Mini Automatic Tiptronic Problem

[barazi]

Hi There. Yes I am having similar problems. I have a 2001 Mini Cooper that is Tiptronic Automatic. The problems for me first initially started in 2006, in which the car would jerk a lot because of the gearbox, therefore I took it to the dealer, they had a look, reset the adaption’s, road tested the car and then told me that it's sorted. The problem had re-appeared but I couldn't afford to keep sending it back to the dealer so I lived with it for a while as it wasn't really that bad until March 2009. The revs were constantly high. I then took it to the dealer, they had a look, reset the adaption’s charged me over £100 as before and told me its fixed. 5 weeks later, the problem came again, this time it was even worse. They had a look a little deeper I think, cleaned everything out, reset the adaptions. However, upon collection of my car, I was surprised that the dealer didn't check this before giving me back the car. I noticed on the display that it read "EP". I showed the dealer and they told me immediately that the car is in Emergency Program and advised me not to drive. After inspecting the car a little further their advice was to simply have the gearbox replaced at a cost of £4,900. You can imagine what I told them. So far the car is still with the dealer and I am trying to see if I can build a case as I'm sure this is a manufacture fault that has been brewing for quite some time. Is there anyone else with this problem? If this cannot be solved by the dealer then most likely I will have to buy a recon. Part and get this fitted. Can anyone offer some help.

[aupperton]

Hi, I'm not sure my problem is exactly the same but it may help.

Shortly after buying my 2005 MCSa in September the EP light started appearing in the dial. I took it into the dealers for analysis and they told me after a day of checking that the ECU unit for controlling the gearbox had packed up and needed replacing.

It was going to cost over £400 to ship in from Germany and would take a couple of hours to fit which would cost an additional £250 (yes the dealer charges something like £115+vat per hour!!!). Since the car was only just 4 years old I wasn't very happy in being told a non mechanical part has only lasted that long.

The dealer went back to BMW to see if anything could be done as a "goodwill" gesture and luckily enough they decided in my favour and I only ended up paying £190 all in for the part and fitting.

So far so good, but within a couple of days the EP was back again in the display. So back went the car to the dealer and this time they kept it for 2 days whilst checking it all out.

In the end they discovered that it was the actual gearstick unit in the car which goes down and attaches to the gear box. Apparently it has its own wiring loom and where the engine and gearbox move around it has caused a couple of the wires to rub their covering off and short out. This was causing the EP program mode. So they replaced the entire gearstick and wiring loom assembly free of charge (having messed me around the first time) and the problem was resolved. So in the end I had a new ECU and gearstick assembly for £190 which I'm not going to complain about.

Anyway, back to your issue, it may be something similar and therefore I would advise you to ask the dealer to check the gearstick wiring loom where it enters the gearbox as that's where the problem may be.

Hope this helps....

[Sejanus]

Barazi if you have a 2001 Cooper then what you have is not an automatic transmission but a CVT (and in fact this thread is in the wrong forum). If that is the case you might want to go through the CVT forum, there's quite a bit there accumulated over the years about CVT issues.