45k clutch is going

[06silveryaris]

I am at 45k and the clutch is starting to surrender. I bought the car used and I dont beat on it much. I bought it with around 24k I assume the previuos owner was not a good driver and really let the clutch have it. Or this normal life spam of the factory clutch? with my current clutch there is none of this happening:burnrubber: :smile: only this:mad: till I change it.

[YAR1S]

O.O
do you ride the clutch a lot?

[06silveryaris]

no but I think the previuos owner did. This is the first time a clutch has gone so fast

[bankrobber]

82,000 on a 07 5 speed. Never had a clutch slip ever

[06silveryaris]

I do little hwy driving and here in PR its very hilly and slow. As far as slipping during acceleration, it has not gotten that bad yet but has started to jerk at regularly.

[yaris-me]

IF at a stop, you have the car in gear and depress the clutch while waiting, it will polish the flywheel and eventually cause slipping and chatter. While stopped on an uphill, you ride the clutch to keep the car from rolling backwards will ruin a clutch. Many people think they know how to drive manual, but they make simple mistakes that cause premature failure.

[yaris2010RS]

now i've wondered this for a while..... i always thought u knew how much clutch u had left by the grab point and how far up the pedle travel it is?? vs how much travel is left..... what is ment by its getting jerky? my car is jerky between shifts but i've always figured that was me getting use to DBW and the small friction point

i drove a car once that needed a clutch adjustment (old cable clutch) and it was slipping like a mofo but for the most part it was smooth......

[jamal1984]

how do you know if your clutch is bad? sorry guys this is my first manual trans car. i'm at 70K and it's still feel fine, a little stuck sometimes, but i think it's need new oil. Do i need to replace or repairs...? at 100K or something?

Thank you

[talnlnky]

I don't think i'm the easiest driver on a clutch, but 2 out of my 3 cars have been manuals. Combined on those 2 cars i've driven about 60,000 miles, 42k currently on the yaris... and i've never burned up a clutch.

sounds like previous owner had a heavy left foot.

[metalshark]

I replaced the clutch in my wife's Corolla. She got it hot once in slow construction traffic and it started coming apart. The grab point kept getting higher and it started getting hard to shift into gear from a dead stop. When I pulled the tranny there was clutch yarn and loose pad material everywhere. I drove an 80's era Corolla for 250K miles and never had a clutch problem. She had 50K miles on it. In 30 years of driving I've never had a Chevy, Dodge, or Ford clutch go out either.

[YAR1S]

IF at a stop, you have the car in gear and depress the clutch while waiting, it will polish the flywheel and eventually cause slipping and chatter. While stopped on an uphill, you ride the clutch to keep the car from rolling backwards will ruin a clutch. Many people think they know how to drive manual, but they make simple mistakes that cause premature failure.


so you saying holding the clutch down while in gear and riding the clutch are both bad, right?

I drive manuals but dont own one....

however when I do drive one.... when at a light I will take it out of gear and put the Hand brake on... then when I need to go I will put it in gear and slowly release the hand brake to prevent rolling back like a lot of people tend to do over here in this country:iono:

[djct_watt]

how do you know if your clutch is bad? sorry guys this is my first manual trans car. i'm at 70K and it's still feel fine, a little stuck sometimes, but i think it's need new oil. Do i need to replace or repairs...? at 100K or something?

Thank you

Standard clutch test:

1. Park your car in safe spot with nothing in front of you.
2. Fully engage the parking brake.
3. Start the car and leave it in neutral.
4. Depress the clutch, shift to fifth gear (parking brake still engaged), and slowly let out the clutch and do not give ANY gas.
5. If the car stalls, your clutch is still good.
6. If the car does not stall, your clutch is starting to go.

If you fail the test and do not stall, repeat for 4th gear, and then possibly third.

If you do not stall 3rd, you BADLY need a new clutch. You may be able to squeeze a little more life out of clutch that fails 5th gear and/or possibly 4th. . .

[06silveryaris]

Luckily i has not gotten worst these past couple of days but I will replace soon anyways just cause the pedal feel is off and the jerking. I would not be surprised about premature wear since I do have to balance gas and clutch a few times on a daily basis in some hilly entrances. I will take advantage of the situation and change the tranny oil too when I drop the tranny.

[06silveryaris]

Standard clutch test:

1. Park your car in safe spot with nothing in front of you.
2. Fully engage the parking brake.
3. Start the car and leave it in neutral.
4. Depress the clutch, shift to fifth gear (parking brake still engaged), and slowly let out the clutch and do not give ANY gas.
5. If the car stalls, your clutch is still good.
6. If the car does not stall, your clutch is starting to go.

If you fail the test and do not stall, repeat for 4th gear, and then possibly third.

If you do not stall 3rd, you BADLY need a new clutch. You may be able to squeeze a little more life out of clutch that fails 5th gear and/or possibly 4th. . .

I'll try that too

[yaris2010RS]

i did it! lol, clutch is good (awww) but i still feel its grabbing too high..... any ideas?

[djct_watt]

Move your foot? I would get a second opinion first if this is your first manual car. . . but a high grab point is not a bad thing. . . you want to ensure that the clutch is completely disengaged when shifting.

Anyway, loosening the clutch cable will lower the grab point. But again, if you do not slip in 5th, then everything is working fine. . . the pedal should slip all the way to very last inch or two of travel. Try driving a Porsche GT3. . . heavy heavy clutch, a very high catch point, and a very finicky throttle.


Here is an exercise to help learn your clutch (I do this on ever MT car, the very first time I drive it). Shift to first, and then with no gas (and parking brake released), slowly let out the clutch. Learn to do it slowly enough and be smooth in the catch point that you can start rolling and completely release and engage the clutch without using ANY gas. I can do this on almost any car, save for a big rig or a heavily loaded vehicle. As long as the clutch is good and you are on flat land, it can be done EASILY.

In fact, the Yaris is so light, I tend to do this in traffic, allowing me to drive with just one foot.

Other cool things to learn:
Learning to shift without using the clutch via perfect rev matching (you shouldn't do this, but it's a good skill to have).
Rev matching on downshifts
Double clutching on aggressive downshifts (like downshifting into first gear, or jumping 5th gear to 2nd/3rd after an unexpected loss of speed).

[djct_watt]

And sorry if that post sounded condescending. . . it is very possible that the cable needs to be adjusted, but 99.99999999% of the time, people just aren't used to their clutches.

[yaris2010RS]

lol, i dont understand y everyone's first comment has to be a smartass one :iono:

and i can do that in my car, with my new custom intake i can do it up my driveway too.

and here is my smart ass comment :) the yaris clutch is fluid clutch, not cable..... meaning u dont know what ure taking about :) (i mean no disrespect, iunno when they switched to fluid over cable but 09+ is fluid

i'd like it a bit lower since that is how i got the car, got use to it, let my mom drive it and now its funny.... lol

also i have asked this many times before...... does anyone else notice their clutch will grab low one time, then next time grab quite a bit higher?

EDIT: SORRY, NOW I SEEM LIKE A DOUCH.... i didn't realise u also drove a 2010...... before anyone has a chance to get mad at me, possibally different regions have different clutch systems. the North American Yaris is fluid controlled

[djct_watt]

No reason to get touchy. . . I was just making a joke. . . this whole place is supposed to be fun and not an encyclopedia.

And for the record you are correct. I've owned a lot of MT cars, and I have yet to adjust the clutch on the yaris, so I haven't looked yet if it's hydraulic or cable actuated. But I'm pretty certain, now that you mention it, that it's hydraulic. And in that case, you can usually adjust it at the pushrod assembly thingy at the base of the pedal. I'm at work and can't go out and check right now. I dunno. . . trying to help out by proposing possibly solutions, but snapping back at people trying to help won't solve anything. I never called anybody names.

[djct_watt]

If it's hydraulic, bleeding the clutch may help too. Trapped air could be causing your inconsistencies. . .

[djct_watt]

And for the record. . . I've spent my last year in the USA rebuilding a motorcycle that had a cable actuated clutch (GSX600F Katana), so I'm used to referring to the clutch cable and subsequent adjustments.

[yaris2010RS]

lol, hey man, dnw, that was my joke. and good call, i have looked everywhere for the adjustment but not on the base of the pedal.....

been thinking about bleeding it but i'd hate to fail, introduce air and need a tow to toyota to get it fixed. lol. its not a critical problem so i'd hate to make it a critical one. simple adjustments for this one or i'm gonna have to live with the issue (or give it to my mom and get my new clutch in about a week) lol

but would air cause inconsistencies or jsut a constant softness or failure? i've worked with break systems and getting the air out but never clutch

[djct_watt]

Yeah. . . bleeding the clutch is a pain. And technically it's a closed system, so air shouldn't enter. . . but like brakes, sometimes it just happens though unlikely. Oh and now that I think about it, another cause of inconsistency is clutch glazing. It sounds like you know what you're doing, so it might not be the case. But often times when the clutch heats up, the engagement point will change; especially with aggressive driving. After the clutch cools down, the glaze will wear off bringing things back to normal.

Here is a good run through of a clutch system on an MR2. If I remember correctly, everything should be very similar, and it's a good guide to work off of.

http://www.mr2-tech.com/bgb/mechanical/volume2/clutch.htm

[yaris2010RS]

lol, hey hey, dont be too nice now, i can take it ("sounds like you know what ure doing") lol, i can drive stick (i say i can atleast), i got use to the DBW and smooth shifts but i do drive it hard.... kinda. down shifting and high revving. i dont know what exactly would heat up a clutch to ubnormal conditions to create it to get the glaze.... now i need to take mental note of when its doing it..... i do believe more so on take off.... out of my garage isn't bad but the coffee shop down the road is always a job to take off.... from my house to there it might be 2km.

under normal driving conditions a clutch should stay fairly cool (unglazed) and not change place?

[djct_watt]

lol, hey hey, dont be too nice now, i can take it ("sounds like you know what ure doing") lol, i can drive stick (i say i can atleast), i got use to the DBW and smooth shifts but i do drive it hard.... kinda. down shifting and high revving. i dont know what exactly would heat up a clutch to ubnormal conditions to create it to get the glaze.... now i need to take mental note of when its doing it..... i do believe more so on take off.... out of my garage isn't bad but the coffee shop down the road is always a job to take off.... from my house to there it might be 2km.

under normal driving conditions a clutch should stay fairly cool (unglazed) and not change place?

Hey hey, usually people who understand how a clutch works (the diff between hydraulic and cable) know how to use it too. Because we do have a weak clutch, I've noticed glazing after prolonged stop and go traffic and high ambient temps (no chance to cool off), and also if there are a lot of hills. That and aggressive launches. . . it doesn't take much to glaze it and have a noticeable affect on launches, but it doesn't take much to sheer of the glaze either. It's not all that different from the brakes fading (and that happens pretty quickly too).

[yaris2010RS]

oh, and since now (after my bad remark) u do seem to know quite abit about the clutch, lol, do u notice (or anyone else) a clunk noise? i dont think its related to the clunk noise in the drive system, but even with the shifter in no gear, start the car (i believe it also does it when its off) and depress the clutch. release it slowly and at some point it makes a rather loud clunk..... i have passed this off as being the clutch plates making contact. jsut wanted to know if anyone else has this issue?

[djct_watt]

Whoah, no clunk for me. . . just the infamous squeek that I've been too lazy to address. Good luck hunting it down. . . those are very tricky and could be anything.

[yaris2010RS]

squeek? lol. and the clunk has to be the clutch plate itself or the clutch arm..... worse comes to worse i'll let toyota figure it out

[djct_watt]

You're probably right. . . I just had a bad experience hunting down a clunk that turned out to be a socket wrench some genius service tech dropped or left in the splash gaurd / plastic under tray of my brother's Lexus.

[yaris2010RS]

lol, hey, i lost one of my sockets in that area when i was messing around one day. a 20 min time gap for me to screw around ended up taking me 2 hours and needed to remove my entire bumper....lol. (it could ahve taken me alot shorter time but i was trying to get it without removing bumper.....

restoring my friends car, when we took the dash out we found 3 different size sockets and a few hex screw wrenches from the guy(s) who worked on the car before. they were inside his vent systems. lol.

[myar]

I have the mystery clunk as well. It is intermittent, and I can't make it happen consistently, but every now and then i will hear a clear "clunk" when I let out the clutch. It seems to happen when I am going into 3rd gear after a deceleration (like if I have to slow down for a sharp curve). The car does not jump, so it is not that I am going too fast when entering the gear. Is this a sign of the clutch going bad/having problems? anyone else have this? Mine is an 09 LB with <10k miles. I just kind of assumed that sometimes you will hear a clunk when there are a lot of metal moving parts manufactured by the lowest bidder bolted together by a third party :smile:. I don't want to hijack the thread, but maybe this is relevant to your problems.

[metalshark]

i did it! lol, clutch is good (awww) but i still feel its grabbing too high..... any ideas?On my Corolla the clutch had no free pedal at all after the clutch replacement. It didn't have enough when it was going out either. I disconnected the clevis from the pedal and shortened it by two full turns. It took a 13 mm wrench, a 14 mm wrench, and a pair of long nose pliers to do the job. The grab point is half way up now and it is much easier to drive. Hire a midget with short arms to do this if you can. Its so much better I'm going to make the same adjustment on my Yaris.

[yaris-me]

so you saying holding the clutch down while in gear and riding the clutch are both bad, right?
:iono:

Holding the clutch down while in gear while waiting at a stop light will polish the fly wheel, if you do a lot of city driving. Later it will cause slippage and some times chatter. The slippage will seem like a clutch failure, but stopping the practice will most times remedy itself.

If you live in a hilly area and ride the clutch, you will wear out the clutch.

Both practices are bad.

[ham]

92k on my 2007 yaris and no clutch problems other than I hate this hydrolic assist clutch