A quick slip of the clutch...

June 5, 2008 3:56 AM

I was driving down the highway and needed to pass a vehicle. I punched down on the gas and the engine revved but didn't engage. Yep. Slipping clutch. The catch? This happened 3 years ago and I haven't been able to fix it yet.

So what am I doing to my car?

I'm driving a 2002 Hyundai Elantra that is up to 65k miles. It was my first standard in a while, so the first year or two were less than ideal (jackrabbit starts, aggressive driving, all those other stupid-kid driving habits), but I have mellowed into a normal, sensible driver. It seems I was a little late in my transition.

It started out with occasional high-speed slippage, and slowly, over the last few years, devolved to where I have to baby the clutch to get it moving and remember not to press the gas too hard when shifting into higher gears. It seems to have plateaued at this point, driving the same for the last 6ish months without getting much worse. The car still gets around town, but I'm hesitant to go further than work and back with occasional runs to the store or bank.

The thing is, $700(USD) is alot of money for me, and that's the lowest quote I've received thus far. I just rolled over 60k a while ago, changed all the belts (including timing) and brakes, and that really kicked my behind, financially.

My (fallible, I admit) logic is that if I can still get from A to B, it can't be that bad. In the meantime, I can't imagine that driving on a bad clutch is good, but I don't know what I'm actually doing to my car. My hopes are that it's nothing more than just dooming myself to buying a new flywheel when the time actually comes, but I want people who know more about this stuff to help me understand what happens every time my engine revs high and slippage occurs before finally engaging and sending the power to the wheels.

Know that I don't need chiding for being irresponsible, I already have to deal with the "will it get me there and back" question every time I drive. I just need hard facts on what I'll be facing when I can finally get the car into the shop or what will happen if I don't.

posted by phredgreen to travel & transportation (11 comments total)

The over-worn clutch plate can eat into the flywheel, which can render the flywheel unusable with a new clutch because they wouldn't be able to machine out the worn portion. If this metal-to-metal contact does happen, metal shavings will definitely result. These shavings could possibly find their way into the transmission. This would rapidly increase wear inside the transmission, which means you might end up having to replace it.

Best case? The clutch becomes so worn that you can't get moving again. Then you'd have to have it towed to a shop, which would make the repair more expensive.
posted by eratus at 4:24 AM on June 5

I know the kind of position this puts you in, financially, (Our son's car is our perpetual "bite the bullet and get it fixed" car) but you really have no option but to get the clutch done. In addition to the real potential of larger repair costs later, you are wasting a ton of gasoline with that slipping clutch. This is one of those times when a credit card comes in handy, unfortunately.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:53 AM on June 5

I don't know if this will help - I know nothing about cars. We bought a Hyundai Elantra about two months ago, a 2001 model with about 73K on the clock and my husband, who's been driving for about 25 years in all kinds of traffic, noticed the clutch right from the test drive. He said it was a very high clutch, a very late release. We had the mechanic look at it, and he said it was that model of car, that it was the way it was and it didn't need fixing. So I'm wondering whether your clutch was always like that, and you've just gotten better at driving it. My husband has actually stalled it half a dozen times, and I've never known him to do that before.
posted by b33j at 5:03 AM on June 5

Is there any warranty left? It was my understanding that Hyundai's come with a 6 year/100,000 mile warranty. Perhaps buying a warranty extension would be cheaper than paying for the clutch
posted by Xurando at 5:20 AM on June 5

A warranty very rarely pays for parts that wear out (like brakes, clutch, etc).
posted by Brian Puccio at 5:51 AM on June 5

I think you need to call more places for quotes -- I had a clutch replaced two years ago and it cost more like $400, maybe $450. Perhaps there is something different about your car, but you should confirm this by calling a bunch of garages and finding out what they are charging. And many places have options like the auto shop classes at a high school or community college that will do work on your car for the cost of parts (but with the caveat that the people doing the work are trainees, not certified techs); sometimes a shade-tree mechanic can do things for cheap, too.

But don't keep driving like this forever. If you do bad things to your flywheel, you've just turned a mildly expensive job into a painfully expensive job. And you are paying a lot more for gas (because that slipping is not getting you down the road with any efficiency). And there are some safety worries -- what if you need to turn left across two lanes of oncoming traffic?
posted by Forktine at 5:54 AM on June 5

Wait - your car only *now* has 65k on it, and the clutch has been toast for years?!?

I'd bet your clutch adjustment is out of whack, so the clutch is always slightly disengaged (unlocked). After a few years of this, yeah, you're gonna wear the thing out, but I beat the everloving *shit* out of my clutch and it still lasted 70k.
posted by notsnot at 6:33 AM on June 5 [1 favorite]

Like notsnot, my first suggestion would be to verify how much free play there is in the clutch pedal -- how far can it be moved before you can feel it engage anything? Each make/model is different, but for most makes there is typically a an inch or so of free play between when the pedal is first depressed and when you can feel it engage the clutch release mechanism. The correct As notsnot said, if you don't have this free play, the clutch release mechanism will never fully retract. This does two things: 1) it prevents the clutch from fully "grabbing" onto the flywheel, causing slippage, and 2) it places considerable stress on the throw out bearing (TOB) and the clutch "fingers", which are the parts of the pressure plate diaphragm that the TOB presses to disengage the clutch. In the latter case, this will cause one or both of these will wear out prematurely.

Now, a quick perusal of this excellent Hyundai owners forum seems to indicate that automatic clutch freeplay adjustment is built into the hydraulic clutch linkage. So there may not be anything you can adjust at this point...but do measure the free play. No free play w/slippage is a different symptom than correct free play w/slippage.

Assuming that you do, in fact, have a clutch that needs replacing, the fact that you've waited three years to do the job is bad news for your flywheel, as there is a very good chance that it has bee gouged by one or more of the rivets that hold the clutch surface to the clutch disk. Generally, when you have a clutch replaced your mechanic will also have the flywheel resurfaced, which gives the clutch disk a smooth surface to grab. Smooth = more contact area, better heat distribution, and less wear. Flywheels are designed to be machined in this manner a few times, that is, they are initially thicker than they "need" to be, so that material can be safely removed when it's time to change the clutch. However, if you gouge a deep groove in them, they are toast and muct be replaced. Note that if you need a replacement, you can get a used one from a junkyard (that's gouge-free, of course!) and just have it machined to spec. One final point on flywheels: it is very unlikely that metal shavings from a bad flywheel will contaminate a transmission. The transmission has seals around the input shaft to prevent this.

Final point: consider using remanufactured parts when you get the clutch replaced. Ironically, remanufactured clutches are typically 10% stiffer than new, which is a good thing. They are also usually cheaper, which is also a good thing.
posted by mosk at 9:21 AM on June 5

Your question is light on actual question. The only thing I can discern is "I just need hard facts on what I'll be facing when I can finally get the car into the shop or what will happen if I don't."

If you're getting that much slipage - and have been for so long - you're almost certainly going to have to replace the flywheel too, so figure that into your cost estimations.

You really should find a way to prioritize this. Forktine points out the two big things: you're already wasting gas and potentially this is a safety issue. There's also potentially some risk of fire - friction causes heat, and a constantly-slipping clutch has a lot of friction. That heat is also potentially damaging to other parts of your transmission if it's extreme enough, though I don't know how you'd quantify that.
posted by phearlez at 9:26 AM on June 5

The first thing i thought of when reading your post was a rev limiter but since it seems to be getting progressively worse, yeah - clutch. Had the exact same scenario with my Kia Optima. It went out after 45,000 miles and cost $1200 to replace.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:19 AM on June 5

I just need hard facts on what I'll be facing when I can finally get the car into the shop or what will happen if I don't.

When I put this off not too long ago, I ended up stuck on the side of a highway, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, with a car that wouldn't get me to my mate's wedding. I still had to replace the clutch - with the added fun of paying for towing, and having to get the train out to pick the car up later.

Also: If this has been slipping for three years, the amount of extra petrol you've burned as a result of this could be approaching the repair cost.
posted by pompomtom at 10:40 PM on June 5