2005 mini cooper S auto transmission problem
 

Hi,
I have a 2005 Mini S in the shop right now but the techs cant figure out what is wrong. Was wondering if you guys could lend me some advice as I have to go on a ride along tomorrow and explain the problem. It has an automatic 6 speed trans.

Heres whats happening:
The car downshifts as you are coasting down a hill for no reason. Say you are cruising about 50mph down a country road you go over a hill and the car picks up speed as it descends down the hill but you arent pressing on the gas. It will drop down into the lower gear and slow the car down. You cant just glide along. Almost feels like the torque converter is stuck.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, 3 techs have looked at it cant find any error codes and say its fine.

Thanks, Roger

I have a 2005 Mini Convertible CVT (not S) and am having a similar problem. I just got the thermostat, housing, and gasket replaced, as well as the air filter.

I've had the car 3.5 years, and I only have just under 19K miles on it (live in the city and use it mostly for local driving). I wasn't having any transmission problems before the replacement (although when the therm problem started happening a month ago, I'd avoided highway driving until I could get it fixed). Now that that is fixed and the new air filter is in, I definitely have more pick-up... BUT....

When I accelerate through the gears (automatic, CVT), I can go up to 75-80 with no problem. I decelerate by just letting up on the gas lightly, and everything is fine until I get to about 60-65 mph. When I get to that range, the gear kicks down, and it starts engine breaking (that's fine if it was limited to that). But it stays at about 3500 rpm until I either break (tranny shifts again and behaves normally) or give it a little more gas (the rpms instantly decrease if I depress the gas even a slight bit more).

If I let up / semi-coast down to about 55, and give it just a bit of gas, even though I THINK it's still down a gear because it, at 60, is still above 3100 rpm and only slowly descending, giving it a little more gas gradually jumps it back up to 3500 rpm. If I gun it (the trigger to actually make it downshift), the RPMs drop back to 2600 or so and I can speed back up normally.

No matter how many times or ways I go up and down gradually through this 60-68 mph zone, the engine is revving harder than it should. It's downshifting / decrease in RPM is counterintuitive, as it's behaving the opposite as one would expect (dropping a gear on a gradual deceleration while raising a gear on a strong acceleration).

It's a 2005 Automatic CVT convertible. Again, I just had the thermostat adjusted, and I've driven it more than 100 miles since the repair, so it shouldn't be a computer reset issue. On that repair, I replaced the air filter. It has 18,900 miles. The only gas I've ever used was either BP or Shell top-grade (at great expense to prevent this type of BS, I might add).

I called the mechanics who worked on it for the therm repair (despite the mileage, I'm out of warranty because it's 3.5 years old). The guy on the phone said either low tranny fluid or gear slippage. Reading other posts online that it's a closed system, if it's gear slippage, it looks like I'll have to replace the system. If I have to pour 7K into a car with less than 20K miles on it, I'm going to make it an issue.

Does anyone have any advice? It's odd that this shows up after the other repair, so maybe it is a computer issue. But looking this up online, I'm seeing all of the tranny issues on Mini. I don't want to walk into the mechanic saying "I need to fix this...what's wrong" because I'm going to get screwed. I'll be very appreciative of any advice as to what could be wrong and other questions that could be asked to pinpoint a problem. Thanks in advance!

I love my mini. I love the way it drives. But I did NOT pay $27K on a car for it to cost $8K a year in repairs when it has less than 20K miles on it.

Cheers!
Michelle

I had the same problem yesterday. I'm worried there's a problem with the transmission. I'm due for a transmission flush. Could you let me know what happened in your case?
Thanks!

I had the same problem yesterday. I'm worried there's a problem with the transmission. I'm due for a transmission flush. Could you let me know what happened in your case?
Thanks!

Mine ended up needing what the tech called a "Transmission Readaptation." He explained it basically that the system "learns" your driving patterns over time, but if there's a disconnect of the computer from the battery (as I'd had when I got the thermostat replaced), the computer may not come back up properly (I'm probably making a hash of that explanation, but it was a couple of years ago ;) )

It took about an hour and was under warranty (I think the service price listed was $80 or so.)

Good luck!