Hey everyone,

New problem that has me clueless.

This post might be lengthy as I will try to explain EVERYTHING, so please stick with me.

What happened:
On my way to my friend's house, I was driving behind someone and there was a car behind me. The car in front of me very suddenly stopped and sped off again. The car behind me almost hit me when i hit the brakes so I hit the gas trying to avoid an accident. I held the clutch too long as I floored it, and I might have burned the clutch, as there was an awful smell. The clutch felt extremely loose driving afterwards. When I got to my friend's, I popped the hood and the smell was almost unbearable.

Today, one day later, here are the symptoms.

The car drives fine with no power loss that I can notice.

While driving with AC off: there is no smell,
While driving with AC on and windows down: there is a slight smell.
While in neutral at stoplights, there is a slight smell.

Heres the weird part though: When I turn the car on, and it just sits in neutral idling, the smell is strong as ever inside the car. WHen I first took it to Advance Auto, there was absolutely no smell in the engine bay, but very strong inside the car. When I got home, the smell was in the engine bay too, and I cant explain that.

The advanced auto guy said that he hasnt heard of a car having the burned clutch smell only after startup at idle and told me to test for power loss and gear slipping by taking it on the highway in 4th and 5th and seeing how it does. No problems there. BTW the clutch does not feel loose today and feels almost as it usually did.

So now I turn to the forums, to see if anyone has any clue as to whats going on. If it was just a bad/burned clutch, wouldnt I notice a significant difference in driveability?

The car is an 03 tourning, with 109k miles. The auto guy said its almost due for a clutch replacement.
There is absolutely no way i can make the $1500 for a clutch replacement anytime soon, does anyone know what I can do in this situation?

Ive gotten great support from this forum last time and thought Id bring this up

Any suggestions, help, advice in this matter is greatly appreciated and I look forward to the answers from people on this forum!

Thanks in advance,

LKZ Prof

 

Unless the clutch is really, really, really, really, really worn, I can't see it giving a smell at idle, lol. So you floored it in 4th or 5th gear at around 60mph and it didn't slip? Probably not clutch then. Sounds like you've got gremlins to me

 

Whenever you shift you burn the clutch. The friction surface does what it is supposed to do, that is create friction. Just like brake pads it is designed to wear.

109,000 miles is lots of wear on the original clutch. Only way to tell the condition is to inspect.

 

Clutch doesn't slip, don't think its too worn, that's the problem. Dunno how i'd handle these gremlins:P, and I can't really inspect my clutch although I do know how it works. By burned clutch i mean literally put about a months worth of wear in 5 seconds, although I hope not.. anyway that's the problem, Idk what's giving that smell at idle

 

you just glazed the clutch. drive it easy for the next 500 miles. You should be fine after that.

 

Sounds good thx a lot guys ill keep you posted with any changes

 

K so I think I need a new clutch. The clutch catches when the pedal is almost released. There's still a smell if the car is pushed even a bit. If I cruise in 4th or 5th and floor it, the meter goes up to 3k then drops a bit, then starts to slowly go up. All of these point to a replacement clutch right?

Should I get a factory clutch package or aftermarket?