Subterfuge

So I was driving home from getting some food last night (important detail... I was about 1/2lb heavier after this... lol). As I pulled out of the parking lot I hit a little patch of water, just enough to slick up my tires and cause the traction control to lock up a little bit. I let off of the gas and began to resume accelerating after the water was gone. As soon as I gave it any more than the minimum throttle to accelerate the clutch started slipping and the engine revving. As long as I didn't give it much throttle it would accelerate, and I made the brief drive home. The entire way this continued to happen.

Now I just had my reman engine put in around 1700 miles ago. When they put the engine in I had them put in a new clutch, 2 birds 1 stone type deal. I called my mechanically inclined brother and he said it sounded like either a loose flywheel or pressure plate, thus the clutch wasn't engaging and hence slipping. So of course I immediately took it into the shop today. Funny thing is, the slippage was gone. To be sure, I let them look at it, and they informed me that they found absolutely nothing.

This has left me puzzled, as it was most certainly slipping last night, and if I continued to drive around town rather than go home, I'm sure it would have kept slipping the whole way. Also, I never turned the car off the whole trip, so the incident most certainly did not begin until after the traction control kicked in. My best guess is that SOMETHING happened during the brief moment I was gassing it as the traction control kicked in. Maybe this caused some sort of hydraulic failure? When I got the car back after the motor swap the clutch was extremely low to the floor, and it adjusted back up after about 2 days of driving it. Presumably there was air in the line. Could this air have caused the problem?

Anyway, I'll stop asking stupid questions now and let you guys give me some ideas. So far all is still well.

P.S. It was really hard to put it into first gear the first time after it started slipping. The second time came much more easily and this has been happening occasionally.

Murderbus

I am having the same problem. Mine has been acting weird about 500 miles after I put in a new clutch. It will slip and continue to rev if I accelerate to hard. Does anybody have any responses to this? I changed out my tranny fluid today hoping that would help.. what a waste of royal purple $ if I have to change out my flywheel.. though the mechanics that put my clutch in told me that the fly wheel looked completely fine.

jasonrxeight

probably just clutch needs break in a bit.

Charles R. Hill

iTrader: (7)

1) When the engine is fully warm, what is the clutch pedal free-play? It is supposed to be 1/4"-1/2" at the pedal pad.
2) Does this free-play increase when the car is cold in the morning? If so, you may need a good flushing of the clutch hydraulic system and/or a new clutch master or slave cylinder.
3) While you are at it, you will do yourself a HUGE favor by also removing the clutch pedal assembly and reinforcement-welding the backplate to the mainframe.

Subterfuge

Sorry to bring up an old post, but it's been 2 months since I had this problem and it finally creeped up again.

To answer some of the questions posed.

Normally I have about the proper amount of "free play". At least I think I do, and the feel of the pedal rarely changes at all as the car warms up.

However, I just had my car in for an alignment today and when I hop back in it this problem has returned, and the first thing I noticed was that the clutch pedal has lost its uniform feeling and that it is very stiff at the top, and very soft 1/4" or so from the top. At first I had a hard time even driving off of the lot. The slipping was the same as before, and unfortunately I had a bunch of things to get done so I drove around town and it seemed to get easier to engage the clutch for a while (although the slipping stayed) and then towards the end of my 20 minutes around town i could barely get the thing to accelerate without slipping, and the engagement point seemed to return all the way to the top.

In my travels I returned to the dealer and the mechanic didn't have any time to actually drive it while it was messing up. Last time I let it sit overnight and the problem miraculously disappeared all together. I have a feeling that might happen again and once again the mechanic will tell me, "we didn't mess up the installation" etc. without ever doing any more than just driving it while it's not messing up.

So far the idea is that the "pressure plate is faulty" and that I should have it warrantied. However under the mechanic's recommendation I went and bought a cheap "oem" clutch kit from autozone and they're probably going to charge me to install a new clutch.

I guess I'm gonna go down there and raise a little hell about how they never mechanically inspected it since I complained of problems with it and based on that I could simply go to another mechanic and have him take a look at it and if they discover a problem with the installation then Mazda is liable.

What bugs me the most is that when I got it back it was like this. How could I be so lucky as to have had the mechanic drive the thing and as soon as he gets out of the car and I hop in it (it was still warm and it was like 30F today) suddenly there's a problem with the clutch?? I mean it's nearly impossible not to notice!

I'm extremely frustrated at this point, but I'm having some more warranty service done so I guess I can't jump ship just yet. Not to mention that the next mazda dealer is like 250 miles away and there's no way I'm gonna make that if the clutch stays in this sort of shape.

Sorry for ranting, it just really ticks me off. Any ideas on this issue would be appreciated. If it really is a matter of flushing the hydraulic system that would be a relief, however I still am kicking myself for not forking out an extra 100 bucks to get an aftermarket clutch in there. Problems or not, I have a fleeting suspicion this duralast clutch kit is a big steaming pile.

Subterfuge

Problem already went away after letting the car sit for about 5 hours.