bad tranny

[thoreau]

I heard back from the mechanic. He has diagnosed it as a "chipped gear" in the transmission. He's researching finding a used tranny for my mini. The internet shows that the 2003 and 2004 model have transmission failure 90-100k. He says I could keep driving it - that its not going to blow up or anything - but that if the chipped gear decided to give way it could be a catastrophic failure.