Well after 120,000ks my R50 Mini developed a small whine in the gearbox / left hand drive shaft and after about 3 days of driving around it has gone from a small whine to sounding like a friggen tractor engine.

I took it into the mini deler today to be checked out and they have said that the drive train bearings have gone somewhere in the gearbox????
The solution...... buy a new gear box and clutch kit. The cost being around $5000 bucks.
For a car that has done stuff all work, no racing and spent 95% of its time on highways, this is pretty crap and as its out of warranty i have to cover the bill.

Has anybody else had this problem and is it actually woth fixing or should i just trade in the car for an EVO

Have you looked at the www.mini2.com web site? This is a great source of info for the new MINI.

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1969 Cooper "S"
1967 Mini Deluxe
1973 Clubman Van (the fleet spare)
1978 ex 1275 LS ("Wizard" Eaton Supercharged)
2015 HSV GenF GTS(occasional drive & tow car)
2019 MINI F55 Cooper S

I'd expect more than 120,000kms out of gearbox, that's disappointing.

Sorry to hear that mate.

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One should never skimp on the zip ties.

yep ive spent about 4 hours & been through about all of the posts and basically this is what keeps coming up:-

If you own a 2002, 2003 or 2005 mini with more than 100,000ks on the clock the gearbox and clutch will sh!t itself.

Which is pretty piss poor for BMW considering a Mitsubishi EVO now comes with a 5 year warranty on the car and a 10 year waranty on the the engine and drivetrain.

There was a problem with early model Cooper 5 speed gear boxes, I had one replaced under warranty after 11,000 km. Traded that car in with 50,000 km on the clock in January 2004 and still see it around Perth, it is still going strong on the replacement box.

Maybe you can talk to the dealer or to MINI Australia and try and get MINI to bear part of the cost as it is a known problem.

There are many early Coopers out there that have many more than 100,000 km on the clock without ever having had a gearbox problem.
There is a 2002 Cooper in the USA with over 230,000 miles and no problems.

BMW have agreed to pay for 1/2 of the gearbox ($2500) but ill still need to pay for labour and a new clutch.

It just seems odd that they want to place the entire gearbox for one faulty bearing and have agreed to pay for half of it even though the car is out of waranty ??

The car is still smooth and i can redline it in every gear, but it just sonds like a tractor at 110ks.

sell it and buy a LanEvo

I had issues with my old Cooper S, it's power steering went after 70,000kms. Out of warrenty, I bitched and complained, said I couldn't afford the $1,500 bill and they could keep the car at BMW until I saved up. With the thought of that they decided to half the bill and absorb the cost of the parts.

Seems wierd hey that a car out of warrenty they're doing the same thing. There are very common problems with these cars, and yes it's a pain when a bit of money was spent buying them and they carry the BMW name.

Goodluck with the car, hopefully nothing else should go wrong with it from now.

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1979 Leyland Moke (which is for sale)

Im still looking into it at the moment, as ive now obtained the full breakdown diagrams for the 5 speed gear box and there is no way im forking out 5K for a new box when the problem is in one of the two drive shaft bearings.

Ill be ringing up a few guys on the coast that rebuild gear boxs and ill get a price on labour and parts.
Im not doing an entire gear box re-build just the drive shaft bearing, so i cant see the point in replacing the whole clutch and box?

Ive had several other cars that ive had the box re-built in and for a complete catastrophic failure it only cost me around $2600.

Maybe they want to replace the whole box because they know that it is the only way of completely sorting out the gearbox issue.

As for the quality, weren't the R50s designed by Rover?

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One should never skimp on the zip ties.

Nobody will sell the bearings needed for the gearboxes...

anbody got any suggestions?

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Miniworx Centre 0883741299
Sooperdooperminicooperexpertengineering
Online BMW Mini Shop

VTEC conversion maybe?

FWD SR20DET...

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Miniworx Centre 0883741299
Sooperdooperminicooperexpertengineering
Online BMW Mini Shop

Matches... I cant belive this, but I am living your nightmare dead-set straight after your post. 2002 Cooper R50 with ONLY 60,000 k's ! Were these gearboxes engineered by undergrad students as part of an assessment piece???

Noticed a whine in first and second and synchro noises on downshifts. Been to dealer for assessment today... whaddya bloody know.... $5000 for a new box. I've rang BMW Australia and told I'm well not happy. Getting back to me tomorrow. I also took it to a gearbox specilast today, he said I would get 'not much change out of $2500k' and noted that they had done a heap of work on exactly this problem since 2002. Said there was some sort of recall from the dealer.

So, this problem is known and expected. I'm a second owner, but with 60,000 ks on the clock I want blood.

sorry to hear it, thats pretty darn crappy especially considering its a bmw