levinbrook

Hi all,

I've gone through almost all threads and I just want to say "THANK YOU" for being here and doing this....

i guess in the grand scheme of things - I shouldn't complain, i only have a bad clutch..... knock on wood, but no rattles creaks or squeeks.....

I bought the car used at 35K miles and i LOVE IT, it's the first car I honestly and truly love. at 46K miles, the clutch failed. stopped on the freeway. the car is under extended warranty but ha-ha, that doesn't include the clutch. I bit my tongue and paid $2K to a dealership, blaming the damage on the first owner.

10 months and 14K miles later (today), I took it in for a 60,000 mile service and mentioned that I didn't like how clutch behaved ever since another dealership put in a new one. MY CLUTCH FAILED AGAIN, they tell me. the warranty covers 12 months or 12K miles, so i'm out of luck.

may be i'm not the world's best driver, but I know that I don't burn rubber and I don't ride the clutch. 14 K MILES FOR A NEW CLUTCH!!!!

I called corporate and found out that they don't have:
(1) technical experts capable of telling me about expected life expectancies of any parts
(2) legal advisors capable of offering guidance


am I crazy? or should a clutch last longer than 10 months under normal driving conditions?

please, I'm in dire need of sanity check before I sell my baby ....

PACman

Yes, a clutch should last longer than 10months under normal driving conditions.
I have an '04 6MT with 80K miles...on original clutch.

PACman

Well, this may be a good opportunity to get some after market goodies to your tranny. For example lightweight flywheel!

levinbrook

thanks, PACman!

$4K later, I'm a tad frustrated, to say the least..... reading all the threads, I guess I have it pretty good, compared to some others, but still....


has anybody had any LUCK dealing with corporate?
all i got from them so far is that they are sorry to hear about my problems.

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

I've had 3 hondas with over 200k on original clutches. My dads g/f has about 230 on hers and she rides the clutch pretty bad. I haven't heard anything bad about TSX clutches. If it blew with 14k and warranty is good for 12k, I would fight for some goodwill coverage. Sounds like there might be an adjustment issue, such that even when the clutch is not engaged its riding because it has not been setup properly. You don't rest your foot on the clutch pedal do you?

nj2pa2nc

i have owned numerous vehicles with manual transmission and never had to replace the clutch. many of them had gone way over 100,000 miles-volvo, nissan, mitsubishi, eagle, mazda, honda, hyundai and now acura.

CGTSX07

you are not crazy, I learned stick on my tsx and would still consider myself an amateur..but my clutch is still holding strong (knock on wood)...definitely take it up with Acura and tell them that the clutch should not be wearing out this fast and their car should not be costing you $4k over the course of a year in maintenence fees.

5thTo2nd

why are you going after corporate when you should be going after the first dealership that installed the clutch in the first place. Even though you are out of the warranty period, you're just slightly over. They may opt to do a "goowill" repair for you or maybe even discount the new one especially if you are a frequent customer there. They will probably try to blame it on your driving technique, but stand firm--clutches are not suppose to fail that quick.

levinbrook

thanks, everybody!

I'm glad to hear that other people are happy with their TSX - they really are great cars.

5thTo2nd - i'm only going after corporate because i think that the part is faulty and also because I saw how many people are having the same issue. The dealer is trying to be very understanding but corporate makes the rules and they are refusing to break them.

Since my clutch is already disassembled, I don't have much choice but to go through with the repair and then backpedal...

VQPower37

^ this is kind of a stretch and off topic ... but do u think the reason the previous owner got rid of the car was because it was constantly having this clutch problem??

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

I don't think the problem is with the part, If there is one i'm betting it's with the installer.

5thTo2nd

good luck with it Levinbrook. Hopefully it doesn't set you back too much when all this dust settles.

poltergeist

With all due respect to the OP, I'd me more likely to say it's a problem with the driver. Clutches are pretty simple devices, and the number that have failed on this Board is pretty small.

All it takes is 50miles at 70MPH with your foot rested on the clutch pedal to overheat and wear it enough to start slipping, and once it's slipping it's not long til the friction material is completely burned up and the car won't move.

levinbrook

Thanks for all the advice, everybody.

Yep - Acura is telling me it's my driving but i've been driving other stickshifts for the past 10 years and never changed a clutch. I can't imagine that my driving style deterioted so much for no good reason.

I plan on saving the old clutch and finding a second opinion that can tell me any JUSTIFIABLE reason for this wear.

Thanks again.

practichem

Hello Yana,

I've emailed you privately with my responses to your questions and included selected responses below also. Having owned roughly 10 cars over a period of ~40 years, all with manual transmissions, my 2005 Acura TL has by far the worst clutch failure rate of any of these. I am a professional engineer and, while not professionally expert in the area of clutches, I am keenly aware of the "do's and don'ts" of operating them and have always practiced these to the best of my abilities (which, short of tricky "double-clutching" techniques used by professional racing car drivers but not myself, I believe to be quite excellent). I too have been pondering the possibility of a class action suit, but this message to you is the first action I have taken in such a direction. Good luck with your efforts in this area; I would appreciate your contacting me if such a suit goes forward, or if you have been able to get some $$ adjustment from Acura since posting your note here.

What year did you purchase your Acura? 2005
Are you the original owner? Yes
How many time has the clutch failed and/or had to be taken in for repairs? Failed at ~40,000 miles; replacement clutch appears about to fail soon, after ~70,000 miles of driving
What is the total $$$ out of pocket you have paid for repairs? At least $1200, as I recall, and definitely more than twice what I have paid for past cars' clutch replacements. Acura claims this is due mainly to theirs being some kind of "high-performance"-level clutch, as compared to more "garden-variety"-type clutches other cars use (you know -- those kinds that last way too long for anybody's good, ha-ha)

dj Dozhe

My old roommate had an 04 TSX and his clutch went out at about 12K miles. I've ridden with him before and can't think of any reason other than a faulty part or installation for why it should fail so early. I've heard of this happening with a very few other 04s. Haven't heard anything like it for any of the later model years.

levinbrook

Dear Practichem,
thank you so much for your response. It will be a big help in the research we are doing.
Unfortunately your private email to me must have gone into spam, I've cleaned it out, so even if it happens again, I'll catch it. PLEASE EMAIL ME AGAIN. my other email address is odigitalis@yahoo.com, if the first one fails again.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!


Dear dj Dozhe,
are you still in touch with your roommate by any chance?
if he could contact me offline at levinbrook@yahoo.com, that would be great.

Thank you both for stepping forward.
Sincerely,
Yana

practichem

Hello again Yana,

I just got my '05 TL back from a routine maintenance call (odometer reading: ~70K miles). An Acura technician confirmed my suspicions that its second clutch (installed at ~42K) is beginning to "chatter" and bears close monitoring. Like yours, the first clutch had also failed with very little warning beforehand, requiring the car to be towed to the dealer -- the first time in my ~40 years of owning cars with manual transmissions, which I always have owned beyond one or more clutch replacement (the latter typically occurring after around 60K to 75K miles of use, my '05 TL being the sole exception). Cost of the first TL clutch replacement was around $2200 (including parts and labor -- please ignore the much lower estimate made in my previous post here); cost for the 2nd replacement will be ~$2600 (the increase due to increased labor costs, according to the service dept.), in other words, about the same total you may be facing over a similar duration of time.

Apart from the clutch problems, I love absolutely everything about my Acura. Having to replace clutches almost twice as often as previous cars and having to pay almost twice as much for every replacement (including for past Acuras, Audis and Infinitis, BTW) is really disheartening (and diswalleting), though, so I truly emphathize with your ongoing difficulties. Though possible problems with my TL's clutches might have no relation to those with your TSX, I also plan to retain the clutch after it finally goes south, just in case....

nbtx

Something is rotten in Denmark - make sure you get the parts that were replaced and have some knowledgeable mechanic give a second opinion. My guess is that your TSX was damaged in some way before you bought it and the former owner dumped it because of the clutch problem. Damaged how ? you may never find out, but if it was my car I'd sure like to know how to make it whole again. I just checked my 06 and found that the clutch pedal has a few millimeters of free travel before the clutch master cylinder is contacted. Then there is a 1/4 to 1/2 inch of "squish" before it feels like the clutch throwout bearing begins to depress the clutch forks. In other words, it feels like there is some free play similar to mechanical clutch linkages years ago. If this a typical hydraulic clutch system, the throwout bearing rides the clutch forks all the time. I don't have a service manual yet so I don't know if there is any slave cylinder setup procedure
after a clutch installation. However, it sounds like your clutch is not fully engaging - for whatever reason - causing slipping, followed by disk glazing and finally disk failure. Maybe you could get the installing mechanic to go over any setup procedures in the manual with you; this would give you a chance to find out if he saw anything suspicious.

FWIW, most of my cars have had manual transmissions over 50 years of driving and I have never toasted a clutch. The last one I had apart was an 80 Citation that needed a shift fork in the tranny and since I had the tranny out, why not change the clutch disk ? The fresh replacement disk had the same thickness friction material as the 105k mile one I took out. But I put it in anyway ...

Keep us posted on your progress.

jdc3750

My '03 CL Type S (85,000 miles) has been chattering (occasionally) upon engagement, and pedal becomes "hard", with low engagement point after "spirited" acceleration. This condition only occurs during the next shift, then clutch feels and operates normally. I have been the only driver since I bought the car (with 8,000 miles on the clock) in 2004, and it has not been abused.

The dealer wants $2500 for a new clutch, claiming that the "pressure plate is binding", which I felt was a BS reply. There was never ANY sound when this condition occurred, which I think there should have been if an all metal piece was torquing. I felt it was air in the system which produced an unstable column of hydraulic fluid (causing the engagement to be unstable, leading to chatter) which the "Service Advisor" pooh-poohed.

I flushed my clutch fluid (used DOT 4 / Silicone) and bled the sytem to make sure there was no air in the line. My problems vanished! They are back (now after a month since the bleed), so that indicates that I have a failing master and/or slave cylinder. A MUCH less expensive repair than replacing all of the hardware (wonder why the dealer didn't suggest that........).

'Hope this helps with other's clutch problems, it's definitely worth a try and easy to do.

Jim
'03 3.2 CL Type S/Navi

LuvMyTSX

^

1. You have a CL, this is the TSX forum
2. You joined in May 2005 and this is your first post

TSX408

LOL i find this funny

SoCaliTrojan

He posted to an old thread. Maybe the site's search function is messed up and sent him here to our side?

Maybe he's just a lurker and decided to post after determining a cheaper solution to an issue.

At least he's providing information and adding to the collective knowledge of the forum...