Used 2008 Mini Cooper S JCW John Cooper Works 6 Speed Automatic - cars & for sale in Visalia, CA

This is a rare 2008 Mini Cooper S with the John Cooper Works appearance package. It has the 18" JCW wheels, front and rear bumpers, along with the side skirts. I bought the car in September of 2020 and have only put 1,000 miles on it since.

Clean title and current registration
6 speed automatic steptronic transmission with sport mode and paddle shifters.
4 cylinder 1.6 liter turbocharged engine
Leather seats
Panoramic roof

The car had a code for the catalytic converter being below efficiency so I changed the O2 sensor to see if it would help. It didn't, so after some research I bought an O2 sensor extender to bypass the problem. It also helped to pass smog in August of 2021.

A few months ago, the car started flaring from 3rd-4th gear. The shifting hangs and delays from 3rd-4th gear around 30mph. I drained and filled the transmission fluid like 5 times but that did not help much. The shifting recently got worse. Anything after 30-40mph feels like it's not engaging into the next gear. I would not recommend driving it on the highway with these shifting issues.

After hours of research, I believe that it will need some new solenoids in the valve body. This is a very common problem with the Aisin 09G TF60SN transmissions that came in VW, Audi, and Mini. You can Google or Youtube it and you’ll find lots of info about problems and repairs. BMW even got sued years back regarding this issue with the Mini Cooper transmissions.

When I first did the tranny fluid drain/fill, it was black and smelled burnt so I don’t think it was ever changed. I believe the problem lies with the N282/N92 solenoids. Some people just change the solenoids that are bad, some change all 6 solenoids, while others just change out the whole valve body.
Here are some things that I have done to the car:

Repaint the clear coat on the carbon fiber hood scoop
Oil change twice (went from castrol to mobil 1)
New vacuum pump o-ring for an oil leak issue
Several transmission fluid drain and fills
Silverstar ultra headlight bulbs
Plastidip the chrome headlight and taillight trims
Changed interior lights and license plate lights to led
Touched up the curb rash on the wheels

The windshield is also cracked on the middle to the passenger side and I only have one key for the car