Haven’t seen a new clutch thread in a week or so—I figured it was high time!
Well, the good news is I’ve got a new clutch, and it was covered 100% by BMW under warranty. The bad news is it took four months and countless blood pressure spikes to make it happen. Ultimately, it looks like my 02/00 production Beast destroyed her own self-adjusting clutch mechanism, preventing the pressure plate from applying sufficient force and allowing the clutch to slip. The tech even showed me how the original clutch disk was not excessively worn, even after 43K miles’ worth of spirited driving! Finally, affirmation that I was not to be branded a “clutch-beater.”
Back in the archives, it appears that there are at least two other members that experienced the same fate
(rebel1? kenneth? care to weigh in?). rebel1 received an explanation that part of the self-adjusting mechanism used a neoprene component that has since 05/00 been replaced with a metal one. Anyone else hear anything similar?
Through the course of these events, and in dealing primarily with BMWNA’s Uber Field Service Engineer, I was told the following things:
“Absolutely no slip whatsoever. If that clutch were slipping, I would have found it” (amazingly followed two weeks later by: “You need a new clutch.”)
“Without exception, every M5 clutch failure I’ve seen or heard about was due to operator error”
And just for good measure, some non-clutch related comments from the same regional tech rep:
“Why would you buy
those wheels?!” [referring to Kinesis K-58s with polished lips]
“There is
absolutely zero benefit to replacing your OEM (Jurid) brake fluid with that blue stuff (ATE Super Blue).”
Well, I bit my tongue, survived, and my baby’s got her “snap” back! WooHoo!!
My question to you all is this:
Have any of you with replacement clutches (particularly on early-build cars) noticed a significant reduction in pedal effort with the new parts?
If so, were you able to do anything to ‘fix’ it?
The feel of the new clutch is much more like my pre-Beast, an E39 98 540i/6, and MUCH too light for my tastes. It seemed to me that my original E39 M5 clutch felt more like the one on my E34 95 540i/6 (pre-pre-Beast!), which is to say pretty firm pedal feel, with all actuation taking place in first inch of pedal travel. I’m finding the new clutch more difficult to modulate consistently. Perhaps it’s just a matter of re-training my leg muscles!
TIA for your input.
-Dave
TECH: those w/ non-original clutch --> light clutch pedal?
Linear Mode
