Steering Problems of Mini Cooper S - part 2

I experienced a sudden loss of power steering on my vehicle. Fortunately this did not result in a crash but it sure scared me. I am concerned about my safety driving this vehicle and may consider getting rid of it. I am disappointed in Mini's unresponsiveness to this issue.

See all problems of the 2004 Mini Cooper S 🔎.

Power steering system fire.

See all problems of the 2005 Mini Cooper S 🔎.

Steering effort increased tremendously during low speed driving and at any speed during turning. Power steering appears to be inoperative.

I was driving roughly 30 miles and hour when the power steering went out on me in a turn. Almost hit oncoming traffic prior to stopping in the middle of the road. I drove it to a nearby parking lot where it sat for two weeks before a local mechanic could look at it. I was quoted at over $1,500 to fix the part because the whole electronic power steering control box has to be replaced due to the way it was manufactured.

See all problems of the 2007 Mini Cooper S 🔎.

3 months ago I became aware of a fault in my Mini cooper 2004 regarding the power steering cooling fan. Steering had become overly difficult, and after taking the vehicle to my usual mechanic and then BMW, this was found to be defective. I then discovered the issue had been the subject of an unofficial recall by Mini USA (BMW), and took the car to the nearest dealership, in beverly, MA, a round trip of 200 miles, to have the item fixed. After this, the car became hard to control on curves. It appears the failure of the power steering cooling fan put undue strain on the steering knuckle, and at 80,000 this has become prematurely worn. Consequently, the vehicle is very hard to handle properly on turns, and is becoming a safety issue. For three months my mechanic has been trying to secure this part from Mini USA to no avail. Meanwhile my car is becoming more undrivable by the day. This part is an essential component of the safety of the vehicle. I have petitioned BMW for an answer, and after two weeks of people avoiding the issue, it seems the part remains unavailable. Mini USA(BMW)'s best response was to ask me to drive back to MA to have the car looked at, at which point they may offer me a loaner. But this is beside the point: aside from not providing an essential component that affects the safety of the vehicle, they want me to waste a day driving to MA, then pay the dealer's over-inflated service charges, because they made it clear on the phone they will not sell this part to non-Mini repair facilities when it finally does arrive (there is still no date for this, by the way). Essentially they are covering up an issue by keeping the matter in-house, failing to provide a component, and forcing customers to drive hundreds of miles and use only their facilities. Clearly this is outrageous and illegal. Any assistance from your office would be appreciated.

While driving around town the power steering quit working making the car very hard to turn. It was not noticeable driving straight, but when taking a left or right turn you almost cannot make the turn unless you really crank on the steering wheel. This problem has been happening intermittently without no warning. In order to get the power steering back, the ignition has to be completely shut off, and then restarted.

I was driving down the street and was going to make a right to turn, slowed down to say hi to my roommate who was leaving and went out of gear when I went back in my steering was extremely stiff and I could barely move the wheel.

See all problems of the 2003 Mini Cooper S 🔎.

My power steering just totally went out in the middle of a corner and I came within inches of plowing through oncoming traffic. I took it to the shop and they said that there might be a recall on this soon. Powers steering will now come on intermittent.

I heard a loud humming/squealing type sound--unable to turn the car's steering without great effort while driving down a side street and pulling into a parking spot. I had wondered where the sound was coming from and having to make it home I struggled to keep the car in my lane and make left turns at intersections--making it home I noticed a dark stain where my car was parked and checked the steering fluid which was bone-dry. I have children--after reading these posts I am afraid to drive them and am afraid to be on the road even after putting more fluid in the receptacle am finding it on my driveway. I just purchased the car in November with 50,000 miles on it.

See all problems of the 2006 Mini Cooper S 🔎.

While I was driving, my power steering suddenly cut off completely. Luckily, I was close to home, but it was almost impossible to parallel park my car. The next day, the power steering worked again.

I was driving about 60 mph and all of a sudden the power steering stopped working. Steering became very tight and heavy. Almost lost control of the vehicle.

See all problems of the 2002 Mini Cooper S 🔎.

Temporary loss of power steering.

I was on an exit ramp from the highway and around the curve I felt the steering stiffen. When I had to turn right I had to swing very wide into the other lane because I had no power steering. Thank god no one was there! it returned after I shut my car off after pulling into a parking lot. Then the next day it did it again. Today it went out and hasn't returned yet. My husband checked to make sure the fan worked and it does. This is a known to BMW problem and no recall in the USA. Canada has a recall. Tell me please, why we do not?.

The power steering when out on the car. This makes it difficult to steer. Also, because of the failure, the steering/car will not straighten itself out after making a turn. One has to make an extra effort to straighten the wheel out. I almost hit a parked car because of that problem. I see canada made Mini do a recall on this issue. Is it going to take an injury or worse before the USA makes Mini recall the cars ?.

In April 2013 I was merging onto highway i20 with my children in the back of my Mini Cooper S 2006. As I was speeding up to merge onto the highway the car completely cut off. I veered over into a median in the middle of six lanes of high-speed traffic. The car had completely shut off, even the hazard lights. I was very lucky that the median was there and that I had not yet entered the main stream of traffic. The police came, then a friend. After about a half hour it restarted without power steering and he was able to slowly drive it, and he fixed a belt that he said had looked like it had blown out. About four times in the year prior to this the car had cut off, but not while I was driving; it shut down as I was pulling out of a parking spot but then immediately restarted. No one could explain it. After the April incident I went to the Mini cooper dealer and spent close to $3000 to ensure that the car was safe for my children. However, yesterday, 11/5/13, I was backing out of a parking spot and the car completely shut down. I called the dealership for assistance and they said they had never heard of this kind of problem and couldn't help; fortunately the car restarted about ten minutes later. However, I am extremely concerned that this car is unsafe and I have heard from an acquaintance who also has a Mini Cooper S 2006 who said this has happened to her, that something random happened with her car and it completely shut down while she was driving. She told me that there was a recall, but I called Mini corporate today, and was told there was no recall and referred me to NHTSA.

I was driving on a windy road when with no warning my power steering went out and forced me into on coming traffic. Luckily I was able to regain control and move to the shoulder. When I turned off the car and restarted it, the power steering was working, but stopped again at my home. The ignition key was extremely hot to the touch when I removed it.

Problem of power assist failing causing steering to become difficult. Only happens after been on highway for more than 15 minutes. Very similar to other reports on 2004-2005 Mini Cooper S's reporting this problem.

I bought my used Mini Cooper S (64,686 miles) from Honda dealership - serramonte (daly city, CA) on March 13, 2012. I'm the second owner of this vehicle. The steering problem first occurred on June 2012, but it was temporary. While driving the steering wheel became hard to maneuver from left to right. I had to pull over and stopped the car to see what's wrong. It came back to normal after I turned on the engine. The steering problem would happen occasionally, I would do the same procedures and the steering would go back to normal again. Today (3/27/13), while I was driving at 35 mph in the residential area, I noticed my steering wheel stiffen like last time. I stopped and turned off the engine and fired it back up. This time, it stayed stiff permanently. I had to drive the car back home during rush hours. Luckily I managed to get home without getting involved in an accident. I checked the steering fluid level under the hood and found out that it was full. I googled the steering problem on the 2004 Mini Cooper S, I came to find out the same problems were experienced by many Mini owners. I need your advice as soon as possible on how I can get my car repaired before it cause a major accident on the road. This is the only vehicle I have to make a living. Because of these common steering problems, I hope Mini would take full responsibility for this.

Sudden loss of power steering, couldn't turn wheel ,hit curb.

I made a left turn at a light and the power steering quit working in the middle of the turn. The steering became very heavy and I thought I had a flat tire. I pulled over and checked the fluid and the level was correct. I continued driving and the steering was fine.

I stopped my car in a parking lot to run some errands. When I returned to my car and got it started, I realized that the power steering of my car became really stiff. It was really hard for me to steer my car left and right. The power steering of my car no longer function as before and it was really difficult for me to drive on the road, especially when I have to turn left or right at a road junction.

Power steering assist intermittently failed multiple times today at various speeds. Turning the car off and back on again seems to temporarily fix the problem but after some time, the power assist will fail again. Car is very difficult to steer without power assist.

Power steering went out making vehicle very difficult to control. Was told by Mini dealer $1500 to replace.

While driving the vehicle, at any speed, the automatic power train does not shift gears properly. It will shift up, and down, and not engage the proper gear. The vehicle transmission will "wind-up", then jump into a gear. At times, the vehicle will not shift out of first gear.

Left home with no power steering issues. Half way to work, driving on the highway and began to take a right hand curve in the road and out of no where there is no power steering. No warning or indication that anything was wrong prior to this. Luckily I reacted quickly and the curve was not too sharp because I was in the right hand lane with cars to the left of me and behind me. Would have been bad news had the curve been a little sharper. I checked the power steering fluid level and it was full. When I turned the car off and back on again, the power steering was working again. Drove the car again later in the day, when I started the car everything was working perfectly and then part way to my destination the power steering went out again.

The power steering went out and was virtually impossible to steer.

I was driving down the freeway attempting to change lanes when I noticed that my steering wheel suddenly became very difficult to turn and maneuver, as if the power steering feature had been disabled. Initially, I thought it was just the surface of the road making handling of the car difficult, but the problem continued to persist even after I exited the freeway. While performing left-turns and right-turns on the side streets, I had to exert tremendous labor to complete the turn, and on a couple of occasions I almost hit adjacent cars on the road because I couldn't forcibly turn the steering wheel enough. When I arrived at my destination, I turned off my engine, re-started it, and to my relief and amazement, the steering wheel became easy to maneuver again, without a trace of the steering problems that had just occurred.

While taking a corning my power steer abruplty vanished almost causing me to crash. Very dangerous. Have heard of this happening with many other Minis around the same age.

I was slowing down to make a left hand turn and all of the sudden the power steering went out on it. Being a front wheel drive car made it extremely difficult to turn. Had someone with less arm strength been in the driver's seat they could have hit oncoming traffic head on and killed someone.

I drove my car to my sports team practice, parked and promptly had to relocate my car to an adjacent lot. The power steering did not work upon starting the car to move it and there was no evidence or warning of it's failure. Not even the check engine light went on.

My power steering went out while I was making a left turn in front of oncoming traffic. I managed to avoid hitting the curb and pulled over after completing the turn. It felt like driving with four flat tires. After restarting, the power steering worked again. The same thing happened again two days later. In both cases, this happened shortly after starting up.

The passenger air bag weight sensor stop working. As a result my vehicle displays a warning that the passenger side air bags are off. My driver side fog light housing melted and crack apart. I used stock 55w halogen bulbs. My passenger side fog light housing has also begun to melt. My power steering is not leaking now. But it has been replaced 3 times.

Driving down the road and the steering got hard. After almost wrecking and making it home , turned car off and 10 minutes later it worked again.

After leaving the highway and negotiating the off ramp, the power steering simply stopped working. The steering became extremely difficult so I pulled over, shut the car off and lifted hood to inspect. The was no visual indication of issues an fluid level is fine. After restarting the steering worked fine again. Several days later the same situation occurred in the middle of a corner, it was all I could to maintain control through the corner. I read where there was some "opinions" that if power steering cooling fan was bad it could cause this to happen so I replaced. Still happens intermittently. I will likely pull the steering unit to inspect but the biggest issue is it gives a false sense of security. When you restart the engine everything seems ok so you continue, sometimes for weeks. The problem is that the failure can occur in the middle of a turn and cause a serious accident. There is also no lighted indication of the failure on your dash, so you don,t expect it. This will end up killing someone if it hasn't already.

Steering suddenly became very difficult and stayed that way. It was fine the next day, but as the car was being driven a while the problem came back.