Won't go into any gear while the car is running: 987.2 Cayman Base 6MT

Back in mid December 2022, I had a Porsche independent shop replace the clutch and flywheel on my 2011 Cayman base with a Sachs kits and OEM Porsche flywheel. The car has driven fine and I have put about 1200 miles on it since then. Today, after parking the car for 6 hours, I restarted it and it will not go into any gear while the engine is running. I can shift into all the gears just fine when the car is off. I pulled the frunk panels and checked the master cylinder . It's completely full including the small area inside the reservoir that holds the fluid for the clutch slave. I see no leaks on the ground or wetness under the car. The clutch pedal firmness feels normal. Shifter cables were replaced with OEM parts back in December as well. When the car is running and I try to push the gear lever into gear, either first or reverse, the car will start to crawl forward or backward along with a whiff of burning clutch. Is it possible that the pressure plate has failed? Something else? I have a call into my Porsche shop and I'm waiting their response. I'm kind of in a weird spot because the car is CPO'd and will need to be towed. If it's the slave cylinder, then it should be covered by Porsche plus the tow (I'll need to confirm this before proceeding). If something failed with the clutch and the shop says that's likely the cause, then I'm hopeful my shop will be honest about that and cover the repair. I think it's highly unlikely that they'll cover the tow though if that is the case (I'll ask).

Something is keeping the clutch from releasing. I'd suggest avoiding trying to get it in gear again since that burning smell is more likely burning the friction surfaces on the synchronizer rings, and if those go bad it's major money to rebuild the transaxle. You say the pedal firmness feels normal - it sounds as if for some reason the clutch disk is stuck to the flywheel or pressure plate, since bad hydraulics would feel much softer, and a bad pressure plate might actually feel harder or notchy. Perhaps a bolt wasn't torqued correctly and backed out or something fairly simple (but still difficult to get to since the transaxle has to come out.)

Most of the slave cylinder failures I saw included fluid weeping. Why didn't the CPO include a clutch at the dealer? Did Porsche conclude it wasn't needed? You're 1200 miles out from a complete clutch job. Without emotion, explain the failure and they should take care of you, if not you have the state AG. As for the tow, you're probably going to have to absorb that.

Clutches are considered a wear item under CPO I believe. If it were me I'd use my AAA to tow it back to the independent ASAP. Did they give you a warranty on their work? For example on the reverse side of your invoice?

The shop got back to me and said that there's something going on with the clutch assembly, possibly the clutch fork or pressure plate. I'm sending the car there next Wednesday. If he says the clutch fork is broken, I'll want to see it. Seems like that would be an odd failure. The clutch fork wasn't replaced when I did the clutch because it looked fine. I'll update the thread when I know more. This car seems to have every possible 987.2 common issue imaginable plus more. It's becoming like owning a boat and may bankrupt me. LOL

Actually clutch forks have been known to fail - especially the stamped steel ones (rather than the older forged steel castings)... and certainly could cause this issue. If the clutch had been badly worn before replacement and used that way for an extended period - it's more likely to fail just because of the additional force needed to release a worn clutch. FWIW - you only make this mistake once... (of not replacing EVERYTHING when a high-labor job comes along.. where a failure will cost the same amount of labor to make good..) Good luck, and hopefully it's not like a boat (a hole in the water you throw money into.. BTDT too..)

Yesterday I had the car flatbedded to the shop. 2 hours after the car arrived, the shop called and said the car is ready to pick. They said that the car wouldn't go into 1, 2, or R, but gave the sensation that it might go into 3rd, so the tech (shop owner) pushed fairly hard and it popped into gear. He drove the car for 20 minutes and it drove completely fine. I picked the car up and drove it 15 miles home and it drove fine. I took it to work today, went out to lunch, and the same story. Works fine. The shop owner is a very well respected Porsche tech in Kansas City with about 25 years of experience working on most every generation Porsche and he sets up many of the local track cars. He swears that there isn't an issue with the clutch and that if there is an issue, it's internal to the transmission. He went on to add that some "older" Porsches occasionally can get locked between a gear and requires a bit of rocking to free themselves, but that he hadn't heard of the issue on cars built after the 1990s. I respect his background and experience, but I have a hard time believing that the issue is internal to the transmission given the way the car was behaving. All symptoms seem to point to a clutch assembly issue. Given that the clutch is behaving normally now, it makes me think that the issue wasn't with the pressure plate or clutch fork. Is it possible that some debris hung up the throw out bearing or clutch fork? When the shop did the clutch, they noted that the bell housing was absolutely filthy with clutch dust. They did their best to clean it out, but that it might "smell" for a few hundred miles as things worked it's way out. Any other ideas?

My idea - get the shop owner's personal cell phone number so if it craps out on you at 1AM in the worst part of Kansas City (I've been through Kansas City - both of them) you can call him for a ride. I hate mysteries like this.. the real answer is to open it up and examine what was causing the clutch not to fully release. The transmission story just sounds bogus - that might have happened with old air-cooled 911 transmissions (which supposedly were made of butter..) but it's not anything I've heard of with any water-cooled Porsche manual transmissions. The problem with the early ones was weak synchronizers on second gear.. If this was an issue on later model ones - since 15 years has passed since these transmissions were produced - I think if it was endemic - we would have heard about it by now.

Ha! I get why the shop didn't want to pull out the transmission to inspect the clutch assembly since everything was behaving normally after he got it into gear. While I don't pretend to know all the ways a manual transmission works, the issue I was having points to an issue with the clutch assembly, either the pressure plate, throw out bearing, or clutch fork. For whatever reason, the pressure plate remained engaged. The reason I think this is that: Every gear was locked out when the engine was running I could shift gears normally when the car was off With the car running, the car would slowly roll forward if I pushed the shift lever where 1st or 2nd were supposed to be With the car running, the car would slowly roll backwards if I pushed the shift lever where reverse was supposed to be If I selected a gear with the car off, then started it, the car would immediately start rolling once I started letting out the clutch AND I could smell clutch when doing this. All symptoms above point to a clutch assembly issue, not something internal to the transmission. How could an internal transmission issue cause these characteristics? After bit more research, I have read instances on some older and newer (1990s-early 2000s) Porsches that had the clutch disc/pressure plate can temporary seize, usually after extended storage. The fix for most is to put the car in a taller gear, clutch in, and rev up to 4000-5000rpms to break bond loose. Admittedly, I did not try revving the motor any higher than 1500-2000rpms when trying to get it into gear. Maybe my mechanic did that and inadvertently fixed it. I've put about 200 miles on the car, all city, and haven't seen any signs of issues. But of course, this problem happened with no warning after being parked for 8 hours.