I was driving down brookwood street and went to make a curve when I realized that I couldn't turn the car. I was able to pull harder on the wheel and make the curve. I pulled over and turned the car off to look things over,checked the power steering fluid which was full. I restarted the car and the steering worked again.I finished driving to work with no problems. When I came out of work I again had no power steering and had the car towed into a shop where they told me the power steering pump had failed and it was going to cost over $1300 to fix. I had the repair done but am afraid to drive the car as they told me it could happen again even with the new part.
2005 MINI Cooper S steering complaints
Page 5 of 8: complaints 101 to 130 of 212, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Temporary loss of power steering. After driving for about 2 hours, I stopped to fill up at a gas station. I then started the car and began to drive out of the gas station. I soon noticed the power steering was not working. I pulled into a parking space, opened the hood, and proceeded to check the power steering fluid. The power steering fluid reservoir was full. I restarted the car after about 5 minutes and the power steering was working again. This temporary power steering loss has occurred 3 more times over the last month since the initial incident described above. During the last occurrence, I drove a short distance back to my home with no power steering. I'd like to point out steering was very difficult, nearly undriveable around slow speed turns. The steering effort was much more than manual steering cars I've owned in the past.
Power steering completely fails.
On multiple occasions at various speeds and at random times, the power steering on my 2005 mini cooper s will stop working. After researching the issue, this appears to be a very common problem that plagues almost every mini sold since 2002. I would also like to reference the federal safety agency action number :ea11005, as it applies to my particular issue.
Noticed level of power steering fluid was low. No apparent leak on ground. Noticed the boots on rack and pinion are pressurized and realized that is where the fluid is leaking into.
The power assist for the steering fails intermittently. Often this occurs midway through a turn. Sometimes turning the car off and re-starting will resolve the problem, other times it does not. Reported the issue to the dealer service department and before I could finish the sentence the two service writers said there was not issue with the power steering pump! Without the power assist the steering is very heavy. As a strong, experienced driver I knew what to do when the power assist failed, but this would be very dangerous for an older or less physical driver since the assist failure is sudden and without warning. As a driver you go from being able to casually steer with minimal input to instantly needing to forcefully turn the steering wheel to maintain control of the car!!!! The car currently has 40,011 miles and continues to have this problem intermittently.
I started to hear this winding or loud humming sound, did not know where it was coming from..it was examined by a mechanic,,and it was the power steering pump failing, and the electric cooling fan failing. Read about many problems with this steering pump on 2005 mini's. The cost was $1226.00 to replace. Even though I did not lost power steering, it could have happened at anytime.
My power steering pump on my 2005 mini cooper s failed at 45 MPH in downtown los angeles. I have taken my vehicle in for a diagnoses in which they informed me the repair would be over $1k. I declined the repair as I have located a number of complaints regarding this issue, and am now taking it up with mini hq.
Power steering stopped working near the end of a 15 mile drive to work. Power steering functioned normally on the drive home 9 hours later.
Bought my dream car, an '05 mini cooper s monday, labor day, and immediately started having problems with the steering randomly cutting in and out. Not awesome! Each time, turning the car off and then back on has resolved the issue, however it would seem that it shouldn't be happening, like, at all, let along having to 'cycle' the engine each time.
Parked the vehicle after a short trip of approx. 10 miles. Left car for approx 5 to 7 minutes. Returned to find smoke billowing from under the hood. Immediately started to unhook the battery cable. Got the battery unhooked and smoke diminished. Tried restarting car, restarted fine, but no power steering. Assuming that the power steering pump went up in smoke. Fortunately, damage seems to be limited to ps pump... Not sure yet if smoldering/smoke indicates any other damage under the hood or not.
Power stearing went out on 2005 mini cooper while driving on lots of curves along columbia river, seems to be a thing with these cars after looking on line. Just glad I'm not swimming with the fishes due to having to muscle the car on the road.
Tl* the contact owns a 2005 mini cooper s. The contact stated that the power steering pump would continue to run even when the vehicle was turned off, causing the vehicle to loose power steering while driving. Neither the dealer nor the manufacturer were notified of the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was 73,000 and the current mileage was 74,000.
2005 mini cooper s - engine fire a few days ago (7/27/2011) my 2005 mini cooper s caught fire in the lower rear engine compartment while parked in a business parking lot. It had been driven a short distance (about 6 miles) three hours prior with no indication of a problem. The car ignition was off and there was no key present in or near the vehicle. Fortunately, a co-worker spotted the car billowing smoke from beneath the hood and we were able to quickly extinguish the fire before any significant damage was done to the vehicle or surrounding property. According to the mechanic who diagnosed the car and subsequent electrical fire - the incident was caused by an overheating and eventual ignition of an electrical harness caused by a sudden failure of the power steering pump. I must emphasize that prior to the fire, there was no indication in the vehicle (warning system) or by the vehicles performance that there was any problem with the pump or handling. It failed completely without warning! While parked and unattended! Thankfully, the car was not parked in my garage at night where the fire would have certainly gotten a lot worse before being discovered and could have potentially been devastating to my property and family. As it stands the car is scheduled to be repaired at a cost of nearly 1000.00, possibly more as we do not yet know if there was any damage caused to additional components within the vehicle by the pumps failure. I am the original owner and only driver of this vehicle. This car has been regularly maintained and was recently mechanically inspected last march. No issues were found with the vehicle at the time of it's last maintenance and inspection.
Tl* the contact owns a 2005 mini cooper. The contact stated that shortly after powering off the ignition, he noticed smoke coming from the steering pump. The fire department arrived and cut the battery line. The dealer did not offer any assistance. The manufacturer was aware of the failure. The contact replaced the steering pump. The current mileage was 40,746 and the approximate failure mileage was 40,540. Updated 9/13/11 *cn the consumer repalcd the pump, fluid and other small parts. Updated 01/23/12
I have a january 2005 built mini cooper s (r53) with approximately 21,000 miles on it. On february 12, 2011 I was driving the car on a winding road in southern california when the power steering pump catastrophically failed without any warning in the middle of a high speed turn. The unexpected power steering pump failure made the steering completely unresponsive causing the car to spin out of control and nearly hit a tree (I was very lucky that I wasn't killed!). After doing some research, it appears that unwarranted power steering pump failures are quite common with the earlier mini cooper models. I feel that this is a huge safety concern that should be addressed by the manufacture via a mandatory safety recall. After the initial catastrophic failure of the power steering pump, the pump would work intermittently in that it would run fine for a while and then fail again without warning a short time later making the car extremely dangerous to drive. At times, the electric power steering pump would not switch off after turning off the car's ignition and the car's battery would ultimately go flat leaving us stranded. We took the car into the mini dealership on 2/17//2011 and they diagnosed the car as having a bad battery (claiming that the battery was so low that the car was actually shutting down the power steering in order to stay running). They charged us $160 for the diagnostics. We then replaced the battery with an oem batter from the dealership ($130) and it didn't make any difference. We also contacted the manufacturer (mini USA) directly and they were unwilling to help claiming that the car was no longer under the manufacturer's warranty. Ultimately, on july 26, 2011 (at 21,385 miles) we replaced the failed power steering pump (part # 32-41-6-778-425) at a cost of $735.29 (plus labor). The mini dealership wanted well over $1,000 to perform the work and so we purchase a remplacement pump from the mini dealership and had it installed ourselves.
Power steering pump failure on 2005 mini cooper leads to dangerous driving
Upon starting the vehicle and sometimes while moving at low speeds the power steering would fail making the vehicle extremely difficult to steer. The dealer explained that the relay in the auxiliary engine fan had failed likely as a result of the power steering fan failing. Both the auxiliary engine fan and the power steering fan had to be replaced. The cost of the repairs and labor was $1060.14.
Power steering is intermittent making car difficult to control. I'm the second owner of car. First failure occurred at approximately 85,000 miles.
Power steering pump failed while driving on the freeway, resulting in loss of steering control.
2005 mini cooper power steering failure.
After driving for approx 2 hours at highway speeds, power steering failed. Noticed upon exiting highway - no accident, but steering required unexpectedly significant force.
2005 mini cooper s power steering failed while turning off highway almost causing me to crash into an adjacent car because I had to muscle the car into a corner. This is a very serious problem which happened one more time later in the week while I was turning into my driveway. A woman might not be able to muscle the car correctly thus causing an accident.
I own a 05 mini cooper s that has power steering problems..the steering went out when driving 75mph..since then the power steering motor will not shut off on its own and the battery must be disconnected which is another issue altogether...I am not able to drive this vehicle as it is not safe...it started as an intemittent problem and now is a constant problem...I only own this vehicle as was hoping mini would step up and take care of this...
2005 mini cooper s. Power steering failure: I was driving my car for about 10 minutes, when the power steering failed. I reached my destination (without power steering), the car sat for approx 3 hours, when I got back in the car, the power steering worked. The first occurrence was on tuesday, june 14, 2011. On wednesday, june 15, this occurred numerous times after driving the vehicle only for a few minutes. Again, after the car sat for a few hours, the power steering resumed working. My car has approx 56k miles on it, and I am the original owner of the vehicle. Updated 07/26/11 *bf *tr updated 3/16/12
While driving my 2005 mini cooper s through a crowded parking lot, my power steering just suddenly went out without warning. There was no indication of the sudden failure and I was barely able to get my mini into a parking spot away from pedestrians.
I have a 2005 mini cooper s. The power steering went out on me as I was driving on the bay bridge. Almost killed me and god only knows who else was on the bridge! How can the people at bmw sleep at night knowing there are minis out there with this problem! Do the research and you will see how many terrified mini owners are out there! Thank god I was in the far right lane so I could pull the car over and coast the rest of the way. The car was towed to minisf, who told me the power steering pump failed. I replaced the pump, but for some reason the problem continues intermittently. The fan runs all the time, even when driven for a short time. The entire system needs to be replaced. And, what's worse is the thought of selling this car to someone who might experience the same terror I did. There were no injuries or crashes. Thank god for that.
Power steering intermittently goes out while driving and continues to run while the car has turned off. Has almost caused me to crash several times when it has gone out on the express way.
Power steering intermittently goes out while driving and does not return until car is cycled off and back on again.
My power steering began to stop working as I rode. I would park the car, switch the engine off and restart and the power steering would come back. This happened several times both in back roads and highways. Finally last month it stopped working completely and now it is very difficult to drive and really a danger to be on the road with.
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