I am going to re-post this from a reply of mine in a related thread.
let me scare the pants off of you. this happened to a friend of mine. I have changed the names since this was her issue to post not mine but it definitely applies. good luck.

ORIGINAL QUESTION:
Have any of you had problems with your clutch? Mine started whining on Sat whenever I pushed it in. Last nite it would not even start. The clutch would not engage. It is on the way to DEALER A to get looked at?
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED!
I have finally found out something. DEALER A called me on Tues saying that my clutch was burnt up and it would be $3000 to fix since it was do to my misuse. I could not believe it. I called back and started asking questions about how they came to that conclusion without pulling the tranny. They told me that they opened the hood and it had a burnt smell. I had the hood open before it went on the tow truck and there was not a burnt smell. I asked them how they got the car in the service area and they said the service tech played with it until they got the clutch to engage.

I talked to John Doe about what I should do and he advised me to call Mini USA and to get on the forums and start searching. I found lots of threads about clutches, throwout bearings and trannys being replaced under 30000 miles. Yesterday I got Mini USA on the phone and told them the whole story and that I wanted this covered under warranty. They called the dealership and talked to them. Mini USA called me back and told me that they saw signs of misuse and it would not be covered under warranty if it was customer misuse. What a big help they were.

I called DEALER B and talked to Mr. Smith the Service Advisor. He could not believe they were telling me this was customer pay since he had replaced a couple of clutches under warranty. He said unless I had high centered it it should be covered. He could also not believe that they did not have me in a rental car from Enterprise. He said the price of $3000 was way too much. I informed him that I would move my car from DEALER A to DEALER B if that is what it took. He wanted to call DEALER A first and find out what was going on. Within 2 minutes after he talked to DEALER A I had a phonecall saying that they were dropping my tranny to find out what was going on and they were paying for that labor cost. They found a shattered throwout bearing which is under warranty. Of course they don't have the parts and they were trying to tell me it might not be done till Monday. I got them to get me a rental car.

After all this trouble with DEALER A I will be taking my car to DEALER B from now on. Sorry this is so long.

 

Has anyone on this board changed to an aftermarket clutch system? I wonder if Clutch Masters has any application for our MCS?

 

Just had my clutch replaced at 20,000 as well. They took it apart to fix under warranty some bearing. The saw a burned out clutch. They said that the clutch was not under warranty but they would put in a new one for 300 +50 for labor.

I called George at Madness,a nd he had a stage II clutch for 450. I ordered this from him to be shipped a few days later.
Then the dealership called and said they found a pin that came out of the flywheel that was lying in the transmission pan. MINI then authorized a complete replacement of clutch and flywheel.
My rental was a Jag.
How's that for good luck/bad luck!
Te dealer said it was the 2 clutch they has seen worn. I did not drive it hard.
Before you point at a driver, have the dealer take a close look at the whole transmission.
They said the new clutch is better, and it does feel better. I did not realise how hard is was getting to push the clutch in.
Well, that's my story.
Chad Cooper
Dealer:Rasmussen Mini in Portland Oregon.

 

I have and it works great. However who will beleive me as it is the matching piece to our lightweight flywheel I am not sure what the cost would be as a seperate item but PM me if you are interested.

Randy

M7 Tuning
www.m7tuning.com

 

My clutch has 39K miles on it.My tranny just got replaced,and my clutch looks like it has just been broken in,they are not all bad,and some of us know how to us them

 

My last car was an 11 year old Acura Integra GS with 180,000 miles on it, and the clutch was never replaced. I expect my own MC to do atleast that much considering it's so much newer. At 33,000 miles so far, it still seems as good as when it was new 1-1/2 years ago.

Here's a great article on learning to drive Stick:
http://www.10w40.com/individual/100186.asp

You can find this and a Heel and Toe article on my littleMINI.us site
http://www.littlemini.us/technical/heelandtoe/index.asp

Richard

 

Are you saying $50 for labor??? My dealer charges $500+ for labor!!!

 

They already had the tranny open and the clutch removed to replace the worn bearing. That was under warranty. There were only going to add an extra hour to MY costs.
Chad Cooper

 

I sometimes have trouble getting my car to go into reverse without disengaging the clutch a little. Is this a clutch, tranny, or some sort of shifting link cable problem? Any ideas?

 

If it's a 2002 to 2004 Cooper with the Midlands gearbox than this is normal...

 

I'll vouch for that flywheel - Ryan & Chad just put one in my car, I love it! Completely different car. Faaaast! I have it with a Spec stage 1 clutch.

 

i had my mini in week for service, including the rattling transmission case which could be the throw out bearing and they replaced the clutch... however this is all through my father, i am coming home this weekend to see how it feels. the car had 10,000 miles on it when the clutch was replaced. Also it was quite hard to engage the clutch and thought it was just how mini's were, then i drove another few mini's and found the clutch much easier to engage. do you think this could be an issue? however i did like the feel of my clutch feel in comparison to the ultra light feel from the other cars.

 

There have been other threads on this subject. In everyone they reported a cost of $1200. Why are you paying so much?