lwolf2

Love my '04 525i with the 6-speed. It's up to 70k miles now and I've just noticed a) "sticky" getting into 1st gear from neutral. I sometimes have to depress clutch way down and push rather hard to get into the slot, but not always. More annoying, many times moving from 2nd to 3rd I hear and feel a faint grinding. It seems that I used to get from 2nd to 3rd with a pretty quick diagonal movement, now I have to trace the "H" carefully from bottom left to upper right to avoid any shake and grind noise.

Serious problems ahead? Is there anything I can do to avoid/postpone a costly new clutch job? Does anyone know if clutch is part of the Extended Warranty deal? (I'm assuming that it's not...)

Last thought. If I do need to replace, I've seen several posters complain about the long throws to change gears, and is my only complaint with the manual. If I am out of luck on the warranty, any 3rd party recommendations for better shifting action?

Thanks in advance!