Clutch suddenly went to the floor. The clutch had been totally fine, no signs of any issues and no noise.



The clutch material was completely torn from one side of the clutch disc. The other side was fine. The side that was ripped off was on the flywheel side, the dealer says no damage to the flywheel, fortunately.

There was PLENTY of meat still left on the clutch, so I'm not sure what can cause the material to separate from the disc like this.

2008 Mini Cooper S with 48K miles, second owner. Clutch was the original one, stamped Valeo. They are blaming the first owner for being hard on the clutch, but I'm still not sure how this can happen.

 

The PO could have been one that rides the clutch or never fully gets their foot off the pedal. Also could have been a hard shifter.

It's tough to tell and go all CSI on it as on the other hand it could of just simply failed.

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Wow never seen this before, the clutch material shouldn't separate like that.

 

I've never personally killed a clutch, but I have changed over 10 clutches helping various friends out. In nearly all cases, the clutch was down to the rivets. There was one where the pilot bearing failed...clutch was fine, just made a horrible whining noise. The other odd bird was some clutch springs that gave up. I've NEVER seen the material separate like this.

My dad claims his old 50s Chevy would grind a clutch to dust and he'd drop the transmission to find the bell house full of clutch dust...likely asbestos dust.

The dealer will NEVER say that anything failed/broke, just that something apparently "wore out". They were being quite careful with their words.

 

Do you drive the MINI hard? I blew out 2 clutches. 1st clutch was a Sachs which only lasted about 3 yrs with race track driving. 2nd clutch was a Spec which lasted 2 months. Spec is a POS! Burned it on a hill in about 30 seconds. Now I have the OS Giken racing clutch. It is noisy and rattles and has about 1" to 1.5" depress. I can do a standing burnout up to 3rd gear with the Giken! Lots of fun!!!!!

 

You might consider a JMTC Stage 3 clutch, it's designed for more HP and has a lot of material on the clutch dics, I recommend also ditching the duel mass flywheel for the single mass flywheel. It's not loud and only has a hint of chattering from everyone that even ran one of these they say it grabs/clamps sooner and stronger.

 

My Giken is full race. It chatters and I can do standing burn outs 1st to 3rd in about 30 seconds. If u race hard check out the Giken..but cost about $2000.

 

One of the ways this can happen is overspeed. Take for instance you're in 3rd gear @ 5,000 rpm, and you go for 4th gear, but inadvertently pull it down into 2nd gear, and you still have the clutch disengaged. The clutch disc will be spinning around 7,200 rpm, driven by the rear wheels through the gearbox. The centrifugal force at that rpm could take it apart. I've seen it happen! Not saying you did that, but maybe someone before you did that and started the separation of the disc material. It finally came apart during normal operation in one engagement of the clutch as you stated. That is what your picture seems to indicate.

 

1guru that sounds solid,,,but if the dude wants a hard clutch N spend the 3k or more for a real cutch stop whining. I blew out 2 cluthtches hah and over 6K USD ....IF YER A SERIOUS MINIAC **** OR GET OFF THE POT OK........IF U WANNA BE WITH THE BIG BOYS QUIT CRYING and do it for real ok HAHAHA......JUST SAYING

 

The man asked how this could happen to his clutch. Falling back on my 55 years in motorsports I tried to give him an intelligent answer. The first rule of racing is "don't beat yourself". If you want to continue to beat yourself and spend money, then that's your business. I've been with the big boys with great success at not beating ourselves. Just trying to help the man out!

 

Interesting. In most of the cars I have experience with, a "money shift" like that will "zing" the motor, damaging it rather than the clutch. (I like that some cars seem to have designed their rocker arms as "mechanical fuses", so they break rather than the valves bending or worse yet being driven into or through the pistons.)

Any way you look at it, though, this is not a happy thing.

 

This is true too. The last time I saw this was at laguna Seca in 86. Happened in a right hander. Went from 3rd back to 2nd, and before the driver engaged the clutch the rear tires overdrove the gearbox and exploded the clutch disc. Rare but it happens. If only BMW/MINI would use a dual disc clutch for these cars, our trouble would be over. Used the old Corvette dual disc clutch in drag cars for years in the 70's and 80's with no failures. Just my 2 cents!!