F55/56 Mini lousy shifting in hot weather?

Asking a super-vague question because other forums drive me nuts and the odds of a GRMer knowing That Specific Thing are relatively high...

I'd say the Mini (2016, base 3-cyl, 6-speed, 5-door Cooper) usually shifts "fine," in a cable-actuated and sort of indirect but not sloppy way. I've never loved it from new, but it's not at all bad. However, starting last summer and cropping up again yesterday as we got into the first 90-ish degree day in a long time, I start missing shifts; the shifter doesn't get stiff or difficult, it just feels like warm cheddar has been introduced somewhere in the mechanism.

I kinda figured it was tired cables/housings/bushings somewhere and if it were easy to do that, I'd just give it a try. But apparently you have to spend $675 on the entire shifter and cables to get the cables... (Deep breath, don't go down the whole "modern BMW teeth gnashing" thing...) And as a bonus instead of connecting below the shifter and on the trans, you get to disassemble a moderate amount of engine bay and interior.

Anybody familiar with this issue? I'm not entirely surprised to find a lack of discussion on the Mini forums, which I haven't found to be very useful (though I admittedly haven't spent a ton of time trying to find one I like; this isn't a project car and I'm not "getting into" modern Minis; just trying to find the occasional bit of info about diagnosis or repair).

I can't help much because I don't speak Mini, really, but just to be clear the issue is vagueness/lack of push/click into gear, not anything to do with with clutch actuation, right?

My general advise with BMWs is related to e30/36/46 and that's to replace all shifter bushings and wear items in the assembly, otherwise it's like stirring a pot of oatmeal with a wooden spoon, but I don't think that advise applies directly here?

I think there's some bearing that has gone dry, and that lubrication would improve it. I'd go around looking for somewhere to add graphite or grease.

Looking on RealOem.com, it does look like the only way you can get a shift cable is to buy the whole damn assembly.......on the earlier cars (which would get so stiff you couldn't move them when it got cold - ask me how I know) you could buy the cables individually.

I think I would have to do some more investigation - I haven't heard of this problem, where it gets mushy when hot but it's OK when cool.

In reply to everyone:

I don't think it's clutch related. The clutch is imperfect (there's some judder), but the friction point seems at a reasonable height. I don't see a ton of uncertainty here, but I could see being wrong about dismissing it and finding out that under certain conditions it's not as good as I think it is, though that would also be odd for temp-related, wouldn't it?

I'm not against looking for things to lube, but there's not much there, and again, it doesn't get stiff or difficult, it feels more like the last little bit of travel where it should be finishing engagement just goes missing, like I'm stretching the cable and instead of landing in gear it just doesn't quite get there.

It's striking how much it's a hot-day thing; I'd mostly forgotten about it, wondered whether I'd imagined the whole thing... and then the first hot day I was all "wow, okay, there's that thing again."

I revisited realoem.com and got another tidbit: the one part number for the shifter and cables had a superceding part number change in February 2016. My car was built in October or November of 2015... (sad trombone, though I don't know why the change or whether it's related)

Seems like I'm going to have to put it on the lift and see what I can poke at. Skimming the replacement instructions worries me that I have to do half the job just to inspect things...

Have you addressed the transmission fluid? Viscosity plays a large role in shift feel, and temperature changes the viscosity. I'm not seeing how it could be so extreme as to be described as "warm cheddar", but it is also cheaper and easier than any other option you've mentioned. So there's that. 

In reply to cyow5 :

That's a good question.

I started this thread hoping there was an "oh, yeah, the infamous F56 hot weather shifter thing" kind of characteristic answer for what felt like a pretty odd symptom.

In lieu of that, it's back to figuring out what this thing is doing from the basics. Double-check the clutch is bled, change the gearbox oil, check the pivots (fingers crossed I can access them without too much disassembly). Back to the basic "without an obvious failure, try the simplest and cheapest fixes first."