DMF failure
The owner of this 2008 BMW 120d abandoned it in a car park because she couldn’t select any gears. The clutch operation felt normal, but the gear lever was locked solid.
We went to see if we could get the little Beemer back to the workshop. On this model, the clutch needs to depressed before the engine will start, so I selected first gear and pressed the start button. The engine fired up without dragging the vehicle forward, so I began to drive back to the workshop. Changing gears was tricky and by the time I arrived at the workshop I was certain that the problem was with the clutch, not the dual mass flywheel (DMF) – but this was not the case.
The six-speed gearbox is not too difficult to remove on the 120d and, once it had dropped down, we could see the DMF had collapsed, preventing a full throw of the clutch. A new DMF and clutch were required and, once these were fitted, the gearbox was bolted up.
A quick feel of the clutch operation now confirmed that the problem was solved.