Burnt out clutch?

[merebook@aol.com]

Has anyone else had the clutch burn out on their clubman? Mine is just under a year old and had to be taken in by Mini Emergency and it was discovered to be a burnt out clutch. I was initially told that this was not covered by the warranty but the next day BMW mysteriously agreed to pay, although I had not said anything about it. I needed the car urgently and was going to argue later. What I did resent was the implication that it was my bad driving that had caused this to happen. I have to say that this is the only car that this has ever happened to me on. I have owned cars for 5 years from new, done higher than average mileage and managed not to burn the clutch out on any of them.

[StevieP]

There are reports of premature clutch wear on MINIs equipped with manual transmissions, among other clutch related problems.

There's actually a service bulletin on the clutch (SIB #210107) that has to do with "the clutch and dual mas flywheel have an unfavorable tolerance." Not sure if that had to do with your burnt clutch but might wanna try to get the bulletin from your dealer and see if that was your problem. Good luck.

[MikeyV]

Just had it go today, my wife has been using the car for the last month, I drove it today and boy all I could smell was burnt clutch, my problem is it has happened 1 month after the warranty expired, so it's at my expense. The car has only done 33,000km, not a lot of km for a 3 year old car.

[merebook@aol.com]

No, not a lot of mileage for a burnt out clutch. Mine was 15 months old and they said the clutch was not covered by the warranty. However, during the next 24 hours suddenly BMW decided they would pay provided it didn't happen again!

I have never had a clutch burn out before on any age of car that I have been driving whether 15 months or 3 years old.

[ministevie]

is my clutch pedal supposto be low to thefloor and hard i hve a 2002 mini cooper s with 65,000 miles on it

[MikeyV]

It's even worse for me, when the removed the clutch they also had to replace the flywheel, it's a major job removing the clutch from a MINI, they have had to removed almost everything, steering rack, suspension, radiator, intercooler, it probably would have been easier to have removed the engine.