poster suggested, then there should be a record of this.

You seem to have a very strong case, in my opinion!

 

Just find another tranny and install it. Do it yourself and do what a real racer would do. If you RACE anything you are going to break it. I think you'd be laughed out of court if you tried to argue that racing it did NOT void the warranty. You PLAY you PAY, why should MINI pay for your expensive hobby instead of you? Racing has always been that way, always will be that way. No one told you that it could void your warranty, your insurance and maybe even your finance agreeement? Let's look at the fact that you knew something was wrong and you pushed it again and again on the track and you think that's not abusing it? Isn't that also true? I am sorry but when folks think any manufacturer should warranty their vehicles for use on a racetrack, they just don't understand the first thing about what racing is and does, it is a very expensive hobby.

 

Perhaps I should do the same with this post as I did with your previous troll-like missive: Ignore it, but apparently I am not a big enough person to do that.

No I wasn't aware that autocross would void anything. I am aware of the caveat about mods. I have not modded this car. Do you know something I don't? Please enlighten me if you do.

When I noticed something might be wrong with the car, I took it in for service. The people there told me it was the clutch. Even though I disagreed, I suppose on some level I trusted their assessment. Maybe it's not the clutch, but it is the flywheel, I thought. Since both are wear items and not able to cause a catastrophic failure, I thought I was perfectly justified in driving the car as usual until the supposed bad clutch started slipping. It never did that.

I do appreciate your comments, however callous and insensitive they may be. I sincerely hope that no one, including you, goes through what I am going through right now.

--B

 

I am the bearer of bad news it's true. But I don't think you'll get anywhere spouting off about the Magnussen-Moss Act. It's racing and after 48K miles on the car your tranny blew. Yes, check with your insurance underwriter and your financing co., I'll believe you'll find use on a racetrack voids the agreements. I can't take a financed car to Mexico, either, it's not a risk the finance co. wants to take and it's their call. I think if you approach them in the right way they may do something for you, split the labor costs or labor for free, something along those lines, it's worth a try. I am not a troll, I am just amazed that you would break something on a track and expect to fall back on your warranty to pay for it. I stiil don't think you have a clue of what racing is all about. It's not for those who can't afford to replace a tranny, or a engine or a whole car even, in a worse case scenario. That's what the "PLAY you PAY" is all about. Trannies aren't that hard and if you want to race anything I'd recommend getting good with a wrench. 125cc Yamaha Go-karts are great racers and as much fun as anything, you'll still spend $$ on everything, but at least you'll still have transpo to work to pay for it all. Let us know if you get them to pay for it under warranty, I'd be VERY surprised, but glad for you nonetheless. Good Luck.

 

First off, unless things have changed or are different with Minis, the BMW DME records info but does not indicate when it happens, so they cannot prove, for instance, that an overrev was done by the owner or when at the shop (and techs driving cars have been known to thrash them).

This seems to be the BMW way, they always try to put the blame on a customer over revving, after the S54 engine debacle and all the pain people had to go through before BMW would admit a manufacturing problem they insisted that all the owners had to be at fault with the money shift. Then the SMGs came out and the same problem persisted, and the rest is history. I'll tell ya, it is one of the factors weighed when we got the second MCS and opted for the auto.

Best of luck with it - do try another dealer and if necessary ask for it to be reviewed with the Field Service rep. Maybe someone who has overrevved can tell you how it effected their car and what the repair entailed so you could compare that with what you see (it doesn't jive that the tranny failed as a sign of an over rev w/o the engine blowing....) The fact that you did complain of a problem before it failed shoudl help -what did they do to check out the issue?

 

A buddy of mine had his 05 6 speed fail in a similar maner while driving along about 25 MPH. It broke out a large part of the trans. case. The dealer replaced it under warranty after inspecting the parts. He was going to post it up here with pictures but got fed up with this site and people that post here like your antagonist CDMINI

 

Thanks for your comments, CDMINI, but i fail to see what exporting a car to mexico or whether or not my insurance company would cover me if I happen to hit a really big cone on an autox course has to do with this. The car had a mechanical failure and the car was under warranty. Barely, but it was under warranty.

Do you have some kind of inside information about MINI's warranty policy regarding autox? Do you even know what autox is? This wasn't "on a track" this was in a parking lot. If you do have some information about warranty work, I would love to hear it. Thanks.

 

Ask Skiploader about MM. It is totally worthless unless you got hundreds of thousands to litigate.

You race. It broke. End of sentence.

Most likely the dealer will not fix it nor insurance (Pretty sure all forms of racing are not allowed on most any auto insurance claim).

You pay your money and take your chances.

It sucks ... yes. But everyone knows the rules when they do it.

Sorry for the loss ... I hope its resolved the best way for you.

 

Hmmm... well, I guess it's nice to know that misery loves company. I actually have a friend, from the same autox club, whose diff/tranny failed as well. He modded his mini enough to put him in DSP, but when the failure occured, he was not autoxing it. Of course, this same dealer refused to fix it because of the mods. But perhaps the mods didn't cause the problem, some mechanical defect did.

Considering your friend's story, I'm actually glad my diff went when I was on course, surrounded by a bunch of my friends versus some back road somewhere.

Thanks for the info, Norm.