Just bought a 07 Cooper S, and it sounds like it has a bad throw out bearing possibly. With any pressure on the clutch pedal, it stops rattling, and when you let the clutch out, it rattles.

I've replaced clutches and TO bearings in Mustangs before, but never in a Mini, so I know what a rattling TO bearing sounds like.

The car only has 29,000 miles still under warranty. Will the dealer assist in covering the cost of a TO Bearing at this point? Maybe it's the flywheel or something else clutch related?

 

With 29,000 miles it should still be under warranty and the dealer should cover the whole cost.

 

Or just tell you it's "normal" and not to worry about it.....

 

the dual-mass flywheel would groan more than rattle, I think it's the (yes, plastic) T/O bearing. they arent the most durable parts on the planet.

 

My DMF rattles pretty good in my '03, it sounds just like the rattle we started hearing in Porsche 944's when they went to a dual mass flywheel back in the mid 80's, and stops when you push in the clutch. If that's what it is, you probably get the "chewbaca" sound to from time to time too?

Mines done it for many years now, doesn't seem to hurt anything.....65K miles on it so far......

 

could be a loose spring within the DMF. the annoying "chewbacca" noise that my 05 S had was due to DMF glazing

 

My DMF rattles like a baby's toy. The truth is, it hasn't gotten any worse than when the car was new and I don't want some idiot technician screwing up my car just to fix the annoying noise (my apologies to the non-idiot techs).

When spring comes, I'll do a nice clutch and flywheel conversion and use the DMF as a boat anchor.

 

This was the response I got too

Just crossed 90k this morning, and it's been rattling for 60k+ now.

 

Mine has a slight rattle; seems normal and has not gotten worse over time. I have almost 47K miles on the MINI.

 

got it scheduled for a dealer visit in a few weeks, that was the fastest they could get it in. I guess they have a lot of rattles to fix ahead of me!

 

The R56 has a couple of other posts regarding the clutch going out rather early and all of them can't be associated with new drivers. Hope it works out for you and they get the rattle fixed.

 

I have an '03 S Model I bought with 69,000 on it. It now has 113,000 and has rattled, with an occasional 'chewbaca', ever since I took over ownership. Everything I have read states that this is normal. It freaked me out at first, but has become part of life. One of these days it will be gone after replacement of the clutch and flywheel.

 

The dealership ended up replacing the clutch and flywheel under warranty which was awesome. Said it was a flywheel problem, but they did the clutch too while they were in there.

There's still a faint sound within the clutch area but from all the comments about Mini flywheel issues, I'm guessing there is some kind of normal noise from that area. Wife doesnt' like it, but it's much better than it was!

 

I'm waking this thread up from the dead...

I'm having a similar issue, and wanna know if it's the same as you guys have described? You can mainly hear it at 0:01-0:06 and 0:25-0:29 seconds.