Knackered Gearbox

[Moonshine]

A couple of weeks ago, i noticed a droning noise from what i eventually traced to be the gearbox (52 plate cooper with 76k miles and midland 'box). The car was 6 weeks out of warranty and BMW (Fairbairns) confirmed it sounded like a bearing or broken tooth. As it was out of warranty, things were not looking good, however the service manager offered to speak to BMW to se about a goodwill gesture, which they agreed to, however it was only 60% of the parts, which woult still have left me with a £1300 bill:blackeye:

So i spoke with a tame mechanic we use, who recommended a chap in Cambuslang to recon the gearbox, so the whole job, inc labour for removal and refitting of the gearbox, the complete reconditioning of my box, and a new clutch (as a precautionary measure as the original was worn but still servicable, however there would be no additional labour cost to renew it at this time), came to £700. - bit of a "bargin" all things considering!.

Our tame mechanic did the removal and refit and clutch work and a for £400 in the clutch and the gearbox was recon'd by a really pleasant specialist father and son firm who i visited to let them diagnose the problem before they received the 'box and all for the miserly sum of £290.

I would thouroughly recommend should anyone need their services It might have been another £100 for the main shaft and differential gear had they been damaged, however they weren't (luckily!!)


If anyone needs a clutch or gearbox job done in the Glasgow or East Kilbride area and is not afraid to have it done outside the dealer network, get in contact and i'll put you in touch with Craig. The only downside of this is that i dropped my car in on monday and should have it back this arvo..but I can live with that because i've saved over £600 on the dealer cost.

Gerry

[ianking]

Thats good news. Did you not consider getting a new gearbox from a breaker. There are plenty minis in the modern breakers now.

[Moonshine]

I looked into a breakers box and they were going to be around £400.

Our mechanic recommeded against a breakers 'box or even another one from a reconditioner which was of unknown provinance.

The reasoning behind this was that any 2nd hand gearbox would be an unknown entity - if from a breakers, it might have done 1,000 or 100,000 miles on it and might be in the same or worse nick than your own box, also, in his experience, a breaker will sell you anything, and things like gear ratios may not be identical to your box, causing compatability issues.
With regards an a recon'd box from joe bloggs recon Ltd, again they are an unknown entity and all you have is their word that the box has been recon'd - there have been cases of unscrupulous traders only painting boxes and reselling them.

By reconditioning the original box, we know the gearbox will be like new and that everything is right for the car and there will be no misfitting issues. (and it ended up cheaper) A breaker or new recon'd box would still have req'd removal and refitting. in addition to the purchase price.


Gerry

[Craig]

there have been a few gearbox issues recently...:disapprove:

glad you got it sorted though Gerry, I hate being without my car...

[sleepyrascal]

They offered to pay 60%?!? They paid 70% of my replacement gearbox and my car is a year older. I wonder how that works.

Gerry it sounds like you really have scored with your refurb box. I opted for the BMW refit. This involved new clutch and box which cost just over £1300ish in total. The benefit is that I have a two year BMW warranty covering the new box and clutch, and it was done in a day. However it did cost me £600 more than you!!

I have already use the warranty on the box.... the replacement box packed in only 2 days after I got the car back. However it turned out to be the fault of my dealer who had forgotten to replace the oil filler nut which slowly starved the box of oil. So the box was replaced again, but all is good now.

[Gismo]

Sounds like the extra warranty is worth every penny

[The Dogfather]

There's an article about gearbox problems in MINIs in the new autoexpress, sounds like BMW know there's a problem and can't fix it.

[Moonshine]

I nipped out at lunchtime and grabbed a copy of Autoexpress. The article is referring to problems selectong reverse on a ONE D and various other gear selection probs on the ONE D. IIRC, the ONE D has a 5 or 6 speed Getrag box. not the midlands box (due to the torque) which means it is similar to the new ONE or Cooper 'boxes or all Cooper S boxes.

It appears the problem referred to isn't the same one that i had.

Gerry