Hi guys - this is my first Minnesota winter and I wanted to find out if this is normal behavior for the car in the cold or what ... I've got a 2k2 6-speed.

After being at work, I got into the car at the end of the night (it's about -15 degrees F) and start the car. Of course it sounds ugly, but that's not the part that concerned me. The clutch was just feeling really really weird - it was sticking a lot and in general just felt "gummy" - not fluid like it usually is. It was really hard to use it effectively, and it did that for my entire 15 minute ride home.

Is this normal for cold weather? anything I can do to help? I let the car warm up for 10 minutes before I started out, and it didn't seem to help at all.

 

First guess would be that you need to flush your clutch fluid. Maybe something like the Valvoline Synpower would be good. Old fluid usually has water dissolved in it - at -15 that could be pretty thick.

 

Ditto. Try a tranny flush with Red Line MT-90 or the Amsoil equivalent. Unless you've already done that recently.

BTW, You may want to try Mobil 1 0W-40 motor oil for cold weather starts. The stuff is awesome.

 

My clutch felt the same yesterday. It was about 1 degree and windy. The car had been parked for about 7 hours. It got better after a few miles. I chalked it up to just being very cold. My tranny fluid should be ok. I switched over to MT-90 about a year ago and have put about 12,000 miles on it since then.
The clutch fluid is OEM. I suppose that could be the problem. I'll have to see if it happens again.