Hey guys! a couple weeks ago I purchased a 2004 Mini Cooper S with a manual transmission. Today I removed the air box so I could grease the shifter linkages using white lithium grease since the shifter felt a bit too stiff. There's this little rubber cover in that area, referred to by Mini as either a Bleeder Valve or a Ventilation Valve. The one that was there was not really pressed into place. The two part numbers I found were 33107857501 and 23137507652. My first question is does anyone know what purpose this rubber thing serves? With the shifting, the car becomes harder to shift when the transmission heats up. I wonder if the master cylinder and/or slave cylinder could be causing problems for disengaging the clutch, but there's no brake fluid on the interior carpet or on the ground, and the brake fluid reservoir is fully topped off. My next suspicion is that the car needs a change of transmission oil. I've already driven the car about 200 miles and the problem has slowly gotten worse. I'm in no way able to afford the labor costs for pulling the transmission out as of right now, so all advice for helping me get this sorted out is highly appreciated. If I pull off the air box again to look at that rubber thing, I will take pictures and post them here.