LeeWoo

What's up everyone? Wanted to get your opinion or maybe some insight on this situation.

At the end of February, I had to replace the clutch in my '04 GT. I got it used back in August of last year. It only had 27K miles on it at the time. Last weekend I was driving my car and went to shift from first to second and I heard a snap and the clutch pedal dropped to the floor. I had it towed to my mechanic and he said he took the starter off and from what he can see, the pressure plate is fine but the clutch is pieces and burnt to hell.

Why would this be? I don't ride the clutch AT ALL. I do push my car into 8-9K rpm on occasion but other than that it's shifted anywhere between 5-7K rpm. Am I doing something wrong? Does the clutch need fine tuning once installed or is it a simple slap the part in and it's done? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

DarkBrew

Did you check your clutch pedal bracket? Many of them break!
https://www.rx8club.com/race-roots-134/clutch-pedal-bracket-solutions-explanations-now-recall-194975/

Was the clutch play adjusted last time the clutch was changed?

https://www.rx8club.com/showpost.php...&postcount=111

LeeWoo

I didn't check the pedal. It does actually return but when pushing it down it doesn't really have any resistance. When I pushed down on the pedal, I could not shift into gear so I think his diagnosis of the clutch being destroyed is true. I'm just trying to figure out if this is something I did, a horrible manufacturer defect, or installation error on the old one.

jasonrxeight

a broken pedal can cause that too. just check the pedal first. its covered under warranty.

haze310

Most likely it was ur pedal... it might of been ready to snap..before it snapped would it squeak?

LeeWoo

It did not squeak. It would pop every once in awhile. My mechanic told me that only part of the clutch was broken and not burnt. He said that the only time he has seen that is when someone would repeatedly drop the clutch at high rpms which I NEVER did.

A friend of mine who is also a mechanic told me that most likely it was a faulty clutch from the get-go that might have had scratches in it or was dropped before install and it was only time before the heat destroyed it.

Either way the clutch has been replaced on warranty but I have to pay $210 for the labor.

alz0rz

iTrader: (41)

Get under there and manually depress it and inspect the assembly.

haze310

Ohh ok...cuz I jus had an issue where my clutch snapped... but it was the pedal assembly.. the symptoms that I had however were a pop noise when the clutch pedal was applied

LeeWoo

I wanted to follow up on this. I had the new clutch installed (2nd new clutch since I bought the car) and had the pedal inspected by Mazda. They said the pedal was fine and showed no signs of cracking.

It is now about 1.5 months since I've had the clutch installed and my car feels jerky. It's not the smooth transition from gear to gear. It's almost like the car is hopping at some points in 1st and 2nd. If the dashes here represent acceleration it would be --, --, --, --, -------------. Pretty annoying. I'm not sure if my clutch is gonna go out again but wanted to see if that is a sign of anything? If my clutch goes out again, I may have no choice to get rid of the 8. It's sad because it is so fun, but I just can't have a car that's unreliable. Let me know what you all think.

Socr8tes

You did replace the flywheel when the clutch was changed, right?

LeeWoo

Yes

monchie

Unreliable what it seems, if it's not reliable anymore and too many headaches in the past and present, then let go and get a reliable vehicle instead. Good luck.