Car is an 04 Cooper base with roughly 118,000 miles, nephew bought the car about 3 weeks ago. Everything was fine until yesterday about halfway into his drive to work. Clutch pedal feels fine, if you push it to the floor it comes right back up. Slave cylinder does not appear to be leaking, going to check under the boot later today. I had someone press the pedal yesterday and watched the slave cylinder and it moved the clutch arm about two inches or so.

So when you have clutch pushed all the way down and try to put the car in reverse it grinds. If you force it you can get it into reverse and it "seems" ok. When you put it into first you have to let almost all of the way out on the pedal before it starts to grab and then the car will barely move and starts shaking and will die no matter how much gas you give it.

 

Sounds like the tranny might be bad...or a clutch.
With the car off, can you get it in and out of gear ok....does the pattern feel normal?
It is possible it is just a bad cable...but could be much more.
Was it making any odd noises....did something happen suddely? When you say force...it sounds like the syncro's are doing the work....not the clutch...
Has the driver previously driven a stick?

 

It's got 118K on it and you don't know how it was driven before.....

Why do you think people sell or trade high milage cars? In my experience its usually because they need expensive service work.......

You need a new clutch - $1800 to $2400 depending on who does it for you.

 

With the car off you can go through the gears fine. It seems a little stiff but that may just be the way the car is, I've only driven it once or twice so I am not that familar with it.

If you are barely rolling it will go in reverse just fine but if you are sitting still you have to kind of jam it to get it into reverse and not grind.

I'm not sure what led up to to it doing this, I know where he broke down he would have been at a stop light and just left that intersection. Apparently up until that stop light everything was fine. He was 12 miles from home and the route he was going he would have encountered many light before this one.

This is his second car with a stick. The last one which was a Mazada coincidentaly had the clutch go out about 5 months after he got it around 120,000 miles. I know the clutch in it was weak when we got it cause the pedal had to be almost all the way up before it engaged. Previously the mini would engage almost as soon as you started letting up on the clutch. I know he has a habit of over revving and letting out too slowly on the clutch so it would not surprise me if it is burned up.

 

Your shifter linkage (cables, I believe) might be binding. If you look down the driver's side firewall (engine side, and you may have to remove your air cleaner box) you can see the cables. Get someone inside the car to move the shifter through the gears and you'll see where you might add some grease. HTH.

 

Your cables might need some lube too, but your problem is twofold, the driver and the clutch - you need a new one of both!

Kidding aside, you need a clutch.

 

NVM - changed out my slave and master cylinders.