This is a weird one - a problem my daughter's having.  The car is relatively new to her and in pretty good shape.  Despite this, it's put her in a jam a couple of times, both after the hour's drive into the city center, downtown during rush hour - about the least desirable time/place for such a failure.

The symptom is that she'll stop at a light, and when it turns green attempt to move, but letting out the clutch simply stalls the engine.  Repeated attempts yield the same result.  She then calls for a tow and the driver has to brute-force the car onto the flatbed because the wheels won't turn.  By the time it arrives home via the truck, whatever jammed has let go and it's returned to normal.  Frustrating, to say the least.

I was hoping (as well all do) for the simplest and least invasive discovery, e.g. something loose in the rear brakes, but pulling those drums is itself a PITFA and all we managed to do is create more problems without finding anything.  So before we go any further, can anyone suggest anything?

 

Can she shift gears when this happens?

Most failures would be the opposite, where the car does not go.  Broken half-shaft, drive-shaft.

Does it have a hill holder?  Those get gummed up and causes the brakes not to release.

Yep, I disconnected the one on my better half's 2005.  Good catch, I forgot all about it.

9 hours ago, nvu said:

Does it have a hill holder?  Those get gummed up and causes the brakes not to release.

2003, and no hill holder in evidence, afaIk.

13 hours ago, lmdew said:

Can she shift gears when this happens?

Most failures would be the opposite, where the car does not go.  Broken half-shaft, drive-shaft.

Yeah, and they don't "get better" after a ride on a flatbed.

My information is that she had no trouble moving the shifter from gear to gear, and when she tried to go got a hot+stinky clutch for her efforts.

Seized rear-diff?

22 minutes ago, forester2002s said:

Seized rear-diff?

As long as you can believe that it can also un-seize.  That'll probably be the next thing we open up, just because it's easiest.

On 9/11/2024 at 12:59 AM, nvu said:

Does it have a hill holder?  Those get gummed up and causes the brakes not to release.

Turns out the sonofabitch does have a hill holder.  They thought not because it's never shown itself to be functional.  But that doesn't mean it can't malfunction.

So what's the shortest route to getting it out of the circuit?  It looks like there's just one line that goes in and out of it from the master cylinder.  So do we just get a F/F adapter for the flare nuts and mangle those two lines together?

 

It's still the all mechanical one, just unhook the clutch cable and use a zip tie on the lever to lock it on always open mode.  Search for disable hill holder for examples.

"Open" being where it is when the clutch is not depressed?

Yes, you'll see which way the clutch cable is pulling the valve when you have the clutch depressed.  The other way is open.  Just remove the clutch cable and move the HH to full open.