Power steering pump or fluid leak on the 2003 MINI Cooper
1 crash 10 fires 1 injury 12 of the 64 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When power steering pump or fluid leak gets reported
Owners of the 2003 MINI Cooper report power steering pump or fluid leak at a median of 75,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles, from 60 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 100,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 47,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 132,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 85,442 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48,000 miles | 55,967 miles | 74,576 miles | 111,083 miles | 133,442 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash, 10 a fire and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $350–$1,600 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 5 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2005, at a median of 65,000 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 75,000 miles.
By volume the 2005 carries the most reports, with 83; the 2003 has 64. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
The power steering pump failed on my 2003 mini cooper. It went through stages of operation and non-operation before finally going out all together. I was charged $1,000 to replace. *jb
I will be installing what will be the third manual 5-speed transmission in my mini. Same problem, seems to be the final drive bearing is failing likely due to lack of lubrication. I have records of all service and check it regularly and it has never been low. The bearing is apparently not getting a proper supply of fluid. Problem number two, my power steering pump failed on me once. It exploded while I was driving. The hoses basically got too hot and blew up. I fortunately was able to limp it to a shop without any fire. On another occasion the power steering fan continued to run even when the ignition was shut off, needed to replace the entire pump this time which cost me $500 installed with a remanufactured pump. Third, I have had to put three windshields in the car. None of these repairs were warranted! Mini needs to suck it up and claim responsibility for these shoddily made cars, they have made their money and don't care to help with anything. I am a loyal bmw customer but I think I will stick with the older models now as they aren't impossible to work on and find parts for. God knows I will not pay 23 grand for this nightmare…
I will be installing what will be the third manual 5-speed transmission in my mini. Same problem, seems to be the final drive bearing is failing likely due to lack of lubrication. I have records of all service and check it regularly and it has never been low. The bearing is apparently not getting a proper supply of fluid. Problem number two, my power steering pump failed on me once. It exploded while I was driving. The hoses basically got too hot and blew up. I fortunately was able to limp it to a shop without any fire. On another occasion the power steering fan continued to run even when the ignition was shut off, needed to replace the entire pump this time which cost me $500 installed with a remanufactured pump. Third, I have had to put three windshields in the car. None of these repairs were warranted! Mini needs to suck it up and claim responsibility for these shoddily made cars, they have made their money and don't care to help with anything. I am a loyal bmw customer but I think I will stick with the older models now as they aren't impossible to work on and find parts for. God knows I will not pay 23 grand for this nightmare…
Also reported on the 2003 MINI Cooper
Other steering problem
CVT failure
Other powertrain problem
Loss of power steering
Complete transmission failure
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 64 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does power steering pump or fluid leak happen on the 2003 MINI Cooper?
Across 60 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is power steering pump or fluid leak on the 2003 MINI Cooper?
64 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 6.0 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed