2003 MINI COOPER User Comment / Complaint

2003 mini cooper transmission failure at 70,000 miles, 4 years. mini usa and bmw of north america, llc have a long history of this failure and refuse to take accountability for their defective parts, claiming it's a characteristic of the car. smells of deceptive trade practices to me. not to mention a monopoly-- there are only two dealership in dallas/fort worth that service mini coopers, both tell me that the cost will be between $6k-9k to replace w/labor costs. pep boys and other independents won't or cannot touch it because it's a mini cooper and only mini authorized dealers supposedly have specialty software/parts to perform job. this is a racket, mini and bmw need to step up and stop selling defective transmissions and replace this at their cost and stand by their product and faulty and defective manufacturing. this is a problem for many first generation mini's as i have learned from my recent on-line research. bmw/mini has changed the transmissions on the mini 2007 model -- wonder why?? they advertise that this car is a safe, dependable and long lasting car, but to the contrary, look at the list of problems people are reporting with them. god help them.