Mini Stuck in Gear - advice please

[mlambere]

Can you advise, my gearstick will not engage any gear and is struck in 3rd it just flops around. Is this likely to be gearbox or clutch. It;s only happended on my way home and managed to get it outside my house before stalling

[RKDE]

lots of different gearboxes and quite a few variants of mini

could be the cable, could be a synchroniser, could be something stuck in the shift mech. if its a cooper before 2004 there is a mighty fine chance its the box. Don't think it will have anything to do with the clutch

[mlambere]

Cheers RK, it a mini cooper s 2003. went all a sudden at 123000 miles - i guess if it is the boxes it will cost an arm and a leg....

[MX-5 Lazza]

My 2003 Cooper had a new (recon) gearbox fitted at a price of over £1900 + fitting + VAT but it was all paid for by the warranty
Yours sounds more like cables though if the gearstick is flopping around without having any effect.

[DanGT]

It sounds like the linke between the box and the gear stick. It is hard to see with out removing the battery.

You should then be able to see if the input to the box is moving correctly and it is the box.

Second hand boxes are easly avalible and also a number of people doing recon boxes for about the £500 mark. Check out the (new) mini mag. They even do drive in drive out but this could be hard for you to get the car to them.

[mlambere]

Thanks MX and Dan for your advice. Have in in the local garage now and he will get back to me and I will let you know.

The price of a recon box and fitting seems horrendous though the car is probabaly only worth around 3000 with it's current milage.

[MX-5 Lazza]

As mentioned above, the price of a recon gearbox can probably be a lot better than the one on my car but a warranty company are a bit more limited in what they are allowed to fit. If I had my way I'd have fitted a 6-speed gearbox which would probably have cost no more than the 5-speed elsewhere

[mlambere]

The relatively good news is it needs a new cable and brackets estimated cost £300 including labour £300, the cable is £150.

Thanks for you support

regards

[RKDE]

fairly normal about this time of year and almost every mini will have split of missing rubber boots so its a worth while check for everyone. anything before 2005 will not have missing or split cable boots so will suffer this problem unless sorted.

The S gearbox is nothing like the early pre 2004 cooper box and you would be really unlucky to have broken that

glad it was just the cable though, as suggested

its not a hard diy fix and that is quite expensive labour for what is only a 1hr - 2hr job. cable cost is what it is but you should if you can another garage. I can't understand the bracket needing changing either, in the 8 years I have been taking minis apart I have not yet seen one break a bracket.

Edited by RKDE on Friday 10th February 22:02

[Typical girl with cars]

I know this is an old post but I’m hopi g someone will reply 😂

I’m having a similar problem, my gears were stiff since 4 days ago, took carvto garage the next day they suspect it’s early stage of gear box going but ok to drive for some time, 4 days later gear gets stuck and can’t move it out. Eventually get it out and now can’t get the stick into any of the gears and serious loud grinding on trying to get in reverse. And I just tried again recently and now when I blush my clutch down it’s creaking. It’s a 51 plate Mini Cooper hatchback. Any ideas if it definitely is gear box and clutch, garage quoted £1000 to do those, but they said it might not be...

[stevemcs]

The selector falls apart, you can buy all the bits but from what i remember its gearbox out to do.