Yesterday my clutch started making an unhappy noise when engaging first gear on start off.

I was wondering if anyone has had a similar problem caused by cold weather. It was in the 20s yesterday in Breckenridge Colorado when this noise started.

Currently the engine RPMs and the speed are both rising linearly (i.e. it doesn't appear the clutch is slipping once engaged)

My MINI has 39,700 miles on it and I'm going to be a very unhappy camper if my clutch is on its way out and in need of replacement.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Dave
2002 COOPER S

 

I was out in 10F weather in chi-town a few weeks ago on my MCS.
no such noise.

Does that noise go away if you clutch-in at idle? if so, throwout bearing
or input shaft time.

To check for slippage, drive 25mph in 4th and floor it.
If it just bogs and doesn't slip, you still got a pretty good
clutch.

 

From what I can tell, it's not slipping.

When you say clutch-in at idle, do you mean just releasing the clutch with the engine idling and with no input from the gas pedal? I haven't tried that yet, but I will.

 

My MCS does the same thing. I think it's from a cold belt. It only makes that noise when the car is cold.

David
-V--V-

 

>>When you say clutch-in at idle, do you mean just releasing the clutch with the engine idling and with no input from the gas pedal? I haven't tried that yet, but I will.
>>



Clutch-in = depress clutch.
Clutch-out = release clutch.

 

Ahh,

No sound at clutch in (depressed fully)
Sound as clutch engages 1st gear only
No slippage in gear

I didn't have this sound until that morning in the cold.

 

This morning when I drove to the post office there was NO noise from the clutch. :smile:

Beats me what's going on.

 

I have the same noise on my MCS. It started when it got cold this year, did not happen last year. It happens in first and reverse only. It comes and goes. It sounds like a squealing/screeching noise while you are slipping the clutch to start off. Lately it has been getting louder though. Took it in to my service advisor. He thought that the pressure plate fingers may not be putting even pressure on the clutch disc, causing chatter. They are warrantying the clutch assy. I have to take it in next Tuesday (12/30/03) for the work. They said it was going to take two days to fix. They need to R/R the trans and that is a b***h. I'll let you know if it solves my issue.

Fred

 

Keep me posted. I'm not looking forward to taking this in if it needs to be serviced. I'm imagining I'm going to be hassled for this problem since I also have had the supercharger pulley done. Not that the supercharger pulley has anything to do with low rpm engagement, but even so.

 

I know what you mean. luckily my service manager is a "Car Guy". He seems to be enthusiastic about mods. I don't have any yet, so we'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Fred

 

Dropped the car off today to fix the clutch noise. It should be finished tomorrow. I'll let you know how it works out.

Fred

 

I have the same problem, I think. I am hearing this noise and I asked my service advisor what to do about it. He said that it would be a new clutch plate. With labor and the part it is going to cost me a little under $2000. I have 28700 miles on my MCS. Is yours covered by your warranty, Chasye? Mine isn't, but if yours is, I would like to know the details and if my dealership could contact your dealership so that I can understand why I have to pay. Thanks and good luck getting yours fixed!

 

Sketchedin,
They are covering it under warranty. I think the difference may be in the fact that the dealer believes the problem to be in the pressure plate and not the clutch disc. The clutch is generally considered a wear item and ,as such, not under warranty. I'm not sure exactly. I'll try to post more after I pickup the car.

Fred

 

On an unrelated note, with the 19% pulley, floor it in 4th at 25mph and there is no bog!

Sorry to hear about your clutch problems, Dave.

 

I picked up my MCS yesterday. They replaced the clutch, Installed a Quaife and loaded cd 36. The diagnosis on the cluch is as follows. The tech found that several of the fingers on the pressure plate were weak causing excessive chattering. I talked to the service manager and he stated that there was some evidence of excessive heat as there were several rivets and fingers that showed blueing. My car was the dealer Demo before I bought it. It had only 1500 miles on it, but some people could have driven the car hard before I got it. Impressions after the work. The clutch feels lighter in action, and it seems to engage in a different spot. The engagement I can see because of the new plate, but the lightening of the pedal feel was strange. It has been in the 50's for the last two days, so I don't know if the sound is still there. We'll see soon enough though. The Quaife is awesome! There are places I know that the traction control would engage everytime. The same places are absolutely free of the annoying traction control intrusion. The cars just continues to pull in the direction of the turn, much less understeer under power. It is great! When i add the sway bar and get rid of the runflats, it should be perfect.

Fred

 

Thanks for the update.

My own clutch problems haven't come back since I returned to SoCal from Colorado.

 

My 02 cooper is currently in the shop.
I only have 10,400 miles on it. 1st gear was making a racket, then finally I felt it slipping in 2nd gear. I finally brought to the dealer.
Dealer called ( new years eve ) stated I need new clutch, said had to order it, he didn't ask if it was OK to work on, so I'm assumming that's it's warranty
( keeping fingers crossed ) Hopefully I'll find out more friday.

BTW: Happy New Year!!!!

Glenn....

 

I had the same problem with my clutch.

First It happened when my MCS with(Pulley by Randy, Alta intake and Magnaflow exaust) had a noise at the starting point only and the car being parked at least for 1 hour or more.

When I started the car and released the clutch I heard a ticking noise coming from the left side of the car, pressed again and the noise disapeared until the car got warm.

I took the car to the dealer in fort lauderdale- florida and they could not duplicate the problem and told me that my car was ok. took me about 9000 miles and 4 trips to the same dealer and to put the service manager inside the car for him to hear the noise.

He agree with me that something was knocking, they drop the transmission and told me the bearing was the problem, 48 hours later they returned the car and I tried the car, I heard the noise again, but not as loud as before, the service manager and his assistant told me that, that was a normal noice on the clutch, I refuse to take delivery of the car and they told me that everything was ok because they had the car inspected. I made the Manager sign the delivery copy acknwoledging my complaint that still there was a noise on the clutch.

8000 miles after the noise started to get louder again I took the car to onother dealer and the mechanic as soon as he heard the noise told me what it was. The fingers on the plate were not working properly, I told him that another dealer has worked on my transmission before for the same noise and could not understand why they changed theonly bearing because they could see that the plate was not ok and now they had to drop the transmission twice to do the same job again.

This new dealer in Coconut Creek Florida installed a brand new clutch on my MCS.

Are some dealers trying to do one job under warranty 2 times so they can get paid 2 times by BMW ???????

This time my car is ok for now, no noice and my clutch is lighter than before and the changing point is lower also.

By the way they gave me a BMW 325I as a rental and this car does not feel like the MCS ( handling and less power than the MCS).


Carlos

 

Well, I recieved a call today from Tom Bush ( dealer in Jacksonville )
they had replaced the clutch, but car was still making noise in 1st gear.
They are going to order a new tranny. ( so they say ).
This better be waranty! I'm running out of fingers to cross!!!

Glenn....

 

Wow that's crazy! Not only b/c of how people drive demos, but who drives them! My wife's Uncle works for a Subaru dealer. He said you wouldn't believe how many people come for test drives in WRXs and have never driven stick before in their lives!! Even he told me to never buy a demo that has a manual trans.

 

I agree with that statement. However, I did not have a choice. My previous car had been stolen, and the wait to order an MCS was 10+ months. That is the only reason i took the demo. Now that the Clutch has been replaced, there should not be any issues. The tech did not mention any problems with the trans when he installed the LSD. So i figure that is fine too. Never had any problems with it.

Fred

BTW the LSD is awesome! (Quaife that is :smile: )

 

hey, mine was a display/demo car too. no problems on mine. :smile:
also got 5months or 5k miles extended warranty at no extra cost
and took delivery the same day i drove it. a little bad driving
on most FF car's wont break the trans. now, on the wrx, that's a
different story due to its AWD.

my wrx was fresh off the lot....but still had like 25 miles on it cause
i test drove it a while.. i like to buy a car that ive driven at least
20-30min before buying just to make sure its running okay without
any weird noises,etc.

going back to the subject, it was 11F today with windchill of 0F
in chi-town and no noise when starting the MCS cold from a standstill
in any of the gears.


_________________
03MCS IB/Blk: 123, Aerokit, R90 17x7, Anthr + Leather, TK5 16x7, 6CDMP3, etc.




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With 27,000 miles on my 10month old MCS, I have had the clutch replaced under warranty. It started making the dreaded screaching noise when ingaging in 1st and reverse. The clutch did not slip or show any other signs of problems other than the nasty sounds but having researched here, I was confident it was a problem. After a week in the shop, I finally received a call from the service manager (voice mail) stating the clutch plate and flywheel were cracked and burnt from abuse and would not be covered under warranty. I called back and asked him to reconsider, which he would not, so I continued with a disertation of how it was not due to abuse but to poor build quality. I explained having driven manual transmissions for 20 years with accumulative mileage in excess of 300,000 miles without any clutch problems. He explained that I raced the car.....so I proceeded to correct him, that I autoxed on Sunday's but by no means should that be considered abusive. Side note is I know some dealership folks who are active in autox so that's how they must have known. I explained to him that I would not pay for a new clutch, that I would be taking my complaint up the chain of command and would let him know...saying if I received no joy, he was to put it back together. Well....I received another voicemail a few hours later form the service mgr, apologizing and stating he went and looked at it himself and it wasn't as badly burned as his tech implied and that he would indeed cover it....also asking for all 5's on his grading when Mini called about my service. Not sure what changed his mind but one ace in the hole I did mention to him was that several reps from his dealership drove my MCS at one of their sponsored autox events where I was asked to act as one of their reps/instructors for the event. I further explained that my Integra survived 4 seasons of autox and 90,000 miles without any signs of problems.... Good luck folks

 

Whoa! One of our members had the same problem! Actually, the dealer replaced the clutch under warranty, but did not align the car. The service manager said he heard the car was raced since it had springs and such and made a big deal about it. However, he would reimburse for the alignment as a measure of goodwill from the dealer's pocket. That owner was a "real hardcore racer" with one autox under their belt for a cumulative 4 minutes of track time!

 

I've been experiencing the squeal/screetch sound when engaging first as well. It was one of those intermittant, difficult to reproduce kind of things. I've been having them check it out at the dealer whenever I went in for any kind of service. During the third visit, they were finally able to get the noise to happen. Solution? They did a thourogh investigation and decided to replace the clutch assembly. I'll see about getting more information when I pick it up tomorrow.

2002 MC 32,000 miles