So that you all understand. I'm not a mechanic. I've done very basic repairs on my own, control arm, brakes, wheel bearing, stuff like that, and I don't have a terribly comprehensive set of tools. I mention this so that you know how to talk to me in a way that I'll understand. The resolution to my issue may be something I don't know how to fix, and I may end up taking it to a shop to have them fix it, but too many times I take a car in for diagnoses and they're way off and then I end up paying... and paying... I'm sure most of you get the picture.

I cruised the forums a bit before posting in an effort to find a solution without posting (as I've been successful at in the past), but my issue seems to be rather singular.

It's a 2000 Accord EX with a manual transmission, and I've owned it for 3 years. The car's got about 170k miles on it, and other than normal maintenance, I really haven't had any major issues with the car. I like to think I keep pretty good care of it.


So enough of the intro, here's the meat and potatoes.

I've had difficulty nailing it down, and it doesn't seem to do it 100% of the time, but I just got done driving from Georgia all the way to Washington and I'm wondering if the 3000 mile drive has something to do with it.

The short version is this. After I shift into gear (I notice it mostly in third, fourth, and fifth), let go of the clutch completely and accelerate, if I hit the gas hard enough, the RPM's go real high as if it were in neutral, but the car doesn't actually accelerate. I let go of the gas, it 'catches' (as if it had gone out of gear and goes back into gear) and then I can accelerate, but if I slam on the gas again it just keeps doing the same thing. This means I can either accelerate very gently (hard to do in the mountains) or not at all.

Let me know if you want more details or have any ideas or want me to check something. I'm really at a loss here and it's a 15 year old car I've taken pretty good care of, so I don't want to let it go but I don't want to spend a fortune fixing it either.

Thanks in advance!

 

Is that a swap you did???

 

Sounds like your clutch is failing. The disk is made of brake material. Over time it wears out and must be changed like brakes.

 

Um, no? Far as I know, the car is completely stock. I haven't modded it at all and don't intend to.

I was afraid that this might be the case. I just wanted the car to give me one more year before age starting catching up to it... sigh.

 

Better clutch than replacing whole MT tranny like I just did. Replace clutch then flush the MT fluid with fresh one.

 

your car is 170k miles on the road and 16 years. That clutch is pretty amazing in my opinion. It's a wear item and it lasted a long time.

 

So, I got a clutch kit, and got it done. Great. It's driving better than it has since I bought it three years ago.

Problem. Since I got it installed last week (labor done at a local shop I trust, part bought from Oreilly's), it's been squealing. Not loudly, but just enough that I notice it. Naturally, I press the clutch, squealing stops. Yay, somehow the brand new throwout bearing that I just bought and got installed is somehow bad or may have been improperly installed.

So now I'm in a bit of a bind. The shop quoted me 500$ for labor to replace it, though oreilly's will warranty the part, except the part is cheap compared to the labor, and I'm inclined to go OEM as to avoid the same issue.

Mostly, I'm wondering if it's worth it to do.

 

Sounds like it's a fairly common issue that occurs and very easily fixable. Take off the two bolts holding the slave cylinder to the block and put a glob of grease on the ball that meets the fork. Put it back on. The sound should go away.

This assumes that the sound goes away just as you put an ever slight amount of force on the clutch pedal without needing to push it all the way down.

Report back.

 

I appreciate the response, but I'm 99% certain the issue is related to the throwout bearing not the CSC.

It's a constant squealing noise that goes away when the clutch is pressed. If it were the CSC there'd be more of a creaking noise when pressing and depressing the clutch.

Edit - I'm wondering if I could adjust the clutch so that the pedal was at exactly the right spot so the noise would go away, but I'm concerned that may cause premature wear.

 

I know it's too late now, but this is one of those items where it's better to skip the parts store junk and go with a good brand imo. This should be the case with anything that's hard to get to like this. I normally will use OEM clutches. If I go aftermarket I use Exedy (they made a lot of the OEM clutches) or one of the other quality companies.

If your issue is the throwout bearing you really don't have any option other than to pull the transmission again.

 

It's a 15 year old car that I've kept in pretty good condition. I'm not going to pay for labor to drop the tranny again, and due to recently moving, I don't have a set up where I could do the work myself (may not for a while).

In my googling, it seems like squeaky throwout bearings are apparently fairly common in newly installed clutches. My initial assessment was that either the throwout bearing is bad or it was installed improperly, but now I'm wondering if there's actually nothing wrong with it, but it's just a symptom of newness. Still wondering about tightening the clutch though.

I mean ****, I pay another 500$ for labor to replace this thing with no guarantee that a new one won't do the exact same thing.

 

You are 100% wrong but it's entirely up to you if you're too lazy to fix it.

However it's not my car. I can only give out advice. I can't make people follow it.

New throwout bearings don't go bad upon startup.

 

I have had non oem bearings do that. I have gone for some time with the noise until I'm able to pull the tranny.

To avoid paying labor twice you need to let the shop provide the parts, that way they cover labor and parts warranty rather than labor only.