wethead clutch

Please be patient with me as this is the first time i"ve started a thread.Does anyone know roughly how many miles a wethead clutch with alot of highway miles and very little if any abuse might last.Besides a slipping clutch are there any symptoms indicating a clutch is getting near the end of it"s life? And has anyone had to replace theirs yet?

The wethead clutch is now a wet multiplate and like other wet multiplate clutches should last for a very long time- certainly much longer than the previous dry single plate clutches! 50,000 km on my '16 and no problems!

I have not heard of any clutch issues with these Wethead Boxers. Including the GS version, which should get more clutch abuse than the RT version would. Not a thing to worry about at all. Fairly uncommon to wear out multi-plate wet clutches unless there is EXTREME abuse. I have a customer that sent his clutch components in with 304,000 miles ( 2003 DL 1000 Suzuki that has 426,000 miles on it now) on them and the clutch plates still measured well within factory service manual specifications.

Not to hijack the thread, but the dry clutch on my 1970 R60/5 lasted 200,000 miles. They were mostly freeway commute miles.

...if I remember right there were some issues with earlier GSW clutches going south and needing replacement under warranty.
Being new to the "W", I'm hoping it's gonna last a long time.

I do have the quick shifter. I'm learning to only use it only from gears 3-6 on acceleration with full throttle on the upshift.
Downshift full off-throttle gears 6-3.
It doesn't seem to really like anything else, too much driveline and torque strain, but otherwise works smoothly in that range.

Dooes this have much to do with clutch life? I dunno...

rapiddog said:

I do have the quick shifter. I'm learning to only use it only from gears 3-6 on acceleration with full throttle on the upshift. Downshift full off-throttle gears 6-3. Dooes this have much to do with clutch life? I dunno...

Click to expand...

All else being equal it could slightly extend your clutch life since half the time you're managing to get a gear shifted w/o having to manually re-sync (rev-match). I don't have quick shift but like you shift w/o the clutch in 3-6th gear, but only going up now downshifting.

You might want to look at my post on "slipper clutch and friction zone." The 13-16 clutches do have an issue that BMW is well aware of but they made changes on the 2017 to remedy it.