TimC.

Hi guys,
I searched the posts and saw a couple similarities to what I am experiencing with my situation, but wanted to get your thoughts before I contact the mechanic.
I have a 2000 Boxster with 77k miles on it.
Last night driving home I noticed the clutch pedal was not responding the same as it normally does (felt soft) and it was difficult to disengage/engage the gears. So I drove home slowly in second gear the whole way to make sure I could make it home!
Today when I tried to drive it I noticed the the clutch is engaging very low to the floor, and you can select all the gears, but its almost like there is a lack of hydraulic pressure in the system...very soft
I pumped it a few times in neutral and no changes.
I then checked the Brake Fluid reservoir and it was just below the Max line and had plenty of fluid.

I remember with an old Jeep that I had this same situation happened and it turned out the be the throwout bearing.
So any thoughts on what could be the problem here and or prices that people have paid to get this fixed?
If I move forward with the mechanic I just want to make sure I am fully educated on the situation.
I saw some other posts which talk about getting a rear bearing replaced if the tranny and clutch are taken out of the vehicle for repair.

Not sure if this means anything, but I live in NJ where it has recently gotten very cold at night. ~20 degrees at night.

Thanks in advance for any help here!!....the board has always been a tremendous help for my Boxster and Cayenne and I generally try to help out whenever I have something to worth sharing back to the community.



Regards,
-Tim

logray

Hi Tim,

A few possibilities with the long and soft pedal:

One, your clutch is ready to be replaced (along with throwout bearing and pressure plate which is customary to replace at the same time your transmission is out).

Another possibility is perhaps there is some air in the slave cylinder causing the soft pedal.

If you want to learn how to bleed the slave cylinder, here is a great DIY:

http://www.pedrosgarage.com/Site_3/B...26_Clutch.html

Cheers and good luck!

Macster

The behavior you describe is not a symptom that arises from release bearing failure, at least not in my experience.

It is more indicative of air in the clutch system or a leaking slave cylinder or even, if it got really cold where you are, perhaps fluid that has too much water in it and this water allowed some of the fluid to freeze and this is causing the symptoms.

My first suggestion is to second Logray's idea of bleeding the brake and clutch hydraulic system.

Be sure you do this right and remove all old fluid.

If the symptom remains then a check out -- not sure what this involves -- of the clutch's hydraulic system to look for a possible fluid leak that allows high pressure fluid to leak past seals to the low pressure side, iows an internal leak.

To state what I'm sure you are already aware of you want to make every effort to eliminate the symptoms arise from something that can be fixed without having to drop the transmission and get at the clutch hardware.

Sincerely,

Macster.

TimC.

Thanks guys for the recommendations!!
I plan to go over to the shop tomorrow and check out the situation. The mechanic said he first bled the system and was able to get the pressure back, but for some reason he said now it was engaging too high when you released the clutch. I want to test drive it myself.
He then quoted me a ****-ton of money $3500 to do a full repair. He wanted to replace the Master and Slave cylinders...clutch..pressure plate...and flywheel! We also got into speaking about the rear bearing which he wanted $1,000...
I need to investigate further...stay tuned
-Tim

Macster

My experience is these cars have a higher than 'normal' clutch engagement point. Not that much higher, but higher enough early on I had to adapt a seating position a bit further back from the steering wheel to put the clutch's enagement point at the 'sweet spot' of my left leg.

Now the Porsche techs I've talked to tell me that in addition to a clutch pedal that requires considerable effort to depress a very high engagement point is a sign the clutch is going out.

So if the clutch engagement point is well, very high, this may not be normal but a sign the clutch needs doing.

As for the other hardware, the clutch hydraulics... either you trust your mechanic to not suggest anything that doesn't need replacing getting replaced or you seek out a mechanic you can trust.

The clutch job can be expensive with a new FW if necessary adding over $1000 to the cost of the job. Toss in the other stuff, if necessary, and $3500 is a ballparkish.

Oh, it has been a long time ago (back in 2004 at around 90K miles) but I had a rear wheel bearing replaced in my 02 at an indy shop and it didn't cost anywhere near $1000. The bearing cost (at that time) around $100 and there were several hours of labor to remove the old bearing and install the new bearing. IIRC the total cost came to closer $500 than $1000. Way closer to $500.

Sincerely,

Macster.

logray

$3500 is ballpark including a flywheel. (new discounted flywheel being $700 ish). It is a time intensive job to remove and reinstall the transmission.

The rear bearing he speaks of is likely the LNE ceramic IMS retrofit, $500 on it's own, and most shops charge about $1000 out the door.

At a dealer, I paid $2000 for a clutch job 4 years ago, which included new fork, boost spring, and RMS seal. This was actually a good price at the time considering dealer clutches are in the $700-800 range (elsewhere $450 range).

TimC.

Thanks Logray & macster!!
You have at least helped me to feel confident that my mechanic is telling me the truth !!
Also this is the bearing replacement he was speaking about which you guys confirmed.
http://www.lnengineering.com/ims.html
-Tim

mattatk

I experienced a similar issue, I replaced the clutch ( looked a bit worn but not that bad, the pressure plate looked near new but I replaced it anyway ). Problem was still there, tried to re-bleed clutch & noted that I couldn't bleed with the pedal depressed as per the workshop manual. The fluid only flowed if I pumped the pedal? Suspected faulty master cylinder replaced & clutch system fixed! I pulled the master cylinder apart & found deteriorated seals within, definitely the culprit. In hindsight, I only had to change the master cylinder, whoops!