Recently bought an 04 Mazda RX8 Manual transmission with 75,000 miles. Clutch noted to have slight slipping after purchase, and within the first week of driving it (not too hard, but not babying it) what i suspect to be the clutch/throwout bearing has now completely failed. the vehicle will enguage into gear, but will not move until revved to 8k-9k rpm. Vehicle will then make some forward progress but i can shift through all 6 gears and it will rev to redline before it makes any increase in power. i bought a cheap clutch kit to hold me over until i can sell my other car and do it right, but i wanted to make sure i covered all my other bases and could check everything out while my car is on the lift and being looked over. so overview: car had slight slippage, then suddenly while pulling from a stop sign, car goes to redline before accelerating, minimally. thanks for the help and suggestions.

Also i can give the car No gas, place in gear, and fully release the clutch and the car will not stall, and actually slightly raises rpms to a little over 1000 but does not move forward or stall.

 

I had a similar problem but My problem was that I couldn't shift at all sometimes so I would turn of my car and then it would let me shift it turn out that my clutch lines had air in them so I blem the lines and now my rx8 is running like a champ

 

Sounds like insane amounts of slippage to me. If you can put your car in gear and not touch the gas while keeping idle, but still rev to a point where you can actually move the car (not talking about shaking forward a bit cause you revved your engine so high that it lurched forward a bit), then it sounds to me like you've got clutch problems. The only way the T/O bearing could cause that is if it's permanently jammed into the pressure plate. It's probably not a bad idea to replace it all while you're down there though...

@rx09321, being able to shift when the car is off is normal. Ghastly can still shift, so it's not an issue with the hydraulics like yours was (unless in an insane twist of events, his hydraulic lines are holding pressure and forcing the T/O bearing into the pressure plate :D)

 

Any idea why the insane amount of slippage would escilate so rapidly? A little bit of driving (two or three days) and it went from powerful and drivable to a nightmare. And no its not vibrating forward I can still get it up to like 30+ mph but its constantly sitting at 8-9k while accellerating.(at a slow as hell rate might I add)

 

Imagine what would hapoen to your brake pads you were driving around holding the brakes for 3 days. That's what a slipping clutch is like: rubbing on but not engaging the flywheel. Sure it still transmits power, but it will wear down quickly. The fact that it was slipping means it was already finished when you started. When you do the clutch make damn sure the pedal is adjusted correctly for the new clutch to avoid further problems.

 

Appreciate the tip. I'll do some research and make sure that precaution is taken. Thanks