I have spent the last hour looking for someone that had the same problem as me, but could not find this anywhere. I don't even know if this is a transmission problem, clutch problem or what.

Heres the deal
for the last 2 or 3 days the car has felt kind of off. It almost felt like the car was using way to much energy to move the required amount it needed. For example in 5th gear at 7000 RPM's the car was only doing like 75 MPH (This isn't an EXACT example but representative example).

That wasn't the only thing that would happen though, the best i can do is give another example. If i was in about 2nd gear, and the car was running at 4000 RPMS (still slower than it should have been) and then pushed on the gas pedal the RPM would jump about 2000 RPMS higher (so 4000 up to 6000) but then it would settle back down to what it SHOULD be (i.e. normally it would go 4000 to 5000 RPMS, but instead it jumped about 2k higher, and then settled down 1000 back to what it used to be).

Then finally when I was driving on the highway around here today, I was revving the engine high just to go 65 (like 8000 RPM in 4th gear) the car just stopped getting power to the engine. The engine was still trying to do the high RPMS to make the car move, but it was almost like the engine power wasn't going to the wheels. I could move the shifter into all the gears, but no matter what gear/what RPM i brought the car to it just wouldn't move anymore, I pulled over, and then putting the car in gear wouldn't move it at all, and there was this weird smell, almost like anti-freeze or something.

So i had to get it towed to the local dealership and its sitting in their parking lot waiting to get looked at tomorrow, anyone have a clue what this is even if it is a dumb idea. Deep down I hope its something silly like I forgot to add Tranny fluid and it was bone dry but i have a feeling it's something that is going to be costly.

 

sounds, to me, like your clutch is going out

 

well the thing that doesn't make sense is ....... the shift pedal felt perfectly fine, I thought that was considered the "clutch", if the clutch was slipping wouldn't the shift pedal be messed up??? In this case I could easily move the shifter between gears, and the pedal felt fine, no sticking or nothing.

 

This does sound like the clutch is toast. I overheated a clutch once, and nothing I would do could get the car moving until I let the car sit for ~30 minutes. No idea on clutch life, that car was totalled about 1 month later.

If the clutch simply isn't getting enough friction to transfer the energy through, then yeah, the RPMs will have trouble matching the gear/speed. If you were running 75mph in 5th gear at 7000rpm, your clutch had to have been slipping the entire time, burning up any friction material it had left.

The clutch pedal pressure is dependent on the tension and spring related to the clutch, and through it you can tell the friction point, but if your clutch has no friction left, you will still feel the pressure back. And the clutch being fried will not affect the shifter and putting it into gear or not, unless the clutch has fused to flywheel, or another suspension component has fused. I experienced that once too. The clutch fused something and the pedal had no effect on trying to disengage the gear. Driving it ~4 miles to the dealership with lights and all was interesting, especially starting from a stop and shifting gears with the clutch engaged the entire time. (Toyota "trained technicians" had installed transaxle seals incorrectly, and let the fluid drain out, which toasted the tranny...yeah, a lawsuit was spawned from that one)

It is possible it is a different transmission issue, but it sounds like a massively fried clutch.

Burning clutch and burning tires smell somewhat similar if you don't know the difference, but the clutch has a much stronger presence of sulfur in the smell. I don't know how that compares to anti-freeze.

 

it was almost like the engine power wasn't going to the wheels.

Wut the sam hell buttfook is a shift pedal?

Your clutch is gone.

On the upside, you'll never forget that smell, so you'll recognize it next time.....

S

 

welp if the clutch is gone (ill wait to see what the dealership says) it looks like i might as well start looking for a new lightweight aluminum flywheel to throw in it. Is the clutch under warranty??? my car has 52k on it.