I have a stock transmission with 66k miles on my 05 Cooper S. My Mini and I do about 5 or 6 track days a year with http://www.emraracing.org
Throughout last summer though it got harder and harder to shift into gear. I brought it to a local shop and they think the throw out bearing is about to go, but it is not making any noise than normal. I thought if the throw out bearing was bad, it would be screaming until I pushed in the clutch.
I was wondering if anyone had experienced with hard shifting and what the solution might have been. The throw out bearing is going to cost me over a grand to get replaced so I want to be sure before I drop that cash. A grand is a nice portion of my track money for the season so I want to double think this.
Thanks

 

Im gonna bump this because im having rough shifting too on my 05 S and dont quite understand it. Very hard to get into first. Clutch when released makes some vibration noise.

Any one every have this problem? Howd you resolve it?

 

My wife's MINI recently had some problems where it was getting progressively harder to shift into gear, and the clutch pedal sometimes wouldn't come back up on its own.

The problem turned out to be a leaking clutch slave cylinder, which was causing the clutch to not fully disengage when the pedal was pressed in.

 

This might be of some interest: http://www.clutchwizard.com/mini.htm

 

Thanks.