320 broken. feels like clutch has gone. please help.

[speedychrissie]

Hey,

My brother has recently (middle of march) bought a 320 cab which suddenly seems to have clutch problems and has come to me for help. It is a 2003 car with 67k miles if that makes a difference.

The symptoms are that when pulling away from a standstill it just doesnt move even when the clutch pedal is fully up, and will only move when the revs rise to about 3 thousand rpm. My understanding is that is what a slipping clutch should feel like but I havent actually felt a slipping clutch before.

Is there anything else that could be going wrong? I have had hydraulic problems with the clutch on the mx5 but I cant work out an hydraulic explanation for this as surely that would result in the clutch failing to disengage. Are there any electronic engine management things that could cause similar symptoms?

and if it is the clutch, how easy is it to replace? I know it is not something you can easily do at home, but is it so complex that it has to be done at a BMW franchise?


sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for your help.

[bimmer_87]

67k seems abit premature for a worn clutch.

to replace its definetly a gearbox out job, you'll be looking at £600ish from a BMW specialist.

When the clutch is released is there any flucuations in the revs? any vibrations felt?

I'm not an expert, but that doesnt really sound like worn friction plates based on your described symptoms, try the conventional test, drive up an incline, chuck it in 4th about 30, and fully depress the accelerator pedal, if the revs rise but the car doesnt pick up any speed then definetly worn friction plates on your clutch, i've driven a car with a slipping clutch, and it did exactly that, what ive just told you to do.

Also get the control side checked out, slave cylinders etc

Edited by bimmer_87 on Wednesday 3rd June 14:34

[speedychrissie]

bimmer_87 said:

drive up an incline, chuck it in 4th about 30, and fully depress the accelerator pedal, if the revs rise but the car doesnt pick up any speed then definetly worn friction plates on your clutch,

Thanks for your reply. My brother has taken me for a drive in the car to take it back to his house, and the clutch is definitely slipping. Doing exactly as you describe. I dont know why it is slipping though. The car has had one previous owner who was a woman. Without wishing to tar all females with the "can't drive" brush, it could be that she had poor clutch control which meant that the clutch was only just fine when my brother bought it, but I still think that 67k is early to need a clutch.

We stopped at a service station on the walk back to mine who said that they would quote just under £800 all inclusive as there is a chance that the flywheel would need replacing (which makes up £350 of that quote), but if it was ok on inspection that cost could be removed.

I tried to inspect the hydraulics, but on these modern cars they really dont package them in a way that makes home servicing easy do they? The master cylinder can just be seen above the pedal in the footwell, but is hidden behind trim, while the slave cylinder is impossible to see because of all the plastic panels and the lack of space. On the mx5 you can replace the slave cylinder without even jacking the car up by reaching through the wheelarch whereas i really dont think there is any way i could access the slave cylinder on my brother's car.

[E30M3SE]

Oil contamination on the surface of the clutch will cause clutch slip.

Has the brake and clutch fluid ever been changed?

Edited by E30M3SE on Wednesday 3rd June 14:54

[speedychrissie]

not as far as i know and certainly not very recently whereas the problem has only become apparent over the last couple of days.

[sniff diesel]

bimmer_87 said:

to replace its definetly a gearbox out job, you'll be looking at £600ish from a BMW specialist.

That would be a very expensive specialist, even with a flywheel replacement (which I wouldn't bother changing at 67k)

You can get a Sachs clutch from GSF for just under £100 delivered, bank on about 3 hours labour to do the job so it should come in at about £250 all in.

[speedychrissie]

sniff, that is interesting. I will tell my brother to look into that further and see if we can get close to your estimate.

I vaguely understand clutches, but I will admit to not knowing a thing about flywheels. what do they do, why do they wear out and how long would you expect them to last? (does it make a difference that the car in question has a dual mass flywheel?)

thanks

[sniff diesel]

speedychrissie said:

sniff, that is interesting. I will tell my brother to look into that further and see if we can get close to your estimate.

I vaguely understand clutches, but I will admit to not knowing a thing about flywheels. what do they do, why do they wear out and how long would you expect them to last? (does it make a difference that the car in question has a dual mass flywheel?)

thanks

No worries Chrissie.

The clutch friction plate acts against the flywheel so it can wear it out aswell. A DM flywheel is more complex and hence more expensive to replace. If the car had done say 150k and was having a new clutch I'd say replace the flywheel at the same time, with only 67k I personally wouldn't bother.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clutch

[LocoBlade]

speedychrissie said:

The symptoms are that when pulling away from a standstill it just doesnt move even when the clutch pedal is fully up, and will only move when the revs rise to about 3 thousand rpm.

Just checking 100% that it's a manual gearbox we're talking about here? I assume so as you mention the clutch pedal but the above sounds more like symptoms you'd have with an automatic gearbox torque converter than a manual clutch.

If it really wont move on a flat surface with no brakes on until you rev it to 3000 rpm though, its more than simple clutch "slip", it sounds like something is preventing the clutch from fully engaging. If it was just slipping through normal wear, it would normally pull away Ok perhaps with a bit of slip, then slip as you applied power to accelerate making the revs rise gradually despite no actual acceleration taking place, but no way would you be stationary with the clutch pedal up unless it had completely worn out with no friction material left at all, and thats not something that would happen over night as seem to be suggested.

Could be wrong but to me it sounds more like part of the actuation mechanism has bent/broken which is jamming up and holding the clutch partially down all the time, either that or the clutch plate itself has broken up completely, which would be very unusual.

Edited by LocoBlade on Wednesday 3rd June 22:14

[sniff diesel]

LocoBlade said:

If it really wont move on a flat surface with no brakes on until you rev it to 3000 rpm though, its more than simple clutch "slip", it sounds like something is preventing the clutch from fully engaging. If it was just slipping through normal wear, it would normally pull away Ok perhaps with a bit of slip, then slip as you applied power to accelerate making the revs rise gradually despite no actual acceleration taking place, but no way would you be stationary with the clutch pedal up unless it had completely worn out with no friction material left at all, and thats not something that would happen over night as seem to be suggested.

Could be right actually, try getting it bled or even a new slave cylinder fitted.

[LocoBlade]

Bleeding or changing slave cylinder probably wouldnt help as by default the clutch would engage with no fluid in the system, due to the clutch spring, I think its more likely something like the actuator arm on the clutch itself (if it has one) thats broken and jammed up, or perhaps the master cylinder has partially seized.

I know on my 1 series there's also a clutch delay valve which slows the clutch release (so you cant sidestep the clutch and shock the gearbox too much), I guess if it has one of these and it became blocked or seized, that could also hold the clutch open, but Im not sure if E46s had those or not.

Edited by LocoBlade on Wednesday 3rd June 22:28

[speedychrissie]

LocoBlade said:

it sounds like something is preventing the clutch from fully engaging.

I did wonder about that.

when my brother took me for a drive he had his foot completely off the clutch pedal with the car in gear and it would only creep along at about 2mph until the revs rose. He said that as far as he knows there have been no problems up until yesterday i believe and then it has come on suddenly and gotten worse over the day (it happened while in town and he drove straight to mine which is about a mile from his house). Obviously it is possible that the clutch has disintegrated, but everyone says it is very unlikely, so it is suddenly starting to slip for some reason. Whatever the reason is, it is likely to be destroying the clutch pretty quickly (which is why it appears to be getting worse as it is being driven more).

thanks for all the help guys.

[speedychrissie]

LocoBlade said:

Bleeding or changing slave cylinder probably wouldnt help as by default the clutch would engage with no fluid in the system, due to the clutch spring, I think its more likely something like the actuator arm on the clutch itself thats gone, or perhaps the master cylinder has partially seized.

I hadnt thought about the fact that it could seize . When my mx5 had clutch problems it was because the seal on the slave and master cylinders perished thus they became leaky and the clutch wouldnt disengage properly. I guess this could be basically the reverse of that problem.

[sniff diesel]

LocoBlade said:

I know on my 1 series there's also a clutch delay valve which slows the clutch release (so you cant sidestep the clutch and shock the gearbox too much), I guess if it has one of these and it became blocked or seized, that could also hold the clutch open, but Im not sure if E46s had those or not.

The E36's have the CDV so I guess the E46's do too.

[speedychrissie]

that is interesting, because it might not be that the car moved when the revs rose, but a coincidence that my brother happened to increase the revs while the slow release thingie worked (albeit slowly). I will point my brother in the direction of this thread and see what he thinks too.

Is the slow release thing a part of the clutch kit? it would be a shame to pay a garage hundreds of pounds to replace the clutch which would only get destroyed if the fault is in another part.

[LocoBlade]

A new CDV is about £6 from BMW, the system will need re-bleeding once you've swapped it out though, I helped a mate do this on my driveway but it can be a bit of a pig so 2 people minimum and a good hydraulic bleed kit is essential. Im not saying it is this, it was just an idea, but as you say if its blocked/broken and so releasing very slowly then I guess its possible it could cause the symptoms you describe.

Edited by LocoBlade on Thursday 4th June 09:13

[bimmer_87]

sniff diesel said:

bimmer_87 said:

to replace its definetly a gearbox out job, you'll be looking at £600ish from a BMW specialist.

That would be a very expensive specialist, even with a flywheel replacement (which I wouldn't bother changing at 67k)

You can get a Sachs clutch from GSF for just under £100 delivered, bank on about 3 hours labour to do the job so it should come in at about £250 all in.

I'm just speaking from experience.

Yeh Euro Car Parts do a similar priced kit, but in the notes its mentioned 'excludes sequential MTM'

Wereas mine is an SMG. also clutch parameters need to be reset, which you need something like a GT1 or Auto-Logic diagnostic tool.