This is on my 2005 Cooper Convertable

I seem to have a problem and am hoping it is not the clutch (replaced one 2 years ago), My initial problem I noticed about a month ago is that when accelerating in 3rd and fourth gear it was fine till it reached around 3K RPM then it would rev up, loosening up on the gas seems to help.

The more recent issue is that it seems to be accelerating rather sluggishly, it does get up to speed and holds it, but the power just does not seem to be as good as it was. There is no over revving in this case.

I had had some service done a while ago before this occurred (standard oil change) Though have been lax on a regular maintenance.

 

I'll be the one to say it... sounds like the clutch is slipping. It could be a number of reasons, I think the worse case scenario is that you have a leak in your rear main seal and oil has blown out and gotten on the clutch and this is the cause (I always have the seal replaced when replacing the clutch, just in case), and with luck it has not been so heavily covered in oil that the clutch plate material has soaked up the oil and is not saturated, if it is it requires replacement.

The only way to know, you can check the bottom of the transmission near the area of where the engine block and the transmission bell housing meet (this is normally the lowest point) is there oil forming droplets from that area?

To be positive it is going to need to be checked, separate the transmission and inspect the clutch, flywheel, pressure plate, throw-out bearing, and the rear seal.

Best of luck.

Motor On!

 

Humm, so that may explain where the oil was leaking that Grease Monkey told me about.

Would the cost for checking this out be equivalent to replacing a clutch? Sounds like a lot of the same type of labor.

 

Same cost plus a new crankshaft seal which means removing the flywheel and new bolts on that too as they are stretch ones. Whoever did the clutch should have known to do the seal at the same time, false ecconomy not to.