Rapid clutch failure

[Mikevan10]

2008 Legacy GT, 2.5 Turbo - Approximately 75,000 miles - 5 speed manual

 

This is my son's car. He told me last week that he thought the clutch slipped on him once while accelerating on the highway. He asked me if I thought we should replace the clutch immediately. I told him to drive the car and try to get the clutch to slip by putting it in a high gear and opening up the throttle. He did this and reported that it either did not slip or at least did not slip much. This is about a week ago. He lives about 75 miles away and was planning to come home for Labor Day weekend and we were going to do a brake job. Based on what he told me about the clutch behavior, I told him that it was not urgent to replace the clutch and that if he babied it he could probably easily get a thousand more miles out of it... Well, he then reported

that it did slip again on him later last week but not bad. He drove it home last Friday and on Saturday we replaced all of his brake rotors and pads (REALLY nice EBC parts). Then we went out for pizza and beer. Duiring this 20 mile round trip the clutch began slipping very badly. It was near impossible to keep it from slipping if you tried to accelerate at all. He had to drive back to his house so I told him to go very gently, etc. Well, he got to about 20 miles from his house and pretty much completely lost drive. Had to get it towed the rest of the way home.

 

I have never experienced or heard of such a rapid progression from barely starting to slip to total lack of grip. We did check for any sign of oil at the engine to bell housing interface, in case it was a leaking rear main seal but did not detect any signs of oil there.

 

Has anyone ever experienced such a scenario or can anyone comment on this?

 

Thanks,

Mike V.

[GeneralDisorder]

They don't usually go that quick but it's obviously been driven very hard to burn through a factory clutch in 75k.

 

Once they hit the rivets they start to slip under load - the rivets are not that thick and if you burn the heads off a few of them the clutch material will catastrophically disintegrate. This slippage the sign to stop driving them. It sounds like you have some fair distances in your area and that he's driving regularly. When my '91 SS started to slip in that way I shelved it except for emergency use and when I got in there to replace the clutch it had a nice groove on the flywheel where the rivets were located.

 

Given the low mileage and the rapid failure I would question his clutch usage patterns if he has been the only owner of the car. If he got it used then it could just be a case of the previous owner not knowing how to use a clutch. A lot of women will slip them far too much and cause rapid failure. Bought an '08 WRX not long ago with 85k and the clutch had been done at 75k by the local dealer. Young woman owned it. Beat the hell out of the car - probably spooled the turbo before completely releasing the clutch.

 

GD

[GatorIsaac]

GD: Being in the middle of a clutch replacement on my Baja I have to say you are spot on re: not driving a Subaru beyond slippage. I thought I might get another couple thousand out of mine but it disintegrated on the highway last week.
 
Slippage = high heat = failure of the bonding media holding woven clutch material together. I WAS running a lightweight flywheel which heated more rapidly.

[Fairtax4me]

Anytime the clutch starts to slip while under load, total failure is not far behind. Especially so on a turbo car.

 

His driving style is a bit harsh for the stock clutch. Look into a higher performance clutch.