CVT Issues

[banyan]

I have been eyeing for a used mini cooper but i am very concerned about the CVT issues that a lot of mini owners are reporting. any advise would be appreciated. i am looking at 2002-2005 mini base.

thx

[MINIofANNAPOLIS]

don't get it. it is a horrible transmission. you will have problems with it. they fail all the time, most of the time it is not covered under warranty.

[ymperformance]

CVT transmissions are more fuel efficient but cause more problems. 6 speed s auto trans are bulletproof!!

[jcsomerset]

Interesting - i've hard a few things about them going - but not many -

seems to me that it's just the way the tranny works that bothers people - it's certainly not a "sports car" transmission by any stretch. that means a little hesitation on take off, even in sport mode, and less than crisp shifts when in sport manual mode.

we've put 15K on ours (from 30K to 45K) with no real issues regarding the tranny. you just can't expect to slam it into drive from reverse and take off like a bat out of hell - it takes a second or two.

Mini of annapolis - I appreciate your candor on the matter, but if they were failing that regularly, don't you thinkMINI would have issued a recall or TSB on them by now?

what kind of failurerates are the mini dealersseeing anyway?