Going to revisit this if we can. Mini has had shudder ever since I bought it. Logical conclusion seemed to be that there is deposits on the flywheel causing some shudder (only after car is well up to temp.). Funny though, if it does start, and then we park the car in the garage, sometimes for several hours, and then go out for a ride again, shudder will still be there? My question, if it was the flywheel, wouldn't a few hours of sitting be enough for the flywheel to cool down??

 

On other vehicles, I've run a clutch disc down well into the rivets revealing hot spots/rings on the flywheel, smoked a clutch in 30k miles, (had that clutch replaced by a dealer) then replaced the clutch and flywheel myself less than 10k miles later due to a **** poor install by the dealer. This revealed a flywheel with hot spots. Of all of these I never had any shudder engaging any gear.


Two times I have felt any type of shudder engaging gears are 1- with a stage 2 upgraded clutch with a lightweight flywheel, and 2-when my dual mass flywheel internal springs broke. That causes a shedder every time the clutch pedal is pressed or released.


Was an upgraded clutch installed by the previous owner? (From what you've said that's a good possibility.)


Hydraulic clutch? Maybe that needs serviced?

 

Yes, clutch was done at 85000 km. I bought it at 94000 km. Took a week or so before I noticed shudder because I hadn't driven it long enough. Apparantly clutch was done, but I don't think anything was done with flywheel. This is an 02 base, so I don't believe it has dual mass wheel. I don't know if it could be software related ? Just doesn't make sense that you would redo clutch, and not service flywheel. Have to teach my son how to drive it, so not to keen on replacing flywheel just yet.