Hi everyone,

2002 Mini Cooper R50
I drove in a really heavy rain storm yesterday and had to drive through some standing water about 8" deep a few times.I drove through this rain storm for about 15km (10mi), picked up some stuff, and the rain let up a bit then. Drove back home in light rain without going through any serious standing water. About 3 hours later I tried to drive to Ikea and after about 4km I was getting onto the highway and opened up the throttle to release all 116 raging ponies under the hood. Going from 1-2 to second near redline transmission wouldn't go into gear, so I went for 3rd and it went in, but ground a bit. Weird. Immediately after that the cltuch really started slipping badly. I had to get off the highway at the next exit and barely made it up the hill after the on ramp. I was able to get the car home, but anything over 1/4 throttle would slip the clutch. There was significant shuddering on take off as well.

I bought this car knowing the clutch was likely on its way out as the engagement point was very high in the pedal travel. I didn't expect the clutch to fail so suddenly. Is it possible that somehow water got into the clutch housing and is causing the clutch to slip? Or does these sound like a normal clutch wear failure symptoms?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

PS I have a Luk clutch kit in the garage and all of the various seals and such coming from Outmotoring, so I'm nearly ready to replace this clutch. It's just a pain because I'm in the middle of rebuilding the front suspension of my Jeep, so I have no car right now and the Jeep won't be done for probably a week!