Manual clutch blew out?

[pwyu1969]

Hi all, I just got a call from my son that the clutch in his 2006 vibe ‘stopped.’ Essentially same symptom of bad/slipping clutch. It happened while he was in gear and driving at speed, so not while he was accelerating and using the clutch. I just had a new clutch put in within a year, maybe a new master or slave cylinder too, but that I’m not sure of. There was no sign of clutch slippage before this event, and he is an experienced clutch driver. He did say he smelled gas/metal after coasting the car into a bank parking lot. I’m going to have it towed to my place. Any ideas or suggestions? Any recommended trouble shooting, or things to check for?

[joatmon]

The only thing I can think of would be to check when its in gear and you step on the gas, does the speedometer move? If it does, it might be a blown cv joint in one of the axles, allowing one axle to spin freely. The tranny would still see it as movement, where a blown/useless clutch would see no rotation making it into the tranny. Axle wouldn't really explain the smell though.

There have been issues with the 5 speed, but those have been with a bearing failure, symptoms include progressively loud grinding noises, but not a sudden lack of all power transfer

Also, I don't know you or your son, but if my son reported such an issue, I would assume he was abusing it, because that how he was for too many years. He's over it now, but there was a time ...

[tpollauf]

I'm with J-mon on this one. If the clutch really went out you should have smelled the asbestos material grinding, or if the pressure plate exploded you would have heard it also. There's not much to keeping the driveline engaged which is the default position. You got my curiosity so when you DO solve this problem, let all of us know. Good luck