[Sparks944]

Hey guys. Hoping you can validate a diagnosis I received from the dealership on an issue with my car. The car is a 2011 E93 335i. It has 105K on the clock. The previous owner had the reverse synchro replaced ~10K ago but did not do the clutch or anything else.

Ok now for the problem. Over the last few months the car started to not want to go into reverse or 1st when the car was running (with enough fiddling you could usually get it to go. If you turned the car off you could easily put the car in these gears and then start it. I thought this may have been the synchro going again and was going to take it back to the transmission shop. It took me about a month to get there though and over that month the issue started moving to the other gears like 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Basically it didn't want to go in easily but if I rev matched I could get it to drop into those gears. This started to make me think something else was going on.

I also noticed that when I put the car in reverse once I released the brake (but clutch fully depressed) it wanted to start moving backwards almost like the clutch was slightly released and starting to engage the gear. As I started to pay attention to the peddle location more it feels like when I put the clutch to the floor completely the clutch is not fully disengaging (like 95% there). I notice this when taking out of gear as well.

I took the car to the transmission shop and they pretty quickly ruled out the synchro. I then took it to the dealership to get their opinion and they said that I needed a new clutch. I questioned them as I did not have any clutch slippage and the response was that our clutch is self adjusting so the engage/disengage point will move towards the bottom and top of the peddle motion as it wears. If it wears all the way down it can go past peddle movement.

This was the first I had heard of a bad clutch acting this way however I haven't had my car long and am more experienced with working on older cars. The guy sounded to know what he was talking about but since this sounded different than how I had experienced clutch failures before I thought I would come to the forum.

So my question is does this sound like a bad clutch to you all or something else? Anything else I should look at before doing the fix?

I couldn't find a post on the forum that touched on this particular issue so sorry if this has been answered before. Thanks for your help.

[cahme]

This sounds like the way my son's car (Fiat) did when a few of the pressure plate springs broke and the clutch wasn't able to fully engaged.

If you want to do something cheaper first, you could bleed it, but they are correct that it is self adjusting.

[Ozzie335i]

Any time a transmission is taken out with that kind of mileage the clutch and pressure plate, at minimum, should be proactively swapped. His being chintzy at that time cost you more in time, labor and aggravation.

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

Wow. Ok I don't want to spread rumors or anything... but I've seen this in a few other posts with only 2011 cars with 6 speed manual.

It started with unable to go into reverse and the fix for them was just to replace the transmission as the transmission don't have serviceable parts for deeper stuff.

Search it up you will see what I'm talking about.

EDIT: https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1087237 here are few people all commenting on the same thread

[Sparks944]

Thanks for all the replys. The thread about bad transmission was a great read. I had read about transmissions going bad but had not heard the stories from the owners which was incredibly helpful. It actually makes me feel good. It sounds like they all had a physical barrier to the car going in reverse even when the car was off. When my car is off it goes into all gears like butter. If I start the car in the gear all is well. There is also a few other consistencies with their stories that my car is not doing so fingers crossed.

This reinforces the clutch diagnosis for me. Bleeding the slave is also a good idea though. Looking at the parts they look almost identical to my old e36 which I worked on the transmission more times than I can count so I can do that next week quickly.

[feuer]

Throw out bearing or pressure plate. Not necessarily the clutch disc or dual mass fly wheel are worn. Take it apart. Inspect. Replace parts accordingly

[juld0zer]

The self adjusting cover has to be locked prior to removal if it is to be reused along with the old clutch disc. A lot of people forget/disregard this.

SAC is designed to give a consistent and low effort clutch pedal action for the life of the clutch, to the point where the traditional hints of wear may no even show (heavy pedal, release near the floor).