Seems to this old guy that some of you out there have had little experience with a manual gearbox. Slipping the clutch will wear it out much faster than not slipping. Here's how to coordinate the throttle and clutch. Ease onto the accelerator and let the clutch out until you feel it start to grab, then put more pressure on the accelerator and let out the clutch fully in a fluid motion. You will not have any more problems. Need to practice? Get into a big parking lot, don't touch the accelerator, put the car in first gear and gently, g e n t l y, ease up on the clutch pedal. If you do it correctly the car will not stall and you will be creeping along at engine idle. I taught my son to do this when he got his license 20+ years ago and he's never had a problem with any manual gearbox car.
By the way, once you're on the move, you don't have to go thru the same routine to shift up to other gears. It will be smoother if you are able to feel the clutch start to grab in the other gears but don't worry about it if you can't. Keep those revs up.

 

Guess I'll just have to practice more I suppose. 1st gear I don't have too many problems with, it's the 1st to 2nd shift that's giving me a bit of a lurching motion. If I shift at low RPM it's usually not quite as bad, but granny driving doesn't sit well with me.

When I upshift at 4000 RPM into 2nd gear the car usually lurches a little and drops the rpms back down to 2500-3000 or so, I figured this was just because I was letting the clutch out too early? Seems that the engine drops the rpms slower in the Mini than it did in the other manual cars I've driven.

 

Hmmm..I've been driving a manual since I was 16, so 15 years now and have never had a problem with grinding. The only time I would grind was when I got lazy with the clutch and didn't push all the way down. This situation is different.

 

I'm sure you are keeping in mind that there is a thing called turbo lag, the turbo "wheel" takes some time to get up to speed. It's not a very long time but you can feel it if you're, say, in 2nd and you hit the accelerator hard you'll notice a lag before you get "kicked" in the butt. You should not be losing 2500 RPM when shifting up between any of the gears. The top two gears have an RPM gap of about 300 or less and the lower gears are between 500 and 1000. I'll get off my soapbox now. Thanks for "listening."

 

I find with my car it's easier to shift with higher engine speeds. From first I usually shift at around 4500 RPM. When you take it up to the redline (making sure the engine temp and oil temp is good of course) it's easier to engage. By the way mine's a 2006 S model.

 

It will get better. I don't know if it is me or the car but I have been pleasantly surprised how smoothly and torquefully the clutch was meshing during the 1-2 shifts this week at 4400 miles. It could be that my left foot has gotten used to the high engage point or the car is continuing to get broken in.

 

Kat1, what do you mean by "grind?"

Junior1459, don't count on a warranty for a wear item like a clutch.

 

thankfully i do not experience any grinding. other than the 1-2 "thud" i think the tranny is very smooth. it was one of the first things i noticed about the car when driving it. but as someone said earlier, putting the sport button on does help with this thud.

 

I get a 2-1 downshift thud, but not the other way around.

 

Seems like I got one of the worse of the bunch. I am getting random grinding when going into first. Sometimes I turn off the car and can't even shift into first, I have to move it to 2nd or another gear, then can get it into 1st. Happens often. And today, while driving downtown, I couldn't go into first at all while driving, had to just use 2nd. Such a bother, but seems so random.

Also, for shifting from 1st - 2nd, I always have sport on, but what I realized is that when shifting, the RPMs drop a good deal getting into 2nd. So it seems that the jerk is caused by the much lower RPM of 2nd vs 1st. So I just shift slower, not in terms of fluidity, but wait half a second before even starting to engage the clutch and that has helped a lot, albeit, driving slower now.

 

What is the dealer doing for you? Certainly a warranty problem--new transmission due?

 

That's pretty much what's happening to me, it's not quite as bad if I get my rpms up to 4000-4500, but when trying to upshift into 2nd at around 3-4000 rpms it jerks the car from the rpms falling down to around 2500.

 

Haven't even gotten it checked, since it's so intermittent don't know how it will work to get it checked. I will bring it in during winter break probably or earlier if i can.

 

Just passed 10K on the odometer and 1 -> 2 is smoother with every additional mile.

mataku, you should take your MINI in for a looksee. If I remember correctly, some one else on NAM had a problem with loose bolts on their trans causing gear problems.