2011 Mazda 3 clutch

[seanf]

Long story short, cousin called me and said the clutch pedal is stuck to the floor of his Mazda 3, was a solid -40C here yesterday with wind -50 I'm thinking the clutch hydraulics failed, I never looked at it as he managed to get a tow truck to take it to a shop before I could come drag it back to my house.

Shops telling him it needs a new clutch and it will be $2100, I'm still thinking the slave or master popped or something as I've never had a pressure plate fail where all the fingers broke off and the pedal stuck to the floor, it was always hydraulic, last car I had a similar problem on all the trans bolts were loose and the pressure plate bolts were loose the pedal still rebounded.

He doesn't have $2100 so its probably getting dragged to my place to be repaired, just wondering if anyone has seen that happen or if anyones done a clutch on a Mazda 3 that have any insight.

Thanks

 

[StevieC]

. Double Post .

 

[StevieC]

They can be sticky... Put it in neutral and start it and let it come up to operating temperature (preferably in a warm garage with just the exhaust piped out) and then work the pedal and see if it will come back.
It's possible it's just stuck because of the extreme cold. My dad had a 4-banger that used to be similar in the winter. The clutch would stick in the real cold temperatures after sitting outside for a couple of days not being run.

If not it would be something in the hydraulics I would imagine and not the clutch itself if the pedal was fine before this.

 

[cjolson140]

Any history of the clutch/brake fluid being replaced? My Mazda Protege5 was doing the same thing the other day (about -15F) so I bled the clutch at the slave cylinder. Took about 12oz of fresh fluid added to the master before fresh fluid appeared at the bleeder, the old stuff was black and gritty.

Clutch works much better now.

 

[seanf]

Update shop is saying a bad clutch fork caused the master to fail and the estimate is always just to replace everything to cover their bases which makes sense on a warranty/comeback kind of thing. I'm still thinking I can get away with just changing the master and going from there, worse case I end up pulling trans and changing clutch too.

Originally Posted by cjolson140
Any history of the clutch/brake fluid being replaced? My Mazda Protege5 was doing the same thing the other day (about -15F) so I bled the clutch at the slave cylinder. Took about 12oz of fresh fluid added to the master before fresh fluid appeared at the bleeder, the old stuff was black and gritty.

Clutch works much better now.


I'm going to say its probably never been bled, I was kind of thinking if it had high moisture content and old fluid it would be kind of thick, if I do the job I'm going to flush it out with some pentosin DOT 4LV in the hopes that will make cold weather operation a little better, it helped on my B5 Audi I had

 

[Trav]

Lots of things happen in extreme cold that wouldn't normally happen. I had a 65 Lotus that when it get very cold the clutch slave would let all the fluid out on the ground, the brand new one (OE NOS) did the same thing, obviously the iron cylinder had too much clearance in it. I ended up modding an MG slave to fit.
I would wait till it gets a bit warmer and see how it goes, it may work fine.

 

[Silk]

Fingers don't fall off the clutch, but the diaphram can break, there is no spring pressure and the pedal will go to the floor. But there will still be a little bit of feel. If the pedal has just hit the floor I'd say it was a master cyl.

 

[seanf]

Update: got the car here finally and the floor mat is covered in brake fluid, going to change the master as soon as I locate one, unfortunately all the stores around here say they are 3-5 days out and $200, rockauto with priority shipping totals $88 so hopefully I have it by Tuesday. I ordered a Beck/Arnley and they usually rebox decent parts so hopefully its not a POS.