Not being able to start your car with the UUC Clutch Stop

Use this information at your own risk!

One problem that arises installing the clutch stop is that one has to get around the safety feature that BMW installs that does not allow the car to start unless the clutch pedal is fully depressed.

In all models you have to do a couple of the same things. One has to remove the little plastic cover that covers your pedals. There are a few that require a Phillips screw driver and some are you unscrew by hand.

Saman previously provided information on how he got around this issue on his 1997 model wrote the following:

“Once you remove the cover, follow the clutch pedal arm all the way up, I mean all the way up. Then with your hand manually press the clutch pedal all the way in, you will see that there is a little tab on the arm of the pedal that depresses a rubber little square. When you press the little square yourself you will hear a nice click sound. That completes the circuit and allows the car to start. What most people have done including myself is the following. I took a ½” x ½” wooden block, but anything can be used, and superglued it to the tab on the clutch arm that makes contact with the rubber button. This thickness allows the rubber bottom to be activated way higher, therefore allowing you to set your clutch stop much higher. Without this modification you are not really taking full advantage of the clutch stop, because at its lowest setting there is not a major reduction in the arm travel as it can have with this modification.”

I am not sure when BMW made a change, but those instructions did not work on my 2002 model. On my car, closing the safety device is magnetic, not mechanical and its location is different. What you need to do is remove a small black rectangular piece (switch) from the clutch master cylinder that is half way up the clutch arm and to left side. Then you get a small magnet and place it on the side of that rectangular switch that slips against the clutch master cylinder. That tricks the safety mechanism in thinking that the clutch pedal is depressed and allows the car to start. That clutch master cylinder will no longer fit back into it original position because of the magnet, so we placed it behind the footrest.