I have a 2005 MCS with 85K on it. It is an awesome and fun car. Last February when I started my car in the cooler weather (New Hampshire) the clutch would make a squawking noise as I start out in 1st gear. It kind of sounds like a wooden chair being moved across a wooden floor and only lasts a second. Summer came and the noise stopped. Now we are back into the cooler mornings and it is back again. It stops after the car has been driven for a few miles, but returns when the car is cool again. Clutch works fine and the car shifts fine. Anybody run into this before and/or know of simple fix short of a clutchectomy?

 

Your Pressure plate is glazed, it wont stop when its cold and could do it all the time, its more of an embarrassing noise than anything else. Short of doing a new clutch it wont go away when cold or otherwise, just keep on cruising, i call mine when it does it the "wookie growl"

 

Thanks MiniMello. I was hoping for a fix. You are right, it is kinda embarassing. I've been driving a stick since the early 60s. It sounds like I'm doing something wrong. I've got 85K on it. Another 40K and I may need a new clutch. I'm squawking until then. Maybe I can scare some people in the crosswalks in Boston.

 

I hear you i am up near Boston as well and work there, the Mini I have makes the squaking noise when cold now and has 79k almost 80k on it, I have been researching the clutch job and when its tim I will most likely do it and replace it with the one piece clutch set up, until then like you I try to get moving quick when it does it so I dont draw attention lol.

 

Mini does that too under the same conditions (also in NH) at about 90,000 miles. The plate seems to glaze far earlier than the clutch friction material wears out, so unless it's really bothersome most people seem to just drive it that way for another couple of years until the whole clutch needs to be replaced. That's what I plan on doing. Seems to be a quirk of the MINI clutch, as I've heard this symptom from a number of people here.

 

Do to happen to leave your car in gear when you park? I had this issue when I first got my car this spring. At first, I thought it was something I did because I had been learning to drive stick in my Mini and had basically been teaching myself for about 2 weeks by that time. About a week earlier, a friend gave me a tip to leave the car in gear on inclines, but I stopped after getting that weird noise, which went away soon after.

Seven months later, I now live in a house on a steep incline and I have been leaving the car in gear over the summer with no issue. However, once it started to get cooler, the noise came back. The next day, I parked it in neutral and it was even cooler than the night before, but no noise. I think I'm just gonna have to have faith in my brakes and the steering wheel to keep the car where I left it.

 

My R53 and E30 both do it, clutch always seems to work alright so i never let it bother me.

 

My '03 MCS with 107k does it as well. Think I read somewhere on NAM that it could be the two parts of the dual-mass flywheel wobbling against one another and making that sound.

But, on my '02 Subaru WRX, that exact sound ended up being a glazed flywheel.

 

To Pure87
After first reading your post I thought it was absurd. But I had nothing to lose so I tried just the parking brake only when the car was parked on any fairly level surface. Well I am a believer. My squawky cluch has slowly stopped squawking even on the cold days. Thanks for the suggestion and merry christmas.

 

Cheers! Glad I could help and Merry Christmas to you too.

 

I tried the out of gear parking trick, didn't fix my squawk sadly.

 

I don't know why it worked with my car. And, honestly, I don't care why or how it worked. It just worked and that's okay by me. I hope I can return the favor to someone as a good deed was done to me and it would only be proper to pass the good karma along.