The clutch on my '05 C2S is sometimes making a squealing noise on starting from a stop in first gear. I have searched the forum and found a few posts from a couple of years ago, but with no definite diagnosis. This is what I hear:

-I only hear the noise in first gear
-happens only on start up from a stop, just as the clutch pedal is about at the end of it's engagement point
-the noise is not coming from the pedal, it is coming from somewhere in the car behind the front seats
-the noise is more of a squeal rather than a squeak, and sounds somewhat like a very low tone air horn
-seems to happen more often once the car is warm, and happens intermittently

Any idea what this could be?

 

My car does the same thing. I think it's a bad throwout bearing. My mechanic thought it was nothing to worry about.

 

Mine seems to do the same as well. My Porsche mechanic told me to lay off the gas when releasing the clutch when starting from a full stop. This takes a bit of practise for me as I have to trust the car isn't going to stall but surprisingly, this seems to work as there is no more squeals. Mechanic has said that if I do this every time, my clutch will never have to get replaced. We'll see......

 

His advice is very sound. These cars need little to no gas before you fully have the clutch engaged. Surprising, but true.

 

I'm going to interject the good advice and offer my hypothesis. These 997s have been having a TON of pressure plate issues. In ottawa, where there is hardly a high concentration of Porsches, let alone new ones, the dealer did 3 clutches in two weeks and an indy did another 2 those same two weeks. Almost all of them exhibited uneven wear as a result of some messed up spring fingers on the pressure plates.

Mine all out failed and took the slave cylinder with it. They ended up replacing the flywheel too. Total bill about $4000, covered under CPO.

I SPECULATE that the squeeling that some of us have been hearing is a result of that uneven failing pressure plate as I haven't heard it once since the new unit was installed.

Herein lies the problem. If the car is under warranty and you request the transmission be pulled to examine the clutch assembly and they find nothing (or say they find nothing) you pay the 5+ hours required to pull it. If it were me, and my warranty was about to expire, I might take the risk. If it was out of warranty, keep driving it until it fails.

Consider though, if this is a fairly common problem, depending on your relationship with your dealer, they may attempt to offer a goodwill repair even if the car is outside of the warranty. Proceed at your own risk on this one...

 

This is how I get my 02 Boxster moving (and my 03 Turbo) from a stop and the Boxster's clutch is original and has just over 234K miles on it.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

My theory: "It's the driver."

 

Lol. Although anything is possible, my clutch had more than 50% wear left on it after 55,000 KM and more than 10 track days I was aware of.

I don't hold the clutch in at stop lights and never drag race. Caymans and 997s have seen a TON of these failures from the research I conducted preparing for Porsche to tell me no coverage.

Erik at Gboxes even confirmed this.

I want to clarify that I'm not confidant that this noise has anything to do with it, only that I had it sporadically until the PP failed and now it's gone. I rarely get over 1200 RPM before complete clutch engagement and I still got the noise.

 

You would probably be incorrect, most likely a design error on Porshe's part. This issue pops up now and again and I have never had any car make any sort of noise when letting the clutch out.

 

I also have the squealing noise coming from the back. Had the dealer inspect the car on more than 1 occasion. They always claimed all is good. When my CPO was running out, I took the car to another dealer and they said the flywheel needs to be replaced, but advised that I continue to drive the car as is. They said "it can last another 20K miles or it could brake tomorrow". I have put on 1-2K since and no issues, just the annoying squealing noise, which as pointed out, could be eliminated by working on clutch-release/gas.
Bottom line, I've had the car for 2.5 years and put on 12K miles while the clutch kept squealing...

 

I noticed this happening on my car too. I had been doing some research and think that it came down to glazing of the clutch plate or flywheel. Can not tell without taking the car apart which I'm not going to do myself.

I ran across a forum for F-Body cars (camaro's and such) with complaints of the same issues. the advice there was that metallic based friction pads on some clutch disks can glaze when babied in traffic and slipped a bit. The advice was to really run the car out some, hard accelerations and decel/downshifting. Basically to scrub the surfaces real good under load.

Well what do you know, so far so good. I let the car loose, did some nice spirited driving with some good old fashioned downshifting and the noise is gone.

We'll have to see if it lasts.