Hey guys-

I bought a 6-speed 04 MCS about 6 months ago (my first mini) and when I bought it I noticed that there was a thud feeling when going on and off the throttle. I figured this was normal... the car has 100k on it so it probably had a bad mount or bushing somewhere.

SOOOooo... I replaced the upper and lower engine mounts, transmission mount, and FCABS which were all shot. Even replaced the serpentine belt and tensioner. Everything was genuine MINI (Except for the powerflex FCABS) and it was installed carefully using the service manual and factory torque specs. My inner and outer balljoints are tight, front shocks are new, and the ride is amazing! But....

While it did get better along the way, there is still a lot more "thud" when I am on and off the pedal than I would like there to be. I have owned about a dozen manual cars and have never felt this kind of thud unless there was a bad mount somewhere... and all of my manual BMW's never had any thud whatsoever except one e46 which had bad rear subframe bushings - which after replacing the bushings completely went away.

Did I miss something? Could this be a problem with my engine/transmission? Possibly a bad differential? Because I'm pretty sure I got all the mounts.. Is there something I'm missing? Or is this just a normal Mini thing? Unfortunately I only drove a few R53's before buying this one and all of them had the same issue (or worse) but they were all pretty beat so I chocked it up to poor maintenance and a common (and typically not addressed) problem.

The car drives great though, power is great, shifts are smooth, Clutch has only 20k on it and grabs like a champ, and it has no other problems whatsoever. I absolutely love it but the thudding kinda drives me nuts!!

Please help, experienced MINI owners!!

 

Can you put the car in gear (with the engine off), open the hood, and then try rocking the car back and forth to see if you can narrow down where the noise is coming from? Could be slop in the transmission, slop in the axle CV joints...probably several other things.

 

So am I correct in assuming then that there is indeed something wrong??

It won't thud if I ease on and off the accelerator pedal slowly. Let on or off too hard or too fast though, and I get a thud.

From you other r53 6-speed owners... do you have no thudding?

 

Can you take a video of it making that "thud"? It could be something "normal" like a little slop in the drivetrain....or it could be something "no normal". One guys "thud", it another guys "bang", is another guys "thump"

A video with sound would help......

 

i had this problem before and it came from under the car. it all started after a month of driving after i did my suspension bits, bushings and ball joints. and after torquing everything twice to find a problem... it was one of the bolts from inner ball joint(pink arrow) make sure u torque that b::chhttp://cdn4.pelicanparts.com/techart..._med/pic05.jpg

 

My thudding went away after I replaced the LCA bushings. It used to give a pretty good "thud" when coming off-throttle.