The Life of a New Clutch and Flywheel

[Jehu]

For posterity i will make this thread to mark the installation of these new parts in the 540.So far it has only been taken on a test drive by the shop owner and driven home about 15 miles by me,stalling twice and chirping the tires a few times to avoid stalling. The pedal is feather light now.I'd been used to a fair amount of resistance for the last six months so this will take some unlearning.On a humorous note while driving the rentals the last few days on more than one occasion did i shove my foot onto the vacant floorboard where the clutch pedal is in the Bimmer out of reflex habit,lol.If we here on Earth survive longer than my Clutch and Flywheel, someone may benefit if i can still post ,if i still own the car when they need to be replaced again by seeing how long the BMW parts last.The shop owner told me everything looked original to him that would mean about 154,000 miles,not half bad.I assume the fact i was a newb to manual transmission clutch pedal/stick shifting accelerated their demise but we'll see if these have a similar lifespan.If i ever sell the car I'll tell the buyer about Bimmer.info and ask them to update the board on the car for general interest purposes but i have no thoughts of selling it in the foreseeable future.What the hell else could i possibly buy? Oh yah, the shop owner said my exhaust is rattling from within the muffler and there are cracked flanges.How much of an effect on performnace might these issues have aside from the obvious muffler falling off while passing another Corvette.

[Robin-535im]

For posterity i will make this thread to mark the installation of these new parts in the ... Corvette.

Was that the Kevlar clutch? How much were the parts for your setup? Did you get a stock flywheel or lighten it up a bit?

I hear 150k miles is normal for BMW clutches on the non M cars, more if you treat it well. My wife's dad had a clutch pushing 300k miles on his old 320i, but he did a lot of highway driving.

[Jehu]

No, the shop owner convinced me that would not give me the longevity i thought it might so he ordered and installed all BMW factory original parts.He kept saying;"its a race clutch,its a race clutch.." and i was thinking;"yah, so?".I stayed with the original size flywheel and i have the bill out in the car so I'll post the breakdown later but what i recall seeing was the flywheel was about $875.00 and the Clutch disc was just under $600.00 then the other parts were all like $20.00 or in that range. totaling just over $1,900.00 with labor.The flywheel needed to be overnighted from California to New Hampshire and I'm not sure if he figured that into the part or labor or paid it himself but there was no charge listed for that.He did also replace all the exhaust hangers free as it was sagging and i'm not sure weather the hand brake is integral with the clutch system but it was tightened so he either did that free as well or it was done as part of the Clutch job.One other interesting development , the overhead light switches now funtion fully whereas before when in the position to come on when you open the doors they didn't, they now do so what happened there is a mystery to me but i like it.It may just be i've never had the switches set there AND opened a door to see they do that but either way it was a neat new and usefull discovery.

[markus]

man, i want a 6-speed for my 540i. hell even a 5-speed would be nice. but id upgrade the flywheel and put a different clutch in.

[Jehu]

Different than what? I am unaware of who the manufacturer of the clutch was which the shop owner installed .All he said was it is from BMW so if that part is manufactured by for instance Sachs for BMW ,who besides Sachs makes a suitable replacement if you were DIY?

[markus]

wouldnt an 850 clutch work?