ou8thisSN

okay I bought this car about a month ago. it was running great but today i noticed the clutch being usuallly stiffer than it has been. It creaks when it's pushed in and is slow to let out. then while I was driving, i saw that if I pulled on the gear, while the car was in gear, it would come out of gear. Any and all gears! is this normal??? I dont know much about cars and I'm feeling my way through it, but I've driven stick for years on a maxima and that's never happened.

I cannot put the car back into gear without pushing in the clutch but it will release out of gear without the clutch. Please tell me what's going on so I can stop freaking.

The car had 2 previous owners. it has 88k miles on it. As far as I know, the car is all stock parts, no mods done. Please tell me what I should do, if anything?

konrad

iTrader: (15)

you know that all professional truck drivers only use the clutch on first gear? I change gears without pushing in the clutch, you can downshift and up shift , its sage, as long as you dont force the gear in coz than you will just grind your synchros.

kacz07

iTrader: (15)

It is rpm dependent and yes, it does it with other cars as well. Still, I'd use the clutch to shift. Less wear and tear.

TheFarmer

iTrader: (19)

If you pull on the gear lever of course it's going to come out of gear.

ou8thisSN

wow, shows how much i know... well that's a relief. I was seriously freaking out when this was happening. Anyway the clutch pedal does creak when I push it in and out and it's 'sluggish' to recover. Ie when i take my foot off the clutch pedal, it recoils slower than my foot leaving it, it's not smooth in it's recoil. is THAT normal or does the clutch need to be changed? or can you even change the clutch without changing the transmission?

TheFarmer

iTrader: (19)

Clutch pedal releasing slower than your foot is not normal. Have it diagnosed by a reputable shop in your area.

Z1 Performance

iTrader: (564)

exactly

can the lever come out of gear when driving? Sure. Is it good for the transmission? Unless you rev match it perfectly, no, it's not

something is wrong, nothing should creak and the clutch should release freely. A mechanic needs to examine it further for possible damage to the master/slave cylinders, or perhaps go more in depth (clutch, etc)

ou8thisSN

Well, I wish I had listened to you sooner, because the very next day after I started this topic, the slave cylinder blew/quit working/whatever. Of course being the novice I am, I had no clue why it was getting increasingly difficult to get it in and out of gear, so I pushed oh the clutch pedal and then it just broke. It went into the floor and wouldn't come back out.

the short of it is that im out $850 for them to have to replace the slave cylinder, as well as whatever was holding the clutch pedal to the transmission. They said the cost is so high because they had to take apart the transmission to figure out what broke.

Anyway, now the car is fine, but now i have a new problem. Yesterday I picked up the car and went over a speed bump or something and the speakers in the right door quit working, then they came back on as i turned up the volume. It kept cutting in and out.
I immediately took it back to the shop figuring they had done something, but when I got there, I couldnt replicate the problem.

Today I'm driving back from school and it happens again (if i turn up the volume, it cuts back in, but it wasnt like this at all for the first 3 weeks I had the car). It has the stock bose system (which i've read nothing but bad things about on this forum, but so far cutting in and out was only something I read about with the subwoofer, not door speakers).

Anyway my question is, do you guys think the mechanics did something while fixing the transmission? are electrical speaker wires, or the amplifier for that door anywhere in the vicinity of where they were working? I dont want to disturb them about it if it just happens to be a coincidence, but I'll defer to what you all think...

KornerCarver

iTrader: (2)

I doubt the mechanics would be touching anything near your speakers. I had a slave cylinder go out in my Stealth a few years ago and it cost $500 to fix. The car was with my daughter at the time and was about 250 miles away so I couldn't fix it myself. When my Miata lost its slave cylinder, I went to Autozone and bought a new one for $30 and fixed it myself. Fixing your car yourself is definitely the cheaper route.

ou8thisSN

thanks, it wasn't just the slave cylinder. the clutch pedal itself was broken. thats the best way I can describe it. it stuck to the floor pedal. They told me that some part of the clutch pedal broke off inside the transmission housing, and they couldnt fix that without taking out the transmission, which is what increased the price. they quoted me a price of about 100 bucks to replace just the slave cylinder itself.