Going about 60 on the interstate. Clutch pedal down, tried to shift into third. The gear grinds so I pull out real quick and do a "WTF?" clutch still down and the cars idling at this point, try third again and it made a bunch of bad noise and went into gear. "WTF?" I go to let up on the clutch and its stuck to the floor.

i think the clutch line popped somewhere and the clutch fluid quickly vacated the vehicle. The gears seem to be fine, synchros all feel normal, it just seems as though the clutch has taken a vacation.

anyone know if its for sure the clutch or if its something else? also wondering if it would be covered under warranty? 2005 with 34k miles

 

Does your clutch pedal have side-to-side play?
Its a known issue that the clutch pedal bracket can crack around one of the spot welds.
Below is a sign of possible failure soon to come.


And here is failure:

 

i dont think clutch is covered under warranty. however the pedal might be.

 

If you're still within the 4 years from purchase, it would be covered by the bumper-to-bumper warranty. As would Mazda Roadside Assistance towing you to a dealer, and a loaner car while it's being fixed.

See this thread for a discussion of the problem:

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...+pedal+snapped

Clutch pressure plate is, under the 60K power train warranty.

Ken

 

When the clutch went out in my old car there wasn't any grinding. I could push the shifter around but then I could just drop the clutch and there was no grip at all. I was going 70 and I could put it in 1st and just drop the clutch and just keep idling along like i was still in neutral. I don't know if that helps any because you obviously have a different issue, but I just thought it may help rule something out.

 

I bet its not the clutch since you only have this problem in 3rd gear.

It would be slipping in all the gears. Tranny or bracket.

 

Quoting the OP:

"The gears seem to be fine, synchros all feel normal, it just seems as though the clutch has taken a vacation."

The OP is currently deployed in Iraq, I am the person who was driving the car at the time.

The problem isn't just third gear, a shift to third is when it happened. The gearbox itself isn't broken.

To make this more interesting, the warranty on the car expired three days before this happened, and the dealer is refusing to cover it under warranty. I realize that this isn't something they can control, because they have to get reimbursed by Mazda for the warranty repair.

I called up Mazda USA, and they said that depending on the diagnosis that they would cover it. So, problem solved, they gave me a little bit of a grace period.

The dealer said that all of the hydraulic system is in perfect working order! That's impossible, the car behind me got sprayed with brake fluid all over his car. I'm fairly certain the slave cylinder failed, and that this caused an unsynced (i.e. not floating the gears) shift to third at speed. The clutch being the weakest point when the gear caught, grenaded.

Because of the dealer's diagnosis, they're not going to cover it under warranty.

Here's my theory: the dealer wants $1500 to repair the car. I know that's on the high end of the price range for this repair. Were they to give a diagnosis that would indicate the failure wasn't the driver's fault, they'd be getting reimbursed by Mazda and you can bet they're not going to get as much money. But if they repair whatever part of the hydraulics that went wrong (most likely a cheap part) and replace the clutch, they can charge me whatever they want, thus making more money than they otherwise would have off a warranty repair.

BOHICA.