My girlfriend bought a 2004 Mini. It was a sunday so no garages were open and .... it was red... so even though there was a more than dubious noise, she bought it. Obviously she shouldn't have.

I took the car to my mechanic who said the transmission was shot, the noise that we hear is from destroyed bearings. There is also a gap between the transmission and the differential. And after seeing that the control arms we shot too, he stopped looking.

But you know, the car is still red...

Is there a realistic solution that is not a total replacement of the transmission?

 

Food for thought, there is a decent machine shop near my place, could they fix a faulty Getrag (it's my model since it's been assebled in september 2004) or these transmissions are poorly "designed-builded-assembled" that it's just no use to try to fix a couple of parts in it.

I haven't found the description of what is breaking in these transmissions. Anyone?