fioKi

Please give me your best advice regarding this situation.

I was driving my 8 to work and got starbucks for my morning coffee and I noticed a slight grinding sound ONLY when the clutch pedal was FULLY depressed at idle. This was the first time I noticed this and I do pay attention to the noises. Anyhow, I drove to work and let it sit all day, I got out at 5PM and drove .7~ miles down the street. It was parked for another 45 minutes and I then drove across the street to wash my car. I noticed NO slipping, NO bouncing, or anything out-of-the-ordinary. I was shifting in and out of first to weasel into traffic and then my shifter started to fail. About 50% dysfunctional then 100% dysfunctional in about .5 seconds. It felt like the shifter was getting pushed out of the clutch. Once that happened it wouldn't shift at all. There was ZERO smoke, smells, or anything that would hint at a catastrophic failure of any kind.

I then got the car towed to a mechanic that my family has went to before.(Nothing like this kind of car) He took a day to diagnose it and he said that he tested all the hydraulics(?), which was the master/slave cylinder and that they were fine so he needed to dissemble the clutch. I literally bought the parts that day. Paid him before hand.(I can dispute the payment, I'm not too dull )

Today he informed me that he installed the clutch kit. He then told me that I would also need the slave cylinder and that he determined this because the release bearing was broken and he believed this would cause it. **See Pic Below**

I am infuriated, what if this whole ordeal was caused by a simple $22 part?

Can the great minds of this forum help a newbie out and tell me if this clutch disc/cover needed replacing/service?

It is an exedy clutch disc/cover.

Old clutch disc:




Release bearing:

jasmine2501

It is really hard to put calipers on that photo, but the plate looks bad. The system IS hydraulic, so he's not full of crap there. Not sure what your disagreement is really. IMO, replacing the bearing when you're in there is a good idea regardless of the condition you think it's in. The vibration and failure to shift definitely sounds like a clutch problem.

I don't think you're getting ripped off, but it's impossible to say. We have to defer to what your mechanic said, he is the one who saw the thing. Beware of any assessments by people who didn't examine the car, including me.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

The disc doesn't look too bad...but the throwout bearing is done....

If you have to pull the transmission I would likely have replaced the disc and pressure plate as well anyway

Stubbs

iTrader: (1)

The clutch disc looks to be in okay shape, how many miles did it have on it? Pressure plate doesn't look too bad a little hot spotted but that's not that unusual.

The release bearing is definitely broken. The transmission has to be removed to replace it.
If your clutch had more than 80K miles I'd say it was probably worth it to change it out while you were in there as preventative maintenance. However you could have probably gone quite a few more miles before it needed to be replaced.

fioKi

Thanks for the help guys. jasmine, I put the ? near hydraulics because I wasn't sure if it was a hydraulic clutch or not. I'm a beginner when it comes to mechanics, all I can do is replace all the filters/plug/coils/wires and the basic tune up stuff. I'm fairly intelligent so I hope this stuff becomes understandable at a certain point. xD

I have no idea how many miles the clutch has on it. It is aftermarket but the car is at 140k so there is no telling. The depth of the rivets is pretty *** deep honestly.

So what deems a clutch disc broken? From the look of this plate, is it the depth of the pads, the string inlays being exposed and frayed? Is it simply a given that you would replace the full clutch kit when disassembling the transmission? If the EXACT same symptoms persist, then wouldn't it be that the clutch kit was not the issue?

Some of those are rhetorical, I'm just trying to learn and will search the forums for them anyways. ~

Cheers!

jasmine2501

Yeah it's a hydraulic clutch, I was informed of that myself on this very site, recently

There's apparently also a recall/warranty on the clutch bracket, so have them check that too. I'm sort of a beginner with the RX-8 myself, but I've had an RX-7 and a bunch of other cars and I've done Rally and Auto-cross and maintained my own vehicles for that. I usually don't do stuff more complicated than brakes myself, but I'm pretty experienced working with cars - a little rusty on the modern electronics though, never cared for it much. The RX-8 has some things in common with the RX-7, but it's a much more modern car all around, so you should probably prefer the opinions of others on here for technical stuff...

That said... I think you have to go on the word of your mechanic, and it sounds like he's being straight up with you. I don't think we can really assess the clutch from pictures, and like I said, he's the one who saw the car in person. You have the old parts, and you presumably paid for the new ones already, so it's water under the bridge anyway, and you can drive your car. That sounds like a decent outcome to me.