177k, but to be honest, posts on here are swaying me to try fixing it. I’ve looked for replacement cars, finding another one owner car like this one will be a huge time sink.
Selling my Scion after only a year. Clutch pedal Pain.
- Thread starter Kurtatron
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That's why I still have my manual Saturn Ion from '06, can't bare the thought of car shopping, and all the unknowns of a 'new' car. Plus this car is just so darn reliable!
If the throw out bearing was bad you'd hear it growling when you push in the clutch. Maybe something in the pedal mechanism is binding or the bushing is worn out.
Just fix it!
Have you lubed up all the pivots you can? I would start there.
Do you exercise a bit? personally I've found almost all my joint pain has been from under use and muscle weakness, and not stretching enough, also I had a low level food allergy to wheat/gluten which was making my joints a bit inflammed and achy. Core work has fixed my back aches pretty much to zero as well. Just moving more has helped me a lot.
Also you can shift to N and let the clutch out for every stop.
Do you exercise a bit? personally I've found almost all my joint pain has been from under use and muscle weakness, and not stretching enough, also I had a low level food allergy to wheat/gluten which was making my joints a bit inflammed and achy. Core work has fixed my back aches pretty much to zero as well. Just moving more has helped me a lot.
Also you can shift to N and let the clutch out for every stop.
When I got my mom's old 02 Camry with 200k the stuff was dump-truck stiff, but worked fine. She claimed it was worn out. I replaced it with a name brand (Sachs or Valeo, forget which) and the replacement was also stiff.
I then got a junker 02 Camry with a hole in the floor and very bad clutch. Replaced it with the other name brand listed above, and it was soft like butter and a joy to drive.
I think there's some geometry to the pressure plate fingers, maybe some sort of cam-action where the "sweet spot" works well when new, but the self-adjustment allows it to still work while worn, just worse.
I then got a junker 02 Camry with a hole in the floor and very bad clutch. Replaced it with the other name brand listed above, and it was soft like butter and a joy to drive.
I think there's some geometry to the pressure plate fingers, maybe some sort of cam-action where the "sweet spot" works well when new, but the self-adjustment allows it to still work while worn, just worse.
This is exactly one of the big reasons that I didn't buy a manual when shopping for new Mustang GT back in the day and is why I got an automatic when I bought my 2014 Mustang GT. I had a left knee surgery years ago and still have problems with it when using a clutch too much. My fiancée's previous truck and her 2007 Mustang GT have manual transmissions, and my knee would start hurting if I drove either too much in traffic situations.
None of the above.
BINGO!
I replaced several clutches on Toyotas and it's the pressure plate that makes all the difference. Never had to replace master or slave cylinders, yet, after clutch replacement, the pedal went from extra heavy to super soft.
LuK clutch has softest clutch pedal feel. Valeo is slightly harder but still quite soft. Exedy is pretty heavy.
Yeah, pulling the transmission and replacing the clutch is a pretty involved job, but for me it's been worth it. If you decide to do the job, do it right, replace the flywheel and use a high quality throw-out bearing (Nachi or Timken), not the junk bearing that comes with the kits. FYI, both LuK and Valeo replacement clutches are still perfect in my Vibe GTs, 4 and 7 years later. I never even think about the clutch anymore, in spite of having had surgery on my left knee.
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wouldn’t OEM pressure plate be best? I’m not planning on replacing anything but the pressure plate, since the transmission shows no issues except the pedal pressure. Clutch disk might be in great shape as it is.
Well, it's your car and your labor, but I would never do just he pressure plate after doing all that work. The transmission will have to come out. It doesn't make sense to replace only one component and risk having to do all that work again when the next component fails. Unless of course you know for a fact that the clutch was recently replaced with quality parts.
One of the clutches I replaced was definitely original (Aisin) and it felt heavy. You may end up with the same clutch feeling if you go OEM but it depends on what you have in there now.
I made a short video when I was doing my 1st Toyota clutch. Replacing a cheap chinese clutch with LuK.
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I'm about 3 hours away and have been casually looking for a car to drive to and from work, while keeping my truck in the garage. Please let me know if you do decide to sell.
whoa that's insane! was that the stock clutch or something else in there? any branding names on the pressure plate? and the scions weren't that bad on the clutch pedal, back in the day, they were mostly very easy to press, almost loose.. thanks for the update! kinda glad you're not selling the car once you found this crazy stuff!?
I’d sell it to. That car is not really worth any more pain you have to endure.
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I daily a car with a manual trans, I have no issues shifting at all but I workout a lot to keep up strength as I get older. The irony is I don't actually daily a manual trans car because I love the manual trans, it just happened to be in the car I bought. I'd be perfectly happy with an auto. Such is life, haha.
This thread reminded me though of something that happened in the early 90's. I had just bought late 80's BMW 3 series in pretty pristine condition with 100K miles on it. I had a shop do a pre purchase inspection and they said it was perfect except it would need a new clutch in 20K miles. I bought the car and sure enough, at almost exactly 20K miles it went out. That's not the most interesting part of the story though! I had always thought the clutch pedal felt just fine, not hard to push in or anything. Well when I got the car back with the new clutch I could not believe how much easier it was! I'm mean like night and day difference. This led me to believe clutch pedals do indeed get stiffer as they age.
This thread reminded me though of something that happened in the early 90's. I had just bought late 80's BMW 3 series in pretty pristine condition with 100K miles on it. I had a shop do a pre purchase inspection and they said it was perfect except it would need a new clutch in 20K miles. I bought the car and sure enough, at almost exactly 20K miles it went out. That's not the most interesting part of the story though! I had always thought the clutch pedal felt just fine, not hard to push in or anything. Well when I got the car back with the new clutch I could not believe how much easier it was! I'm mean like night and day difference. This led me to believe clutch pedals do indeed get stiffer as they age.
This is kinda Centerforce's claim to fame, ie pressure plate design. I have no strong position on Centerforce, but comparing their Jeep 4.0 clutch to a "regular" clutch certainly shows some differences
I might still have both sitting around, I'll look tomorrow
I have a 2005 CRV with a manual transmission. It’s at 321,000km and the clutch was replaced at 160,000 with oem. Hydraulics were not replaced at that time.
The master cylinder was replaced by a shop a few years ago with an unknown brand. The pedal has always been quite stiff and required a lot of effort. The master cylinder replacement made no difference.
That replacement master cylinder gave up a few weeks ago and I replaced with an Exedy master and slave. No other parts replaced. It is very much lighter now - a lot easier to drive.
The master cylinder was replaced by a shop a few years ago with an unknown brand. The pedal has always been quite stiff and required a lot of effort. The master cylinder replacement made no difference.
That replacement master cylinder gave up a few weeks ago and I replaced with an Exedy master and slave. No other parts replaced. It is very much lighter now - a lot easier to drive.
I wish there was a way to test these things without swapping parts.
Good timing, I just got over my (self-imposed) one month suspension. I just had the clutch replaced on the ‘07 Corolla 1.8 in my sig (I don’t have a lift, & wasn’t sure if I could tackle it on the ground like I have in the past, esp. in cold weather). New LUK flywheel, new RMS, new axle shaft seals, new RL MT-90 in the transaxle, new clutch kit. Kept the same slave cy.inder. The clutch pedal force is HALF of what it was with the slipping old clutch-mechanic was convinced the pressure plate was weak & shot, flywheel could have been reused, disc still had a fair amount of friction material on it.
I’ll be interested to see how this turns out.
