Hopefully someone can shed some light on this, I'm not going to have time to really take a look myself any time soon...

In neutral with the ebrake up, there is a rattling somewhere under the hood, nothing crazy but just annoying enough for me to notice it. It only rattles when the clutch is not pressed in , which leads me to believe that its clutch or mount related...just can't get the time to really investigate. Anybody have any thoughts/similarities on this?

2004 MCS
6 speed
68,000 miles

Thanks in advance.

 

It sounds like your throwout bearing is going bad.

 

Agreed....throwout bearing.

 

I was hoping that wouldnt be the case, might as well throw a new clutch on while I'm down there too

 

Sure it just isnt clutch chatter? A bad throwout bearing has other symptoms as well.

 

Could be, I have no way of knowing what it would sound like on minis...I had an aftermarket clutch on a mustang I used to own that chattered a little bit, but this is a little more pronounced. Maybe I'll take it to someone familiar with MINI..thanks for the suggestions.

 

I have exactly same symptom as the original poster.

Back in my Mazda Miata days, we dabbed grease onto the clutch fork - little dab would last for a year, and we'd keep dabbing grease until something else goes wrong (which is a lot harder to come by in Miata)

Throwout bearing huh...