Birdie2000
Club Member
Friend of mine has a 97 BMW 540i.
When he bought it the previous owner said that they had a new clutch put in 3000 miles ago, but it has been sitting for approx. two years since. On his first test drive of the car, he took it out and it drove great. No problems at all.
He then took it into a shop that specializes in BMWs to get a pre-purchase inspection done because it's a high-mileage car. The shop owner comes back and says (aside from one or two other little things) that the car needs a new clutch because it's slipping all over the place. Now the previous owner of the car says he's full of shit, it's only got 3000 miles on it and it drove fine when they brought it into the shop, which my friend can attest to that it did. So they take the car out again and say that it drove fine that time and that they must have been mistaking. The previous owner drove it home and supposedly it drove fine.
So my buddy takes delivery of the car and only has to drive it about 5 miles to where he's going to store it for a few months until he can take care of the other little issues. In those 5 miles he said he couldn't get the clutch to grab at all. It drove terrible. Keep in mind he test drove the car a week or two prior and said it drove great.
Any ideas what would cause a clutch to intermittantly do this? The shop thought that maybe something was leaking onto the flywheel causing this or maybe just some strange reaction from sitting, although at 3000 miles I would think the clutch would be broken in. He's pretty irritated though because he bought it on the assumption that the clutch was practically new and drove great, and now he's looking at having to dump $1k into a new clutch, which will greatly offset the good deal he got on the car because of its mileage.
When he bought it the previous owner said that they had a new clutch put in 3000 miles ago, but it has been sitting for approx. two years since. On his first test drive of the car, he took it out and it drove great. No problems at all.
He then took it into a shop that specializes in BMWs to get a pre-purchase inspection done because it's a high-mileage car. The shop owner comes back and says (aside from one or two other little things) that the car needs a new clutch because it's slipping all over the place. Now the previous owner of the car says he's full of shit, it's only got 3000 miles on it and it drove fine when they brought it into the shop, which my friend can attest to that it did. So they take the car out again and say that it drove fine that time and that they must have been mistaking. The previous owner drove it home and supposedly it drove fine.
So my buddy takes delivery of the car and only has to drive it about 5 miles to where he's going to store it for a few months until he can take care of the other little issues. In those 5 miles he said he couldn't get the clutch to grab at all. It drove terrible. Keep in mind he test drove the car a week or two prior and said it drove great.
Any ideas what would cause a clutch to intermittantly do this? The shop thought that maybe something was leaking onto the flywheel causing this or maybe just some strange reaction from sitting, although at 3000 miles I would think the clutch would be broken in. He's pretty irritated though because he bought it on the assumption that the clutch was practically new and drove great, and now he's looking at having to dump $1k into a new clutch, which will greatly offset the good deal he got on the car because of its mileage.
