How Do I Confirm What Gearbox Is In My Mini Cooper?

[bscringean]

Good Morning All,

I am hoping someone on here can help me with an issue I have.

My wife has a Mini Cooper 05 reg which was registered in July 2005.

It was in at the garage on Saturday for some work in relation to the brakes and the mechanic mentioned that it had the "midland" gearbox fitted (he was not working on the gearbox just happened to say in passing that they generally need replacing during the lifetime of the car and our's was a little noisy although nothing to worry about at this time). I questioned this as I was under the impression all cars from 2004 onwards had the new getrag box, but he seemed to think it was the midland box.

This garage say they are Mini specialists (although not main dealers) so I would assume they know there stuff.

I have therefore called both a Mini dealership and Mini UK today to get it confirmed and neither can confirm what gearbox is fitted because it is not on any of their technical specs.

Can someone please confirm to me how you tell what box is fitted to the car. Also could a mechanic tell from just having the car in the air for 10 mins doing something else want box was fitted?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bobby