Help req'd with Mother's 03 Cooper - bit vague tho...

[Buffalo]

My mum has had her 03 cooper from new. Its now starting to act up; now she drives like a doddering old lady so with the exception of my younger brother who occasionally drives it (and probably rags it) it should have had a relatively easy life to date. It is though quite high mileage; maybe up around 90k by now.

She was originally complaining of it being down on power i think, now she's complaining of it juddering away and particularly on changing from 2nd to 3rd.

I'm wondering if the clutch is about to go south? Anyone have any better suggestions..?

She uses the main dealership for all her servicing and i think they are generally ok (they had to fit a new CAT last month and co-erced BMW into a goodwill payment!) but I'm never convinced main dealerships do a very good mechanical service; its been to them three times already over the low power and they just don't seem to be able to get there. Does anyone who works for a dealership actually have a mechanical brain these days, or are they just computer techies..?

[Buffalo]

Unfortunately I've tried that, but she keeps going back there (I'm in Aus, so I'm limited to what i can actually do in terms of taking it somewhere on her behalf - but i am less than impressed they cannot solve it).

My mother resides in Bedfordshire - anyone local to that at all..?

Cheers ~PHIL