Clutch Making Noise...Diagnosis?

[hohieu]

99 Forester, 167K miles with the original hydraulically operated clutch. My wife and I use this car as a daily driver so for the past 100K miles, it has seen many miles of stop and go city driving in Philly.

 

It's making a faint "whirring" sound when starting out from a dead stop, and I can feel some slight vibration through the shifter -- definitely not typical symptoms for a throwout bearing on its way out.

 

It's a fairly faint noise.

 

Aside from the clutch judder, which has been there since we bought the car with 72K miles, it drives normally. The clutch is not slipping. Pedal travel and feel are normal. But it's just this slight noise when I'm slipping the clutch in first gear to get it going.

 

So what do you think? Bad rivet(s), frayed friction material? Broken finger(s) on the pressure plate?

Edited August 5, 2011 by hohieu
clarity

[Fairtax4me]

Could be the rivets eating into the pressure plate and/or flywheel.

167k is a good run for a clutch. Not unheard of, but certainly past it's prime.

The disc eventually wears out just like a brake pad. I'd try to replace that pretty soon and hopefully the flywheel won't be damaged.

[idosubaru]

last time the fluid was changed?

 

are you confident it's clutch related and not trans related?

as soon as it starts making the noise - what happens if you push the clutch pedal down? noise goes away? if you hold that speed does the noise sustain?

 

given how many miles you got on that clutch though that sounds likely, fairtax covered that well enough.

[hohieu]

Thanks for the input guys. I think Fairtax is on the money. Assuming that it's the rivets grinding up against either the flywheel or the pressure plate, is there one side that tends to wear through before the other? I'm just wondering if I have a little time before the flywheel gets trashed.

 

grossgary, the clutch makes noise only when I'm slipping the clutch in 1st gear to get the car moving and stops quickly after the tranny speed catches up with the engine speed. With the clutch disengaged or fully engaged, there's no noise at any speed.

 

I think we can rule out the tranny, though the synthetic gear oil has been in there since I've owned the car, so almost 100K miles. As an aside, I also do long oil change intervals (10k-15k miles between changes).

 

Edited August 5, 2011 by hohieu

[hohieu]

Ok, I want to to put this thread to bed. I have the pressure plate and clutch disc out of the car, and it looks like the noise was caused by the springs on the clutch disc coming into contact with the flywheel. Incidentally, the original OEM Exedy disc has four larger springs while the replacement ASCO disc I purchased has six smaller ones. If I make it to 340K miles, then the smaller springs should still have some clearance.

 

In any case, I'm glad I decided to dig into the job before winter because the pilot bearing was shot -- all dried up and rusty inside, and the ball bearing cage had broken in one spot. The throwout bearing didn't have too much play, but was free spinning as though all the grease was gone.

 

The OEM pressure plate is still in great shape. My clutch did not feel anywhere close to slipping, even when testing it with the hand brake engaged.

 

And just in case anyone is curious, the clutch disc wore down faster on the pressure plate side in my case.

Edited October 19, 2011 by hohieu

[GeneralDisorder]

It's a toss-up as to which side wears faster. In the case of my '91 Sport Sedan it was the flywheel side - rivets made a nice groove in the flywheel surface.

 

That's strange about the springs touching the flywheel - never noticed one that showed that type of damage before. If you hadn't owned the car for so long I would have sugested you check the thickness of the flywheel and see if it was surfaced in the past.

 

Hope you had the flyhwheel surfaced in any case and checked the transmissions snout for grooving - those are the two primary causes of the judder.

 

GD

[hohieu]

The snout at the front of the tranny was in great shape as were the input shaft splines. I hadn't intended to resurface the flywheel because run out didn't seem too, too bad but decided to heed GD's advice.

 

I measured the thickness of the flywheel before:

Tranny side to first lip on front side: 24.15 mm (.9516")

and after:

23.92 mm (.9417") -- so they took off around .01", not a whole lot. The local NAPA charged me $65 for the work. I know very little about the specifics of machining, but I do know that resurfacing a flat flywheel is pretty simple. Nonetheless, I'm curious to know how their work looks from more seasoned forum members?

 

Clutch judder is gone.

 

The new Valeo (PHC) pressure plate looked to be of lower quality than the original which still looked and performed flawlessly. Pedal feel with the new one is much softer and spring tension doesn't feel as linear as the original. Who knows, maybe my left foot is just used to the old one.

 

But I now wonder whether a higher tension pressure plate may contribute to clutch judder.

Edited October 22, 2011 by hohieu
clarity

[Fairtax4me]

The "newness" of the new clutch will wear off in a few hundred miles and it will start to feel more like it used to. I had the same feeling when I replaced mine. Thought I would have to get another return spring to make up for the lack of pedal feel, but it came back after about 500 miles.

 

The flywheel looks better than the one I had done. I see they didn't put a step in yours. Mine had a step that the machinist measured at .005". I almost told him to just make it flat. Probably should have, I think it was $10 more for step. I paid $60 to have it machined and it included the step plus removal and installation of the alignment dowels for the pressure plate.

[tomson1355]

Pardon me for hijacking this thread but I see that hohieu is from Philly and that you all are really knowledgable about clutches.

 

My daughter lives in Philly and the clutch on her 2001 Forester went. We debated towing it up here so I could do the clutch, but decided against it and she took it to a place called Pinnacle where they took two weeks to do the job and it cost her $1200. When she got it back she thought that the clutch pedal was really easy to depress. She put about 50 miles on it before it failed (I'm unclear as to exactlywhat happened) and she had to have it towed back to Pinnacle. First they told her it was a defective clutch plate and now they are telling her that they talked with a "transmission specialist" who thought the clutch may just need to be broken in, which sounds like BS to me. I've done a few of these clutches but I'm no expert. Could they have put the clutch plate in Backwards? Not resurfaced the flywheel?

 

I'd appreciate any advice. Is there a reliable subaru place in Philly?

[hohieu]

03:50 AM post !

 

You're a good father, and sorry to hear about your ordeal. If it's the same place, that shop is just a few blocks from my house. I do all my own work but for state inspections, I take it to Don's Auto Repair located a few blocks away from Pinnacle. Don is a very nice guy, and I like the way he runs his shop. He's just a few a couple of blocks up from the famous Cheese Steak joints in South Philly.

 

Aside from the few particulars you want to do while you're in there, there's nothing really unique about Subaru clutches so any place should be able to get it right. For $1200, they should have installed a decent clutch kit, resurfaced the flywheel, and done all the particulars.

 

But this far into the game, Pinnacle has an opportunity to make things right. If they don't/won't, then you may need to take it to another place to figure out what happened, and then take Pinnacle to small claims court. A fellow member of this board had to do this for a bogus rear wheel bearing job and received a full refund.

 

Questions:

How many miles are on the car?

How did it fail? Is it slipping?

Any noise?

Is the pedal sticking to the floor?

 

Could be a weak slave or master cylinder, in which case the shop is somewhat off the hook.

 

The springs on my new Valeo pressure plate are also weaker than the OEM unit. Break-in won't make much of a difference as I think it's more an issue of getting used to the feel of the new pressure plate and developing muscle memory in the left foot.

 

If it's actually slipping, then it could be anything: machining the flywheel and/or pressure plate out of specified range, defective pressure plate, loose pressure plate bolts, and as you've mentioned, installing the friction disc backwards, etc ... No way to know for sure unless to pull the engine and tranny apart again.

Edited October 30, 2011 by hohieu
clarity

[tomson1355]

Thanks for the reply, hohieu. I get up to milk cows, so my day starts early.

 

The car has about 175,000 miles on it and is fairly new to her. It's in very nice shape and worth fixing.

 

I'll try to get clearer answers from my daughter as to how it failed. Her initial description sounded more like it was running poorly, but Pinnacle, at least, recognized it as a clutch problem. I'm reasonably certain the pedal wasn't to the floor as I think she would have mentioned that.

 

Actually, here's her description of it:

 

"Yeah, I don't really know how to describe it. At one intersection I put the car into first and noticed that it wasn't accelerating as quickly as it normally does. Then at the second I got into first but the car shuddered slowly through the intersection before coming to a halt and I pulled it over. THe car will turn on - but then it kind of shakes and rumbles dangerously.I had it towed back to Pinnacle to see what they say. I don't know what's wrong with it. I can still get it in gear but it doesn't really drive."

 

I'll see if I can get her to elaborate. I hope she's learning why I do everything I can on our own vehicles. My son just took his 99 Forester to get inspected in NYC and was told he needed new front struts and a steering box to the tune of $1850. I'm intimately familiar with his car as it left my possession just a month ago and it's nonsense that it needs these things. It seems like everyone's out to take my kids for a ride.

 

Thanks for you help.

 

Tom

Earlville, NY

[Fairtax4me]

In my experience clutches don't fail in 50 miles unless they're covered in oil from a leaking transmission or engine seal.

My guess would be the shop installed either a new disc OR pressure plate, but NOT both as should have been done. Or that they used the cheapest POS clutch kit they could get their greasy hands on.

Shaking and rumbling after a clutch job just sounds bad. Pictures of loose flywheel bolts and grenaded clutch discs come to mind.

 

I think you need a shop that works specifically on Subarus so the problem can be diagnosed properly.

 

I know we have a very knowledgable member "Davebugs" near Pittsburgh who knows his way around a Subaru or three, but that's on the other end of the state. But you could shoot him a PM and ask if he knows of a good Subaru shop/mechanic in/near Philly.

You could also make a new thread about it to get advice from other members. We have plenty of helpful members from the NE area who can help point you in the right direction.

[hohieu]

If the shaking is not engine related, it sounds like your daughter is describing the symptoms of a slipping clutch. If that is indeed the case, then something went terribly wrong with the clutch job. They need to make this right at no charge to you but if they don't/won't, then you need to take it somewhere else. If you're forced to pursue this second option, make sure you document everything, with photos as well if possible.

 

We are of the same mind, when I haven't been around to deal with our car issues, I've always uncovered mistakes or carelessness when a shop touches our cars. I have to take my daughter to some Halloween outings today and tomorrow but if you'd like, I could talk to the clowns at Pinnacle sometime next week on your behalf. I'm generally sympathetic toward shops because with all the overhead they have, a good mechanic is often undervalued in our economy. But they need to do good work and to stand behind it when something goes wrong. In this case, it's clearly not the customer's fault.

 

If you need references for decent mechanics up in NYC, I can ask my friends up there who they use?

Edited October 30, 2011 by hohieu

[tomson1355]

Fairtax, thanks. We may have to resort to your suggestions. First, I think we have to give these guys the opportunity to make it right if we want to have any recourse.

 

hohieu, that's an incredibly generous offer, which I am inclined to take you up on. What would be your tack?

 

I agree on being sympathetic to shops or any other business, provided that they give the impression that they care that you brought your car to them to be fixed and it wasn't. A simple "I'm terribly sorry you had this problem and we'd like the chance to make it right for you" goes a long way. I don't think there's been anything along that line in this case.

 

I will run your offer by my daughter and see how she fells about it. I've been inclined to let her handle this for the experience, but $1200 is a lot of money, and if she doesn't have to fight for it, it would be a good thing. Your help would be greatly appreciated. I'll run it by her.

 

Tom

[Fairtax4me]

<----- @

 

Did, not realize you were in Philly Hohieu.

[hohieu]

Not a problem, Fairtax.

 

Tom, you'll find that others on this board such as Davebugs are also very generous with knowledge and even their shop space if you're local.

 

But back to your case. In general, I think mechanics are sometimes unfairly demonized. The general public often doesn't recognize the difference between good and shoddy work and are, therefore, sometimes unwilling to pay for the former. But for $1200, your daughter deserves thorough and careful work using quality parts.

 

A clutch job is fairly straight forward, and this is true for Subarus, which makes this case easy to dispute: There is no gray area. Things like resealing the oil separator cover, replacing the throwout bearing clips, etc... are particular to Subarus, but everything about the clutch mechanism is the same as with others I've seen.

 

As for Pinnacle, I would first try to be tactful. I would look at the invoice to see what they claimed to have done. I would ask them what they did and what parts they replaced and what parts they used. I would ask what they think is wrong to see if what they're saying makes any sense. Then I would want to test the clutch to see for myself what I think might be wrong and look around to see what else I might ask them to do while things are apart. Ultimately, though, I would tell them that they have the opportunity to fix the clutch, and that the $1200 they've already received should cover that. If they leave us no recourse, then we need a plan B -- where to take the car if they refuse?

 

I could ask Don for quote on a Forester clutch job, and we could take your daughter's car to him, but hopefully it won't come to that.

 

In my experience, mechanics will take advantage of those whom they perceive as most vulnerable: non-locals and women (whom they assume are less knowledgeable). One of the most frustrating cases was when my mother-in-law took in her Grand Cherokee to a place just outside of Traverse City, MI, where she spends her summers. While visiting up there last summer, I had removed the transfer case to replace the front input shaft seal. After a test drive, all was fine, but after I had already left, the car was slipping into part-time 4x4 mode while the shift lever was in RWD. All the car needed was a simple adjustment of the shift linkage. The shop told her that they'd need to remove and disassemble the transfer case, which could cost anywhere from $900 to $1500, depending on what they found. They were even nice enough to give her a ride home.

 

I lost sleep that night, and called them early the next morning. I talked to a kid at the shop, who said the transfer case was already on the bench. I told him that there's absolutely nothing wrong with transfer case. When I had the owner on the phone later that day, the first thing he said was "You're right, we took the TC apart, and there was nothing wrong with it." I asked why he decided to remove it in the first place, because if it was working in 4WD, then everything inside is fine. I told him that I've overhauled one of these units, replacing every seal and bearing and that they don't fail unless they run dry, which is why I replaced that input seal in the first place. I asked that he adjust the shift linkage, which should not take more than 30 minutes and charge her no more than a full hour of shop time. She paid them $90, which I guess covered refilling the transfer case and the rides home from and back to the shop.

 

At best, this place was incompetent and did unnecessary work and at worst, they shamelessly tried to take a older lady for a ride and then lied about it. But in retrospect, I regret coming on a little too strong with my East Coast "attitude," and I should have known my audience (a small town shop) a little better. I suppose I was a little angry, and my reputation was at stake.

[tomson1355]

Hohieu,

 

Good story. Are you a writer, by any chance?

 

My daughter is very impressed by your offer and would love to take you up on it after she gives them a couple more days to make it right. I should thing mid-week would be enough time. I have the feeling, though, that they are going to tell her she needs to "break it in".

 

I've done several of these clutches and told her to tell them they need to reseal or replace the separator cover, check the rear main, and grease the fork pivot, but I doubt the message got through. I really regret not driving down there and trailering the car home. They said, "Oh, we've done lots of these." I can't do it now, because I don't have the professional standing to claim that the job wasn't done right. Not to mention my obvious bias.

 

So stay tuned. If you want to know who you're talking to, I'm sending you a PM with an email address.

 

Thanks again, Tom

[hohieu]

The "newness" of the new clutch will wear off in a few hundred miles and it will start to feel more like it used to. I had the same feeling when I replaced mine. Thought I would have to get another return spring to make up for the lack of pedal feel, but it came back after about 500 miles.

 

I adjusted the pedal free play at the clevis on the clutch master cylinder, and it feels much better now. There's a 12mm locknut on the back of the clevis that needs to be loosened before you remove your clevis pin to begin your adjustment. I adjusted it until the clevis holes lined up with the pedal linkage: the pin should fit loosely in there when you have everything lined up.