general problems of the 2006 Mini Cooper S

Steering pump transmission weening not wanting to change gears right.

I own a 2006 Mini Cooper S, which I purchased new in October 2006. About a year ago, I noticed that after slowing by stepping off / releasing the gas pedal, the car would jerk forward - at the time, I did not think it was serious because it happened a few time and it was not enough to cause an accident. After last Mini service in March 2015 - lately, I noticed that in stop & go traffic, sometimes after braking or slowing, the car has a hard time getting up to speed - sometimes gradually stepping on gas pedal as usual to start off again, I hear the engine rev up pretty loud so I let up on the gas pedal, and then try to step on gradually again - sometimes, it would take a while for the car to get up to speed. Also, lately, after I brake and switch from drive to reverse to back into the driveway, the car jerks back when I am not stepping on the gas pedal at all. I told the Mini dealer about this last week when the car was towed to the dealership because it would not start - the dealer found that the car did not start due to faulty circuitry in a fuse box, which was replaced with a new fuse box. The dealer said that what I described sounded like a transmission problem, and after the new fuse box was put in, the dealer took the car on a test drive to see if anything else was wrong. The dealer’s diagnosis was to replace the transmission at a cost of $9,000. My car has around 55,000 miles and has been maintained well. It is unreasonable for the transmission to require replacement at such low mileage and in such a short period of time - the car was barely used in the first year - it was driven mostly within the last 7-8 years. As a result of this incident, I have been made aware that many Mini cooper owners have encountered this transmission issue, which has the potential to result in collisions since the car will not accelerate as expected.

I was driving on the road my I turned the ac on and about 20min of me riding in the vehicle me and my infant son my my vehicle started smoking under the hood heavy white smoke under the hood of the 2006 Mini Cooper S. My car began to loose power while engine bay still heavily smoking I managed to get car in a nearby dealership get my son and I out of the car I put water on the side of the engine that was burning to keep the rest of the car from burning up. The rest of the car I had to call my insurance company the car wont do anything at all the electric system or the wires burnt under the hood.

Blue black smoke from front grill of warm (20 miles) driven car. Car was off and parked in highway 40 mcdonalds restaurant parking lot next to a 10,000 gallon heating fuel tank. Parker fuel company employees put out the fire in the engine compartment just below the engine. Note the battery was disconnected immediately before opening the the bonnet/hood at which time the smoke and visible flame was extinguished 5 times via 1 small (depleted) and 3 times ending via a 2nd larger parker fuel company unit. Howard county fire and police vehicles arrived after fire had ended. Car seemed normal over 20 mile portion of trip on highway 70 + 40 @ 70 + 55 mph speeds. Flame could be be viewed originating under engine when looking downward in space between engine and firewall below exhaust manifold. Not sure if fire was from power steering pump drive (electric motor), power steering hose(s), ps fan or compromised oil pump volume control solenoid valve leaking oil on very hot supercharged engine exhaust. I was very lucky that the 4 minutes I was inside mcdonalds ,that multiple parker fuel company employees arriving to work had seen the smoke and had multiple fire extinguishers and training to put out fires. My car would have completely burned up in the time it would have taken the fire dept to arrive. The 1st parker fuel company employee was already at my car with pliers to disconnect the battery as he knew it was not steam from a radiator, but black smoke from a electrical, gas, oil or rubber/plastic sources being difficult to extinguish.

La transmision esta fallando,cuando llega a las 2100 rpm el siguiente cambio o sea la 4ta cambio no entra o tarda en entrar lo q pasa ES entonces suben las rpm y se acelera est ES constante ,en las primeros minutos trabaja bien luego DE unos cuantos minutos DE rodar esque comienza a molestar necesita arreglo inmediato.