Hi All, I have a 2006 Mini S Automatic transmission with roughly 155k miles on the clock. I'm running into a rather odd issue and i was hoping someone much smarter than myself could assist. My Mini starts fine and for the first 10-15 minutes of any drive (city streets or highway, doesn't matter) my transmission shifts rather well in both normal and sport mode. After that, I get some really laggy shifts as I pull away from stop lights (i think 2nd and 3rd gear specifically), I get some pretty bad hesitation, and I get what I would classify as yo-yoing where my revs drop and then suddenly grab again. The same when slowing down, sometimes the automatic downshifts feel like a mule kick. The really strange part is that if I drive to Phoenix, about 5 hours away, I do not experience any of those issues at the tail end of that 5 hour drive. I'll glide away from stop lights and the downshifts when exiting the highway or approaching a light feel perfectly fine.

So it seems to go from good to bad and then back to good at some point. Has anyone ever encountered this? Is there a potential solution to make it good throughout? Thank you in advance!