WTF. My wife's car (2001 SE 5MT) only has 50000 miles on it and lately the clutch has been catching at different points. Today she claims it was sticking to the floor. I rolled my eyes at her and took it for a spin. I was driving it around the neighborhood with the usual wierd catch points, but nothing terribly odd. After a little bit, I floor it in second and do a shift to third. Low and behold the pedal is damn near stuck to the floor. There is room in it for action but it sits 2 inches from the floor and catches 1 inch from the floor. I picked the pedal up with the top of my foot, pumped it a few times and it returned to "normal".

How could this clutch possibly be going at 50k? My clutch on my '98 lasted to 80k and probably had some life left in it. I know nothing like this ever happened to me with it.

Someone please tell me there's a recall or a TSB or something to cover this ish. I can't believe my foot. She drives the car like a grandma. And since I can't search, this is all I can do. (Search turned off until you can upgrade hard drive? Better be SCSI.)

Anyone?

 

Sounds more like a faulty clutch master cylinder or a leaky slave cylinder. Check to confirm if the fluid is okay. If okay, suspect the MC. Look under the carpet right under where the MC enters the interior. Look for signs of leakage.

 

Agree with with Jeff92se!!!

Could be the pressure plate but look more like a leak ok cylinder problem!!

 

Also, check to make sure the clutch pedal spring is in place. Maybe clean and oil it.
It is also possible that the clutch pedal is out of adjustment. The clutch should start to grab when the pedal is about 2 inches from the floor. If it grabs much sooner than that, the return pressure is not sufficient to push the pedal all the way up.

 

My wife took the car to Lexus (where she bought the car) and they said she needs a whole new clutch. I REFUSE to believe that so I'm having her take it to Nissan so they can diagnose. The only way this clutch could be going is if the prior owner was running 300HP and went to the track once a week for the first 32000 miles.

Am I wrong here? I mean ... some people have their factory clutch last 100000+ miles, I don't know how the pressure plate and clutch disc can be worn so quickly - especially since in the 16000 miles my wife has had it she drives the car like a grandma.

Can anyone make sense of this and/or justify this to me? Something tells me that Nissan may very well come back asking for a full clutch replacement as well - perhaps just with a monetary motivation. However if some of you smart guys (Jeff?) can convince me that it actually could be the clutch, I'll feel much better.

Anyone want to volunteer some more help?

 

Umm It sounds like you aren't the most mechanicly inclined person. Nothing wrong with that. But if you look at my above post, most anyone can check the things I mentioned. Certainly it's worth even trying before blindly trusting a mechanic.

It "could" be a broken pressure plate or a fautly throw out bearing. But it could just as well be something much more inexpensive to replace also. (ie.. clutch master or slave cylinder)

 

Jeff

I'm sorry - I forgot to include that I checked both of those and noticed no leakage whatsoever. Everything looked to be in great condition and I definitely appreciate the guidance. Believe me, I try and check everything I know how before "blindly trusting a mechanic" as you so perfectly put it. In fact, that's where my main concern came from - I HATE trusting mechanics. It's a very dishonest business and hard to feel "good" about a service

 

Okay. Then the next step would be to go ahead and replace the clutch master cylinder. It could be faulty and not leak. It's alot less expensive(relatively) than dropping the tranny. Call it insurance. Sometimes when a brake master goes, it will work okay sometimes and then the pedal gets mushy. When it gets stuck on the floor, can you still shift okay? I don't know where the slave cylinder is on the tranny but when it's acting up again, open the hood and have the wife step on the clutch pedal and confirm the piston on the slave is moving the tranny's shift fork. If it's not, then definately change the master cylinder. Even if it is moving, I'd still change it just to 100% eliminate that is the problem.

 

that happened to my dad with his 99max and it was the MC

 

Mine gets like that when it's REALLY ****ing cold outside (<15F), and it goes away when it warms up. I don't believe the clutch engagement points change though... but then I never paid attention.
The pedal never fully sticks, however... it just comes up rather slowly. I have 53K on my 2K 5-speed.

 

You may also have an air bubble in the line. Try bleeding the system.

 

Because your clutch line fluid has absorbed water over time and that is freezing up. Also non-synthetic fluids tend to get mushy when cold. Time to flush that line and probably your brake lines with new synthetic dot 4 brake fluid.

 

Hmmm, good call...

Brake lines are flushed already with Valvoline synthetic DOT4 fluid, just never touched the clutch lines. I should do that soon

 

Unfortunately, Jeff, I didn't have that kind of time. The wife is in sales (read: must have car) and rental cars on the weekday cost $40/day. Not sure if I was experiencing odd symptoms or not, but the tech said he let out the clutch in 1st while at a stand still and the car didn't stall - clearly showing the free spinning disc. I'm still not 100% comfortable with the situation, but it needs to be fixed ASAP and I don't have much other choice. If they replace the clutch (made sure to tell them about the KeyValue crap Nissan might try and sell them) and the problem still exists, I'll be pitching a fit and making them pick up the tab for the final repair. However, I guess it's possible that the guy before me had the car at the track and/or didn't know how to drive stick real well (downshifting into 2nd @ 40mph to slow down). I don't know.

They're going to get the part in later on today and sayy they'll have the car done by tomorrow. Not much I can do at this point and the tech seemed pretty knowledgeable - so I guess I'm as comfortable at this point as I could hope to be.

Thanks to everyone for your prompt help ... I really do appreciate it.

 

Okay. I still think you should have told the mechanic to just change the MC first. Then confirm if the problem still exists. But you have to do what you have to do to get the car going again. Totally understand.

Please be sure to ask for the old parts back. And have them show you exactly what was wrong. I'd hate to see you have to have the clutch replaced uncessarily. If the pressure plate is bad, the tabs will be worn or bent in. If the throw out bearing is bad, it will be pretty much destroyed. If the disc is bad, all the wear materials will be worn down to the rivots.

 

Good call. I'll be sure to do that. Thanks again.

 

Just to put the clutch life in perspective:
Car and driver did a long term test on a 2K se and burnt the clutch out before 40K miles.

 

WOW. No kidding. Corect me if I'm wrong, but I thought the 4th gen and 5th gen (00-01 in particular) had the same exact part number for the clutch? If so, that'd mean the same clutch, and the 3 manual 4th gen's in my family all went 70k at the least. My brother is at 100k on his 98 with the same clutch.

 

Can't say about the same part number. I'm just passing along what I read for info's sake. I'm sure C&D was pretty hard on the car. But the previous owner of the clutch in question could have been as well.