My grand daughter bought this car in the Spring of 2023 in Illinois. She drove it home to Colorado. Within two months the power steering stopped working. She took it to a shop the specializes in Mini's. They replaced the fuse which did not fix it. She was told it would cost over $3,000.00 to replace the power steering. That was more than the cost of the car. She had a friend who is a mechanic replace the unit and it still does not work. I attempted to check the 100 amp fuse which powers the unit and could not access the fuse, which is located on the underside of the main fuse block in the engine compartment. I'm not a mechanic, but I have repaired a few of my vehicles and figured a fuse would be easily accessible. I was sadly mistaken. My research indicated it could be the cooling fan for the power steering unit. This would cost another $350. My granddaughter has already paired over $850 and cannot afford any more. They plan to sell it at auction. The power steering failed on her way to work. Luckily, she managed to continue to work. Her father came to drive it home. I started driving fire trucks before they had power steering. This was considerably harder. It is extremely dangerous and BMW/Mini should correct the problem.

I see that Mini has added an extended warranty for 2002-2005 models, but the problem still exists! There is/was a class action lawsuit filed a couple years ago, but I can't determine what the ruling was/is. An electrical pump shouldn't be failing at 60k miles, and could be extremely dangerous and kill someone depending on speed and circumstances. Have read that the failure has caused the vehicle to catch fire as well!! The worst of it is, is that BMW has known about these issues since day one. Unbelievable!

We need more complaints about this and to seek remedy!

Any feedback or solutions would be helpful.

I own a 2002 and a 2006 mini. I received a letter extending the warranty on the 2002 mini for the potential power steering problem but so far that car has not had any problems with this system. This past weekend I noticed a loud noise (fan) coming from my car after I had turned off the engine. I restarted the car and it seemed to be ok but my battery light was on. As I drove home there was a great deal of smoke coming from under the car. I was a few blocks from home when I realized that I did not have any power steering. When I got home my husband opened the bonnet and it smelled very strongly of burning plastic or similar material. I am in contact with Mini USA to seek some support cor reimbursement for this very expensive repair.

Bought the car with 35,000 miles in 2010 and had no real problems until early May,2014 when I lost power steering. Had all maintenance done at Charleston Mini dealer until then. Took car to friend who is import mechanic who put in a power steering pump(actually put in two in case first one was defective) but this didn't solve the problem. Next put in rack and pinion which also didn't help. He then recommended I go to dealer which I did on 5/21. They looked it over and determined(speculated) that the steering column needed replacement as it was "binding" Estimated cost plus labor - $1,600. Problem was that there were no parts in the U.S. so had to order from Germany and could take up to 2 months to be delivered. I asked the service manager to keep me up to date and he said he would. I left the car at the dealer and there was no offer for a loner. Waited as patiently as I could as the weeks rolled by and never heard a word from the service manager. Stopped by the dealer once in June and was told to expect the part on July 21. Continued to wait and went back to dealer on 7/21 and checked with parts manager who looked on his computer and said that the order had been cancelled by somebody in Germany but he didn't know who. When asked, he said it may be another 2 months before part arrived if they could figure out who to order it from. They were going to talk to some Mini reps for information. This was the last straw so I asked the sales manager to buy back the car. He had his appraisers look and they offered $2,500(median bluebook for this car is $7,500). I then went to sales manager(was not aware of this situation) I accepted $4,000 for the car. Had to get this off my chest.