It's probably the tracking, in which case you'll also be unevenly wearing your tyres.

Get it checked.

 

Could also be wheel balance - as with the tracking, cheap and easy to get checked out.

If that doesn't fix it, it could be any number of things and probably worth getting a mechanic to look over...

Chris

 

did you sort this as mine has started to do the same today i would appreciate the advise.

Regards

Billy

 

hey guys, anyone came to a solution? same here, 2003. plates, developed this while on motorway, at 50mph it starts to rattle/shakes and gets worse while accelerating. the moment I lift off the pedal it stops shaking. apart from the 'general' car shake, the geartick starts to wobble like crazy.
I checked all the tyres, balance, all good.
when it showed up at first, the day after I tried it on the highway again and it was all normal, thats what put me off going to the dealers but after a week it started again.

 

driveshaft possibly

 

i would suggest if you wheels are balanced and your tracking is ok first thing i would look at is all your engine mounts the oil filled mount on the top right hand side goes quite often which can cause similar to what you are discribing
if they are ok have a good look around the suspention check your wheel bearings my money is on wheel balance and mounts if it is speed related
hope this is of help

 

Ive repaired a couple off cars with this complaint and found it to be the inner drive shaft joint, not the cv joint. But the gearbox end, the symptoms are alot more violent than wheel balancing and the vibration is more central to the car and travels up the gearstick not the steering wheel as to what wheel balancing effects, some cars the right hand side driveshaft has a central bearing that can go, which is a possibility but i'd check the inner joints out, its worth a look...

 

thank you for replies!

yes, it seemed to me from the start that it couldn't be the wheels/tyres because of the intensity of the shakes, and also because they stop immediately after I depress the pedal, even though still running 70-80mph. however I had them balanced to rule it out.
monday or tuesday I'll have the shaft checked with the mechanic.
also recently I noticed a very quiet 'clicking' sound when gear shifting, could it be related? I have the car for 5 years now and incredibly haven't had any gearbox issues, hopefully its not the time yet...

stead34, any evaluation of the costs?

will keep you posted on the outcome.

 

OK it went good, came out to be because of the worn out engine mounts, one loose, one completely dead. the 'clicking' sound also related to that.

120eur for both and labor at official bmw, I was kinda happy to pay considering all the things that went through my head this weekend.

 

sad twist to the story - after hitting the motorway last night, wobble appeared soon again.

visiting the dealership this morning again added 430e to the expenses for the left drive shaft.

keep thinking if should just take the shaft and start looking for an indie mechanic for a balance or fix. but on the other hand I don't feel like selling the car anytime soon (unless it really brakes my wallet), so I went along with the official replacement.

steady34, u were right on this one as I was afraid

 

Glad you've fixed it, take it the clicking was the mounts and the driveshaft the vibration. Manufacterers tend to put alot of hours against a driveshaft for some reason, I think I used to get 1.5 hrs for 1 side and 2.5 for doing both, which in reality it takes about 45 mins to do both. Bad for customers but good for the mechanics on bonus. Peugeot(who I worked for) don't do it to rip people off in a way as these are the hours the dealers claim of the manufacterer when its claimed under warranty so they get stung with there own time scale...

 

Thanks for this post. I'm having a similar problem. Severe shaking at around 60-65 MPH when accelerating. The car still performs well in every other aspect. I overtook a semi on a two-lane highway on Sunday with no problems at 65 mph, but I can't deal with the shaking.

At least now I know that when I take it in, the technician needs to look at the inner driveshaft joints.

 

This is an old thread, but I thought I'd post an update.

I brought it in for an allignment, rotation, and balance recently. That seemed to fix the problem. No more shaking. I'm once again excited to take my MINI on the highway.

But I also have the same clicking sound that you have when I shift gears. Glad I happened upon this thread again. I'll be putting another 1,000 miles on my MINI this weekend, and I'm taking it back to my mechanic on Monday. He said he was going to put it back on the allignment machine again to make sure that it was still alligned after a good 1,000 miles. I'll have him take a look at the engine mounts while I'm in there.

 

Another update.

While the acceleration was fine after leaving the shop last week, I put about 1,000 miles on my MINI over the weekend, many of them in the Badlands of North Dakota. After driving it up a couple of hills, the shaking returned worse than ever, and that's the way it sits right now. I had an appointment with my mechanic this morning anyway, so it's in the shop right now being looked at.

The ticking, I've discovered, occurs while accelerating and not when shifting gears. It is worse than ever as well. It's kind of frightening how rough the car is running right now. If it was running this poorly last Friday when I left town, I wouldn't have trusted it.

 

Its not a high speed misfire is it? only happens under acceleration, better when you ease off? that would make the engine vibrate??

 

That's an interesting thought.

I'm making sure that my mechanic drives it on the interstate today before I go get it back.

 

Talked to my mechanic just a few moments ago. Turns out, it is the driveshaft/axle joint coupled with a loose engine mount. Should be able to knock both out for about $320 later this week. No interestate driving in the meantime.

Thank you for your comments, stead34. When you turned out to be right about the driveshaft, my mechanic didn't hesitate to check the engine mounts as well whenI suggested it.

I'll post later in the week when things are all situated in case anyone is following this thread.

 

It took a while for my mechanic to get in the part, but my MINI is now fixed and is running smoothly on the intersate. I had forgotten how much fun it was to downshift, hit the throttle, and pass a semi! Ahh, the simple things in life.

 

Looks like the same problem i have on my MINI.
Thanks for good information.

 

Thanks for all of your follow ups ini this thread you guys! It's been very helpful in finding what is making my 2003 R53 "wiggle" on excelleration. Someone suggested it was a strut mount, but those were replaced recently. The CV boot has an ugly tear and needs to be attended to, so I will get to replacing the drive shaft asap!