Troubles with my gear box.

[martshan64]

I have a 2007 Mini Cooper and over the past few months I seem to be having trouble getting my gear stick into certain gears while I'm driving.
Today for instance, I was driving home from the school run and I was in third gear and I needed to turn, so I dropped it down to second gear and the gear stick would just not go in. I can slow the car right down to try and get it into first gear when this happens but the gear stick only seems to want to go into reverse. I can even try putting it back into third gear but it just won't go back into that one. It used to do it quite a lot if I wore flip flops so my husband told me to start wearing proper shoes and it did stop but now it seems to be starting up again.
Please could you give me some advice on what the problem could be?

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Since you said "the gear stick", I will assume that you have a manual transmission. If you have an auto, things are fairly different.

Problems with several gears at once are often related to the clutch, instead of the gearbox itself. If the clutch is not releasing all the way, you could get symptoms like this. Does the pedal feel normal, or is it spongy or extra-soft? Does the pedal get firmer if you pump it several times in a row? If so, that would indicate air in the hydraulic system for the clutch.

The clutch should be self-adjusting (that's part of the point of hydraulic clutches, after all!), so a problem releasing indicates something more serious than just being out of adjustment.

Try bleeding the clutch, or flushing all new fluid through it if it's been more than a couple of years since that was last done. There should be a way to do that, but I haven't looked into that procedure yet for my car, which is still in the "pre-paid maintenance" period.

The shift linkage, the cables that go from the gear shift lever to the transmission, could also be out of adjustment or have gotten messed up somehow. If, for instance, the cable sheath comes loose from where it is mounted, the motion of the lever will not be accurately transmitted to the bits in the transmission that select the gears. Does the gear lever feel strange, other than just not wanting to go into gear?

Changing the transmission fluid may also help, depending on what is going on in the transmission. I personally don't buy that the fluid is "lifetime" in that you never should change it at all. It may have a long life, but I don't think there is any automotive fluid that should never be changed. Also, changing the fluid gives you a chance to look at what comes out to see if there is any debris in the fluid. That could indicate damage inside the transmission.

Sorry to not be very specific, but I'm operating on general automotive knowledge because I haven't dug into my 2012 MINI yet.

--DD