And its not covered. I don't drive aggressively. I've driven manuals since I started driving 16 years ago. I've never burnt out a clutch (sold before probably) -- longest I lasted was my Toyota I sold at 80,000 miles. Same clutch. Last week, I find out from the dealer that my clutch is burnt and its "my fault" so they aren't covering it. I find it absolutely unacceptable for a clutch to go out at 14,500 miles. And I don't for a second believe it's me. never ride the clutch; I never hold it in while idling; I occasionally have to drive in traffic, but who doesn't; I've taken professional driving courses, and I used to drive a double clutch city bus while I was in college. The first 4000 miles of the car were driving across county at an average speed of 60mph all in 6th gear -- so the rest 10,500 are where the clutch was really worn down? I just don't understand how this happened and no one has explained it to me. I've been calling mini -- they covered parts, but I had to cover labor $1850. On top of everything, I leave the dealer with my new clutch and less than 24 hours later (and i swear it drives better than it ever did even when I first drove it brand new last year), my check engine light goes on and I have to drive back to the dealer! 50 miles one way. I'm not a happy motorist anymore.

 

"labor $1850 "

 

I would be glad if it was only 50 miles back to the dealer, and i am not the farthest away from the dealer. Many people I know are over 150 to 200 mile away.

As for the clutch issue it sounds as if it was not properly aligned or the throughout bearing was not releasing all the way.

 

But shouldn't those defects be covered under the warranty?

50 miles (one way) in dc traffic is nothing to sneeze at--can take up to two hours. Fortunately, when Sterling couldn't take me until October! I did some looking and one opened in alexandria just today and took me right away.

 

$1850 for labor only! When I replaced the clutch on my Miata 2yrs ago the total bill (including parts) was only about $600. I wonder what the flat rate labor is for replacing a Mini clutch. You got hosed.

 

I would call MINIUSA directly if the dealership wasn't helpful. You've put yourself in a difficult decision by paying the money first, but it couldn't hurt to try and call.

My first R53 went 80k miles on its original clutch and it still felt great. 14k for a clutch to fail is unusual and it doesn't sound like you were the cause, but that's a case you could argue to higher powers. If a wear-and-tear part fails prematurely it could be caused my manufacturing defect rather than abuse. This is what you'll have to argue.

 

ccs8c, what were the symptoms that led you to take it in for a clutch? Was it smoking at some point, or slipping? How long from the time you noticed symptoms till it failed completely - if it did.

You're leaving out a lot of info in your post, if you'd care to fill in some details so we all could learn from your experience........

Did they give you the old parts, or show you what happened? What does the dealer's shop foreman think happened to it?

 

I noticed the car was switching gears like an automatic and generally felt like it was struggling to drive around mid-July. I thought it was the transmission, so I stopped driving it and called mini of sterling July 23. They couldn't take me until September, so I called mini roadside assisstance and had them tow the car to sterling. One week later they tell me my clutch is burnt but they are going to drop transmission to see what is going on and replace the clutch. Total cost estimate over $3400. I said that's absurd, she talked to her floor manager and reduced price to just labor.

I didn't notice any issues before mid-July. My car was only driven about 50 miles in June.

 

Forgot, they mailed the parts to mini of north America. And as I said, no one explained why this happened, other than to say, they've seen it happen in minis with less miles. Basically, "s&@t happens", was mini of sterlings explanation.

 

Response from mini of north America "there's nothing we can do." I'm out nearly $1900 on a car I bought brand new in late July 2008.

 

I just replaced my clutch and flywheel after 39,600 miles. $3400 installed. I noticed the clutch pedal was getting increasingly difficult to push and needed lot's of gas on no clutch. They told me it was normal wear and tear and see it quite a bit. In fact, there was one there now with the same problem.

Orginally went in for a craked windshiled.

But hey, made myself feel better, bought a new JCW sterring wheel, iPhone snap-in and the black grill surrounds.

I feel your pain with a new clutch after a short ammount of time. If it makes it better, the same week I blew the tranny in my 64 Impala SS.

 

All this clutch non-sense i think some one needs to get to the root of this. this is seeming like it is wide spread. I am now worried about mine it has 7k on the car. That means i am just asking for the clutch to die. I have never heard of a clutch going bad with such low miles with no track or autox on them

 

It's at least the 3rd early clutch dead thread in the last few months all in 2008s I think. All blamed on the driver. On guy got lawyer, never got back to us. Another guy was pretty recent. Seems fishy to me. Why'd they decide to pay for parts and no labor? And that's a lot of coin for a clutch, Mini or no Mini. Just did kid's Suzuki for $750 total. I notice the word "Sterling" comes up a lot around here, and not in a good way.

 

I am having problems with my clutch and if they tell me $1800 I am doing myself with a stage 3 clutch. Hell I might do it anyway cause it would be sweet and it makes a hell of a difference with a lightweight flywheel. Now with that said I am looking for one right now.

 

I had that same issue a few months back, my clutch was smoking, took it in and before they actually touched it they wanted me to sign a paper that said I was giving them authorization to work on it and if it shows any signs of abuse I would have to pay for labor and parts.
Before that I had read here of others that were told it was their fault not MINI's, I knew it wasn't my fault, I have taken very very good care of this car, and my beat up 03 sentra never had an issue @ 90K miles, I went and talked to the service manager and the sales manager who knew me from when I originally got the car and told me they would have to take out the tranny to see if it was something I did or something wrong with parts and if there were hot spots it meant I was abusing it and I was gonna have to pay (I knew I have never race or abuse this car what so ever, Manager then said: well then you have nothing to worry about).
finally told them to go ahead and do their job, they took tranny out, then the service rep told me the first mecanic told him "No way this can be covered unver warranty when it has 1300 miles" ( yeah like if teh clutch was made to last 1 year only) and then he told me, " I went and talk to another mecanic who said it was coverd under warranty because it showed no signs of abouse, it was a faulty part, ( don't remember exactly what, but I got the note somewhere) then the Service rep made a rematch that others have payed for their second clutch already. (Well I'm not paying for something that should not be broken to being with and something that should be covered under warranty, I have already paid 31K on a fully loaded over priced car.

This thing is crazy, my Cooper S is also an 08 from July, my clutch was smoking at 1300 miles, they were scaring me telling me I would have to pay 1800 dlls also to fix something that 1st should not be broken and 2nd should be cover by warranty.

Also they told me wear and tear was cover under warranty.
In adition to this I also have an issue with the "premium" sound system that they didn't even care to find out what was wrong since it doesn't happen all the time and they cound not replicate the issue.

Everything stops working (sounds system) spontaneously but the CD player for like 5 minutes when I turn on the car, usually in the morning, it does this maybe 5 times a month.

All I know is that MINI doesn't stick to their claim that for 3 years and whatever miles you don't have to pay anything, actually you could end up paying much more than with the competition if something goes wrong and they blame you, that's not fair, but oh well, I've leaned from my mistake, sadly my next car wont be a MINI, I need a car I can rely on and if it's not the actual car at least a warranty I can rely on.

 

defective clutches and DM flywheels are covered under the 4/50 OEM b2b warranty. dealers are increasingly trying to pin defective clutches on customers, which is all pure total BS. if the components are so persnickety, should MINI check the way drivers shift and clutch, in order to prevent problems?

there is no reason to expect a clutch to burn out in so few miles. wait, there is a reason, it's the components (LuK) that BMW has been using for decades. LuK = a wing and a prayer. good "luk."

 

If and when I ever need a clutch replacement, I'll go aftermarket. Right now clutchmasters and advanced clutch technology are not showing aftermarket replacements for the R56 just yet, but expect them to (they have them for R50 and R53 so its a matter of time).

 

I have the same issue at 15K. Just dropped $2400 for a tear down for a clutch that I could NOT have possibly abused that much. I called MINI and my dealer and am up in the air. My friend had a similar issue which got covered, but I think this is conspiricy.

 

I got the impression from calling Mini of North America is that its dependent upon the relationship you have with the dealer that makes the call on whether or not its covered by the warranty. I brought up posts that some people had it covered and Mini said that these people probably had a good relationship with their dealer who worked out a deal. And I guess I'm out of luck because I don't have a "longstanding" relationship with the dealer. To quote from today's phone call with Mini "Maybe he [the person who had two clutches covered by warranty] had bought 4 Minis from the dealer and they worked out this deal."

 

Well like I said I am having them look at mine cause it just started about a week ago. Acctually after I got it back from being shipped it started acting up. If they look at which more I would like them to drive it then to open it up. Cause if it is burned out or starting. I am going to save up and get a clutch and flywheel combo. Cause that is one of the best mods evar!

 

My driving is all highway, and not a lot of city driving, not too spirited. I have a good relationship with my dealer and they were like "Meh, happens, see it all the time."

 

This is the thing, it's BS that only if you have a good relationship with the dealer they get to honer the warranty, THAT'S WHY THERE ARE FREAKING WARRANTY'S TO BEGIN WITH! I really don't get it, they know this clutches and flywheels are acting up and instead of fixing the issue or honoring the warranty they lead it up to dealer to try to screw you the customer?
This is not acceptable, why didn;t they tell me that when I was buying the car? ... Well it has a 1.6 engine, saves a lot of gas, go kart handling, but if something breaks we'll try to blame it on you since your a new customer and have never spent your money here before, excuse me but that is BS.

I mean I love how the car looks and drives, I love it, but I'm always scared of something else (if not the same clutch issue) goes bad and have to fight with the dealer to do the right thing, I want peace of mind after spending my hard earn cold cash on a brand new car and like I said, I can even understand if it has defective parts, but at least honor the warranty, keep your customers happy and they will come back.

I wanted to be a MINI owner for life, I was thinking of getting a new convertible in a few years and keeping my hardtop S 08, but now I seriously have to think if I want to go through this every time something breaks and the try to screw the customer.

 

I still want to know why they are failing - whats "breaking" as others have put it? If the clutch is smoking, it's because it's slipping, and if it's slipping that means it's not being released all the way, either because the driver is holding it down a bit, or something else is (linkage? bad motor mount? boiling cutch fluid? IDK)

I wonder about the design, only because every new stick shift MINI I've driven (loaners from the dealer and such) have all released at the very top of the pedal travel, not somewhere in the middle as you'd expect.

But I don't think you can make a blanket statement that all Luk clutches are bad, and then mention that BMW's been using them for 10 years - that simply doesn't make sense. If they've used them that long, they can't all be bad.........

I can see MINI kicking back a clutch repair if the driver burned it out, but how do you prove or disprove that fact? Seems to me that the driver should have the benefit of the doubt and they should look more closely at a car with a bad clutch to see what really caused it before simply assigning guilt to the owner/driver.......

 

Yeah that's the problem, even something that might be attributable to abuse can also easliy be caused by defect. That in and of itself is scary, because how can one really prove or disprove a defect when the actual physical evidence looks like abuse? It's almost like, as others have stated, it ultimately depends on whether or not you have a good relationship with your SA and it's their judgment call. Not good.

 

I am approaching twelve thousand miles, so far, so good. But...approaching the point where the reported problems occur. I have been driving manual trans cars and trucks for 35 plus years. Learned on an old '62 GMC 3/4 ton pick-up. Driven every size truck up to and including tractor trailer and never, ever replaced a clutch. My '74 Ford Bronco and '83 GMC Jimmy both had 130,000 miles plus with original clutch. Many other vehicles but no need to dwell. I find it very difficult to believe that these problems are all driver induced. If I have clutch problems, there will be he.. to pay!