I just bought my 06 Shinka last Tuesday. As of Today, I have noticed that my clutch feels much softer, as does the shifter. I also notice somewhat of a power decrease. I used to have a Mazda 6, and the clutch went out only after 20,000 miles on that car. I'm worried that this may happen again. I am not a hard driver or a racer. Am I just being paranoid? I know how to drive a stick, but I guess I don't know what's normal...

Thanks!

 

It's fine calm down.

Clutches get stiff when they wear.

 

Hey your the guy that looks like Polak!!

 

Either your clutch was seriously out of alignment (i.e. full engagement wasn't really full engagement when your foot wasn't on it) for your Mazda 6, or you really don't know how to drive a stick. A clutch should last you between 70,000 and 200,000 miles depending on your skills, type of driving (e.g. stop and go; San Fransisco hills, highway), and load (e.g. drag racing or pulling a trailer). Under 50,000 miles, you've got to be "riding the clutch". Hint: Move your foot away from the clutch upon completion of every shift and don't use the clutch to accelerate, that's the job of the powertrain upon full clutch engagement.

 

tucker sounds just like I did when I first got my 8. Every little thing got me worried that I got a lemon. The power loss is all in your brain. After the initial phase where you first explore the power of the 8, the more you get used to it, the slower it will feel.

 

Ummmm.... No

Well, I do know how to drive a stick... I have been for awhile now. I'm pretty sure there was an underlying problem because after they replaced it, it was out in 6 months! I just hope I'm not going down that path again.

Yeah... I thought about it being in my brain too. But the stiffness and rigidness of the clutch at first actually felt nice to me. Maybe I'm crazy.

 

I have an acquaintance at work that seems to need a new clutch around every 10,000 miles on his car. It's the way he drives and he admits he doesn't drive a manual well.

He got a new one at around 9500 miles, got the second one at 22,000 miles, and next week is getting another one at 39,000 miles. Looks like he's getting a little better at it!!

 

Do you guys know about how much cluches are taking to replace after the 12,000 mile warranty is up? I paid about $1,000 on the 6... but they said that's because they had to drop the engine to get to it. I don't know that I really believe that.

 

What does it matter about the warranty? Clutches are a wear item and thusly not covered in warranties.

 

A factory clutch on a non-modified car should be warranteed. I believe it is covered on our "bumper-to-bumper". As said above, clutch failure in under 50,000 miles is more likely to be a defective part than even the worst driver, Bunny Girl's friend notwithstnding.

 

They are covered for 12,000 miles I believe, I will have to consult my book. It was covered for 12,000 miles on the 6.

 

On most transverse-engined cars (E/W alignment, left to right in the engine bay, not N/S, front to back in the engine bay) the transmission bolts up to the engine, and the unit gets dropped into the car. Hence, to replace the clutch, you drop the whole transaxle/engine unit, then pry them apart, change the clutch, put it back together, and put the unit back in.

It's that way on every transverse toyota I've ever heard of, and know it to be true on several hondas.

On a lot of these cars, there's ways, not factory-endorsed, of supporting the engine and carefully unbolting the transmission from the engine and popping the transmission off with the engine still in the car. This saves time, but is much more tricky to pull off, and the dealer won't likely do it - or at least, if they do, they'll still charge you the hours for the full way.

 

As a former Mazda6 owner myself, I've got to back tucker up on this one.

The V6 Mazda6 from 2003 to 2004 had a history of very defective clutches. Significant numbers of people had theirs go out before 20,000 miles (myself included, as well as almost every DFW owner I know and hundreds on 6Club probably thousands outside of those that post). If you were lucky and made it to 30,000 miles you had a "good one" that would probably last as long as a clutch should. But something was up with a large number of them that caused premature failures.

To make matters worse, the first available aftermarket clutch was a Spec model. And almost every single person who replaced their stock clutch with a Spec one (and it was a lot) also had that one go out early. Usually within 10-20,000 miles. Spec used a stock pressure plate which caused premature failure of their clutches. Recently ClutchMasters offered up an alternative that is now considered vastly superior to both stock and Spec.

So, a somewhat large percentage of buyers have paid to have the clutches replaced twice, at tabs of about $700-1200 a pop. Mazda finally acknowledged the problem and released a TSB, but only after most of the 2003 and 2004 owners that had the "bad clutches" had already paid to have theirs replaced, some twice if they bought Spec.

 

Sigma, I believe I remember you from mazda6club.

Do you know if Mazda reimbursed the owners who had theirs replaced before they released the TSB?

 

Nope, no one to my knowledge has even tried, let alone been successful. Perhaps if I had gone with a stock clutch myself I would have pressed the matter, but I went with a Spec clutch (the first to use one and one of the last to still have one working too) and did the install myself so it would be difficult to go to Mazda and try to get reimbursed.