Stock clutch life

[PhantomBlue]

Hi everyone, I am new to this site.

Last year I bought a brand new 2007 3GT 2.3 5speed manual. I am up to 27K and have experienced some clutch slippage at times. I am a mature man in my mid 30s and have driven manual transmissions since I was in high school. I am not hard on it and I've never had one slip this early in a car's life. Is this common?

How many hours are needed to install a replacement? Would the waranty cover part of it?

Another problem: the engine seems to have lost the punch it had when it was new. When you hit the gas, it only gradually picks up speed. Does not have the same pick up that it had. Anyone know the cause of it? No dash lights show any problems.

Thanks a lot!

[yearoftherat]

Welcome to the forum!!
I would take the car to the dealer and have them check it out. If the clutch is found to be defective, it maybe covered under the 3yr warranty.

[Donutz]

Your clutch should last longer that 27k. Like YOTR suggested, take it in and have it looked at. To replace it you can buy your own parts like Exedy, Spec, etc; upgrade your flywheel, replace it, or have it machined, and get it installed at Street Performance. I can't remember if Jim said it's a full day or half day to install. Regardless, going this route will be significantly cheaper if you have to pay out of your own pocket when compared to paying at the dealership.

As for your power loss, it could be a number of things. Dirty MAF, broken motor mount, bad gas, dirty air filter, perhaps the tb is dirty, and numerous other things. If you are able to, pull your air filter and make sure it's clean. Check the passenger side motor mount for cracks or leaking oil. Pull your MAF and clean it (I believe with electrical contact cleaner, but double check to be sure). Slightly more involved task would be removing the tb and cleaning it. If you buy gas from the same station try a different gas station, or even brand of gas.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

[whiteomega]

My '06 has 48k or so on it, and I drive it like a bit a of a fool at times, but I'm still on the OE clutch, and probably will be for a while yet..27k is far too early for it to start slipping. I agree with YOTR and Jason..take it in.

The clutch is considered a wear and tear part though, so chances are pretty good it wouldn't be covered under warranty, unless it's proven defective. Even then, some dealers may balk at replacing it.

[ajgoldman]

i have the exact same car with the exact same problems....except i am on my second clutch that was replaced at the end of my first year with the car. i am orig owner. and this is ridiculous that my second clutch is done. the knob goes into gear but the car doesnt. when you gas revs go soaring. are there know recalls or issues with this???

[vartdirector]

Me, some months ago i had a problem with the manual transmission, the problem was when i was shifting from the 1st to 2nd there was a noise like i did not pulled down my clutch pedal. The solution was replace my shifter to the OEM one, because the one i bought and installed was very tall and it was not comfortable to shift. Now i'm running my car with any problem. I had many pro's checked my car and every one said that was a syncro problem, but not, was a shifter knob problem :)

Power loosing problem: I'd go for check if your Air Filter have much dirty, and if your gas is the good one and if have a good quality, but there are more factors to consider.

Good Luck!

[Terrible3]

i have the exact same car with the exact same problems....except i am on my second clutch that was replaced at the end of my first year with the car. i am orig owner. and this is ridiculous that my second clutch is done. the knob goes into gear but the car doesnt. when you gas revs go soaring. are there know recalls or issues with this???

Man that seems pretty excessive. I don't mean to be rude but is it your driving style? Driving with your foot slightly on the clutch pedal at all times is terrible. Also down shifting w/o rev matching, basically letting the clutch out slowly to take out the slack is horrible for your car.

[sudz]

I have 75K on my car, Starting to get a funny "feeling" when starting from a stop - Like I feel like noob driver. It's like the engage point has changed, or isnt as linear as it once was. Is this what your talking about?

[Flagrum_3]

Hi everyone, I am new to this site.

Last year I bought a brand new 2007 3GT 2.3 5speed manual. I am up to 27K and have experienced some clutch slippage at times. I am a mature man in my mid 30s and have driven manual transmissions since I was in high school. I am not hard on it and I've never had one slip this early in a car's life. Is this common?

How many hours are needed to install a replacement? Would the waranty cover part of it?

Another problem: the engine seems to have lost the punch it had when it was new. When you hit the gas, it only gradually picks up speed. Does not have the same pick up that it had. Anyone know the cause of it? No dash lights show any problems.

Thanks a lot!

I'm coming up to 120k on the oem clutch and still grabs strong, Soooo I would suspect a defect may be causing excessive wear.If it is proven that there is a defect and this defect would cause excessive 'Disc' wear then the complete clutch assembly should be replaced under warranty....with no arguments.

As for your lack of power; Have you had it in for a reflash? If not ask them to do so when your in getting the clutch looked at.Some simple things you could try are; disconnect the battery for a time, throw some fuel system cleaner in the tank (Redline SL1) works awesome.Take your air filter out and give it a couple of taps etc;

Let us know about the clutch!


_3

[crystal8484]

I had to replace mine at 76K..... and I only drove 800km of those 76K.... Yup, about 1 week after buying it the clutch went and the dealer STILL made me pay. Asswipe.

[Flagrum_3]

I had to replace mine at 76K..... and I only drove 800km of those 76K.... Yup, about 1 week after buying it the clutch went and the dealer STILL made me pay. Asswipe.

That Sucks Bigtime! especially so soon after forking out the cash for the car!


_3

[Jayohen]

Hello all,

Would motor mounts affect clutch life at all? Mine crapped out at 30,000 and was replaced under warranty. Now at about 41,500 miles, my clutch doesn't seem to grab as well as it normally did (doesn't slip while flooring it in a high gear at low RPMs yet though). Although I do a fair bit of city driving, I'm not hard on my clutch at all.

Were you able to get your clutch replaced under warranty phantomblue?

[Jayohen]

Edit: I meant miles not km, sorry about that, I'm from the states. Just to make it easier, my motor mounts went out at 48 280 km, and currently have 66,787 km on my car. Sorry for the mix up.

[midnightfxgt]

I am planning on pulling out my stock clutch soon... I have 147K KM, and it still holds fine! I beat on the car, and make almost double the power it did stock. The OEM Clutch has surprised me, but time for something better.

-John

[zakman]

I am planning on pulling out my stock clutch soon... I have 147K KM, and it still holds fine! I beat on the car, and make almost double the power it did stock. The OEM Clutch has surprised me, but time for something better.

-John

thats with your turbo rite... and how long did u run it with ur turbo? thats amazing how it held up for ya

[midnightfxgt]

Yup... Its still in there, and hold pretty good. I decided to pull it out and put in a light flywheel at the same time. Once its out, I will post pics :)

[McGuyver_3]

i beat the living snot out of my previous mazda 3 and with the stock clutch it lasted me about 80000km. But then again i tought about 15 people how to drive stick on it, and beat the crap out of it as when you are 17 and your first sporty car you tend to drive a little harder and try to chirp 2nd and 3rd gear lol. Well lesson learned after it taking about 6 hours to instal a new clutch. The clutch was cheap through ebay about 150$. Again though the work to do it was a pain in the neck

[Zoom Zoom Boy]

If you are at least reasonable on your clutch, there should be no reason it shouldn't last you at minimum, 200,000km. My 2005 MZ3 has 90K on it currently and it engages like it did when it was new.

In my old Protege, which was driven very, very hard, but maintained well, I had around 250-260,000km on the original clutch and had at minimum another 80-100,000km of wear left. I know this as I had the tranny rebuilt at 200K and was able to see the wear at that time.

[Woodman316]

You Probably have a bad spline holding the clutch plates back.

[zakman]

Yup... Its still in there, and hold pretty good. I decided to pull it out and put in a light flywheel at the same time. Once its out, I will post pics :)

i cant wait to see the new pictures and to hear about how it goes with the new clutch and lighter fly wheel in. it should be really nice to drive with the turbo and the new parts.

[midnightfxgt]

I meant post pics of the old one for fun :) If you want any pics in particular, just let me know! The car is no secret, I'll share what I can :)

[grex]

okay so this is my first manual car..just wondering what exactly you guys mean when you talk about the 'clutch slipping' i find that when im starting in first gear the clutch grabs really early and i can release the rest of the clutch and it feels like its not doing anything. It seems in other gears that it grabs much later.