Another clutch problem!!!!

Club Members, I have read all of your posts regarding clutch issues and i have a problem with mine that i have not read on any others. I have 2300 miles on my car and have not had a single problem with my clutch until last night. For the first time last night i wanted to see what the car felt like off the line. So irevved the engine only to 3 grand and dumped the clutch. Heres were i had the problem. Seeing how i didn't really dump the clutch high in the rpm's the car didn't smoke the tires as you would expect, instead the rear wheels just skipped so i shifted into 2nd gear and floored it and the rpm's shot right up to the rev limiter and the car went nowhere. Totally smoked the clutch. It was if the clutch never engaged. Like i said i have read everyones posts and have not seen this problem listed. Has anyone here had this problem??? also has anyone here been able to launch the car from a standstill and had a success 1st and 2nd gear pull?? Thanks for the help Kenny P.S. Sorry for the double post.

Kenny, That sounds like a typical slipping clutch. More important,how is the clutch behavingafterwards. Does it show signs of slippage under 'normal' driving after the incident. CP

no not at all, thats what i don't get. it wasperfectly fine afterword. i even tried a third gear pull from a dead stop to see if the clutch would give out which it should in that kind of test and it didn't. I've had plenty of blown clutches in my other cars but i am totally baffled by this.

Was PSM engaged? My understanding is that PSM will 'catch' the clutch.

no i turned it off. You think that has something to do with it???

Does sound like it grabbed the clutch. Are you it engaged when you shifted, and if so it didn't pop out of gear? A good jossle of the tranny like that can pop it out of egear. Either way, pretty odd.

Oh it grabbed the clutch. It basically was like this..... Grabbed 2nd gear floored it, rpm shot up to 7200 so i let off to 5000 and then gave it more gas and straight back to 7200. At first i thought maybe i was smoking the tires and i didnt realize it was the clutch until i noticed i didn't see any tire smoke and then the smell of the clutch.After that i drove around and it was fine. I didn't try launching again but regular driving was ok. I really think the clutch just didn't grab but that is really unusual especially in a Porsche. I mean these car are meant to be driven hard and i cant even grab 2nd gear?!?! Somethings wrong.

Yea, I can only theorize as I'm not a porsche mechanic. If it was only that instant , and 2nd gear was engaged at the tranny (not just because the shifter felt engaged) perhaps there is an override of sorts I haven't heard of. It really just seems like it wasn't engaged, free spinning rpms with no clutch squeal or chatter.... Perhaps the clutch got glazed... hard to say. I've killed a couple clutches in my day, but the only time I have experienced what you describe it do to the tranny not engaging, on other cars with a touchy tranny not having the right sync speeds can do that.

Yeah i hear ya azcay, it just doest make sense. Well I'm going to try it one more time to see what happens and if it does it again I'm just going to have to bring it back to the dealer again (dam German cars)

I had the same thing happen today when I turned off PSM and tried to take of quickly. I never do that, but wanted to see how the car went off the line. I too thought the wheels where spinning as I went into 2nd gear from first but then realised that the clutch was spinning. I had lots of smoke a burning smell all the way home. The car drove OK when I was gentle on it, but you would think you would be able to turn of PSM and get the wheels to spin in a Porsche??? Hopefully the clutch is OK. Kenny, whats the latest on your issue?

I just gave my clutch a bit of a test, as I was worried after the misshap arlier today. The clutch now seems fine. it engages a few inches off the floor, gear changes are easy, and when I try to take off in a high gear and plant my foot i either take off very slowly with a labouring engine or the car stalls. I turned of PSM and dropped the clutch and gave it enough revs to get a slight wheel spin. I was pretty worried as there was a lot of smoke earlier today and a bad buring smell. i do hope no damage has been done. Still, what happened earlier today was very stange. I had been out of the car for 25 mins before take-off, so perhaps the clutch was just cold causing it to slip? Or perhaps there was some oil somewhere it shouldn't have been? Come to think if it, this has happened once before. Probably the only two times I have turned of PSM and really tried to take off quickly with a few revs. Both times I thought the wheels were spinning when in actual fact it was the clutch. I have always been pretty careful with the clutch and gearbox and even on track days usually let the clutch fully engage before I plant my foot. I have never had this in any other car so it is a little strange. Hopefully I am not back here writing about further problems with the clutch anytime soon! Cheers DT

dt, I got your PM and i did reply but i think we should continue this conversation on the board so other members can read and determine if they have the same problem as we do. I can sit here and type my story about my problem but it is identical to yours. I never have any problems during normal daily driving even when i drive the car hard but i cant get it to launch without some kind of clutch slip or burn. I know these cars are not drag cars and believe me thats not what I'm trying to do but for got sake i cant even get the car off the line to try and get a 0-60 time.

What you did is called 'glazing' the clutch. I've done it on several cars, and the common diagnostic factor is the stench of burned clutch following abrupt engagement at high RPM. It's basically like getting pad fade when braking. The pads (or in this case clutch material) get too hot and burn, presumably forming a layer of gas betweent the pads and the rotor (or flywheel) and the friction coefficient drops to near zero. I've had no known long-term consequences but not something you'd want to do every day as it will eventually damage the flywheel and clutch disk.

I was going to sign in tonight and type in the same thing. This has happened to me twice when I tried to do a mild clutch dump. I did kill it one time at the next light but it started right up and took off like nothing was wrong. I have nearl 6000 miles on my car and I swear that its gotten more sluggish so I was trying to fool myself into believing it was just me, but now its nothing like what it was when it was new. Im thinking of unhooking the battery and resetting the computer to see if this makes things better.

Yep, I've done it in my Cayman back in May. I was doing some 0 - 100 MPH runs and on my 3rd or 4th run I engaged using a technique called 'throttle squeeze', where you partial dump the clutch and roll in throttle to get a hard launch with little wheel hop. Problem was I didn't dump the clutch far enough and 'smoked' the plates, which is commonly called glazing the clutch. Simply release when this happens, wait just a few seconds for the clutch to cool, enjoy the 'baked clutch' smell....and then go back to having fun. Paul

Thanks guys. I am sure this is exactly what happened to me. Its a little annoying, as i would assume in a pure sports car like a Porsche you can dump the clutch from time to time for a fast take-off. I have never had this problem in any other car, and they certainly were not 'pure' sports cars. It seems that in some cases the clutch just does not take. On the bright side, I suppose you could say that our cars have a lot of power and a lot of traction, hence the problem. But I would assume if you bought a Turbo you could get the wheels spinning? Am I mistaken or would that car have the same problem? Not that this isparticularly important to me, as after 6,000kms and quite a few track days I havn't really had the urge to do this kind of take-off before. But the Porsche club does have 1/4 mile sprints as part of their activity so is it just Cayman owners that need to becareful of this or all porsche owners?

I agree, I was thinking the same thing that it feels not the same as new after 3000kms. So many times other people also say the same thing about their own car. The ECU is Bosch? The self adjusting part of the dynamic adaption sucks.

All the cars I've done this in have been German, FWIW; B5 S4, B6 S4, E36 M3. It's always a trade-off between streetability and clutch performance. If you've ever driven aclutch with an unsprung hub or a 6 puck racing disk, you would agree that Porsche went the right direction with streetability. Still better than the EXPENSIVE clutch problems the CGT owners are having.

OK so what's the happy medium??? Were do we all compromise??? Do we tell all our fiends when we are out for a ride that our new $80,000 Porsche cant its *** off the line without glazing the clutch??? Or is there something we can do to get the strength and reliability we should have gotten in the first place???

when i first got my car in march my clutch suddenly stopped working...specifically, i went to back out of the garage and the clutch pedal did not engage the cluth when depressed. it turned out to be the slave cylinder so they replaced that and the whole clutch top to bottom. 2 weeks later, the clutch pedal got stuck in the depressed position and i had to pull it out by hand. after that, it happened a few more times. the dealer told me (after calling porsche of america) that some caymans actually had the wrong clutch (or related parts) at the factory. when they replaced the whole thing ( the first time) they took it off another cayman which also had the same mismatched clutch. thats why it went bad again. they ended up getting the correct parts and politely replaced it all under warranty. since then, my clutch has run perfectly. anyone with chronic clucth problems should ask their dealer to call POA and check if they have the correct parts from the factory.

I am getting faster at the track so my clutch is obviously AOK. I think if you try to really spin it up and the clutch is slightly cold, this glaze business can happen.