Power steering pump or fluid leak on the 2005 MINI Cooper
1 crash 1 of the 83 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 2005 MINI Cooper report power steering pump or fluid leak at a median of 65,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles, from 79 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 100,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 42,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 117,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 75,703 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
6% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42,297 miles | 55,750 miles | 66,040 miles | 90,500 miles | 118,000 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 is 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 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
Absolutely no unusual noises or any other symptoms leading up to the failure. Car has about 53,000 miles on it, power steering pump failed- car is now exceedingly difficult to steer & a safety hazard to drive. Thankfully I was driving at low speed when the failure occurred, so no crashes or injuries occurred. Power steering pump & fan will need to be replaced, but have not had it done yet, as I am told it will cost approximately $1500 for this repair & I am about 3000 miles out of warranty now. I have also heard this is a common problem in 2002-2006 mini coopers. *tr
Power steering pump on 2005 mini cooper convertible started making noise (even with engine turned off, draining the battery), then ultimately failed. An internet search indicates that this repair costs approx $2000 to fix, and that replacement power steering pumps fail regularly, so we've been driving without power steering in the vehicle. *tr
Wife was driving her 2005 mini cooper and said that several minutes after starting her drive, the power steering began acting erratically. The power steering assist would go cease when she was turning a corner, forcing her to muscle the car in unassisted steering mode. Then, the power steering would kick in, resulting in oversteer in the middle of the turn, requiring quick correction. I was unable to replicate the problem when she returned home that day. However, the next day, the power steering was no longer functioning at all. Concerned about driving the vehicle in that condition, we took it to be repaired. Since the car was no longer in warranty (only 32,500 miles, but >4 years old) we did not take it to the dealer for service. Our repair shop diagnosed the problem as a failure of the power steering pump fan, which in turn LED to a failure of the power steering pump. He said the layout of these items was poorly designed, increasing the chance of failure and that he thought mini had modified the layout in subsequent years. Total cost for the repair was $1,650. *tr
Also reported on the 2005 MINI Cooper
Other steering problem
Loss of power steering
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Cooling fan failure
Other powertrain problem
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 83 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 2005 MINI Cooper?
Across 79 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 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 2005 MINI Cooper?
83 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 7.7 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