Mazda 6 Forums banner

Latey ive been smelling the clutch and dont know what it is?

1855 Views 15 Replies 10 Participants Last post by  DiscountPowerParts
As the topic says i have noticed a bad clutch smell that really bothers me. The clutch still engages strong and dosnt slip. I dont know wut it is so i am going to take it to the dealer soon so they can check it out.
1 - 16 of 16 Posts
As the topic says i have noticed a bad clutch smell that really bothers me. The clutch still engages strong and dosnt slip. I dont know wut it is so i am going to take it to the dealer soon so they can check it out.
[/b]

we need some more details, mileage, how long before the smell starts, how hard are you driving it, what rpm do you take off at in 1st gear?
the smell starts 10-20 min after driving. the car barely has 4000 miles on it and i only launched the car a few times at 3k rpms nothing over that and i dont dump the clutch either.
how many miles do u have? if your car is just off the lot, as im guessing since ur a noob here, then the gaskets have not set yet and that awful smell is the gaskets setting. itll be like that for the first 500 miles.
i had the car for 3 months and it has close to 4,000 miles on it. the smell started around 3,000-3,500 miles
I think it's because you should've put this thread in the engine/drivetrain section...
have you taken the shroud off the IC? a lot of people tend to place the shroud on incorrectly and the plastic starts melting.
i took it off twice but i know i put it back right and i know the smell of a burnt clutch
Hmm car smells like burnt clutch.........you say you know what burnt clutch smells like...................it's burnt clutch.

Yay i solved the mystery!!!

P.S. Pointless posts make baby Jesus cry
As the topic says i have noticed a bad clutch smell that really bothers me. The clutch still engages strong and dosnt slip. I dont know wut it is so i am going to take it to the dealer soon so they can check it out.
[/b]

Not to scare you, but my clutch did the same thing. By the time I hit 6000 miles, the clutch was slipping during moderate shifts into 2nd. By the time I hit 8000, the clutch was gone. Didn't do anything that would be considered abuse to the car, the clutch just wore abnormally fast. Had a new clutch put in under warranty. Now I'm at 12,500 and no problems. No clutch smell, everything is good.
Could your clutch pedal be adjusted wrong ? If the pedal does not fully disengage it will kind of slip all the time and accelerate the wear significantly.
My clutch with 2600 miles on it is being replaced tomorow by a Feramic/Metalic hybrid disc. If that clutch hits the crapper on you and your changing it, dont put the stock organic LUK clutch back in! The clutch we have made will support 380 wheel HP and 3 seconds of slip. The 3 seconds of slip is because of the flywheel and pressure plate.....when steel begins to drip in the form of liquid.....no clutch on earth will grab!

The failed transmission issue is a known issue, the clutch forks fail, the car will not go into a certain gear (depending on what fork fails) and Mazda now does not replace the entire trans, they have a rebuild kit that updates the failed parts with a new design that should end the issue. It is not a recall, it is performed only on cars that experiance the clutch fork failure. I will try to get pictures for you.

With any single disc you have about 3 seconds before the heat is getting to the point of melting/distorting/blueing steel.

In 3 seconds many of your OEM friction materials will glaze, cook, burn, crack, and die. My clutch smelled like it came fresh out of a pile of fireplace ash. It was black, and when you scraped your nail on it you got a black nasty powdery residue.

The choice of the organic metalic / feramic mix is to enhance the coefficiant of friction (Raise the ability to hold power) and withstand heat with no significant change in coefficiant in friction.

Your choice for this clutch would be to remove your OEM disc and send it to me, or buy a new OEM clutch and send it to me so your car is not down for a few days. We would take your old one and re-line it, re-ballance it, re-spring it and ship it back to you. With overnight shipping it is a typically overnight to us, 3 days in hand, overnight back.

If a customer had the need, the clutch could be done in 100% feramic material. This would get you into the 400+ HP range with holding ability. A pure feramic clutch is VERY grabby. With these clutches, you would have to re-learn how to drive your car! This is NOT a clutch for grandma to use for getting groceries!
See less See more
Discount, how much would it cost for you to do all that stuff to the clutch?
The biggest issue is shipping it overnight each way like I did. I spent $120 per direction to get it to the guys that do my diesel sled pulling clutches, and get it back overnight. The cost to actually do the job is small...

Assuming you could stand the ground shipping (2-4 days each way) and have your car down, or assuming you order a new clutch (About $150 for a brand new core) you would not care about the week lost...you can do it for about $300 like I did. Now with more time, and if I get a flywheel to send them also, we can get rid of the POS self addusting LUK pressure plate and make an entire new plate with a diaphram style that can also add plate load. We would be able to support 475-500 EASILY. The current design and plate load with our friction materials will support upto 380-400 with the combo I am running (More street friendly) or 425-450 with a hard core....who cares about grabby clutches....all out assult on friction material.

If I feel spendy this spring or summer, I may send the parts to them and look at doing a double disc slipper clutch that can take crazy amounts of "feathering" the clutch...this would be great for 6000 RPM drag racing launches where the driver could apply power as he saw fit for 5-7 seconds with no fear of overheating the flywheel, disc, or Pressure plate at all. THis technology is what allows a 4x4 truck to chain to a 28,000 lb competition pulling sled and bring the turbo upto 70-80 lbs of boost and use the clutch to get things going without putting the fire out in a big nasty diesel cummins or duramax. Same thought process would allow us to launch an AWD car that wont spin 4 tires while holding max boost and max TQ by letting the clutch do all of the hard work.

If anyone becomes interested in a clutch, feel free to give me a call, PM, or email. And if you want to do it fast and dont care the cost....with overnight shipping it can potentailly leave you Monday, at the shop Tuesday with AM delivery and be back out overnight that same day to you on Wednesday!

Also, this is NOT voiding my warranty. My dealer removed the old one, and is installing this re-lined OEM clutch and they are fine with it. SOme dealerships may throw a fit over it, I make no claim for or against that fact....but my experiance is that a clutch disk.... similar to a set of brake pads is a NON WARANTED, NORMAL WEAR ITEM. As such you can replace a non warranted, normal wear item with any brand you choose unless the manufacturer supplies this normal wear item to you for life of the car/truck for free. My dealer agrees. He is not handing out free brake pads, oil filters, or clutch discs!!!!
See less See more
The transmission shift fork problem is very interesting. Do you mind me asking where you got your information from? I had to have my transmission replaced because it was popping out of gear and the shift fork breaking or bending would be a good match to the symptom.

Does this company you are working with have any plans on making full replacement units or do they want to stick with resurfacing the old disks? One day down the line I think I might want to end up with a 4-puck ceramic/feramic disk maybe without a sprung center hub and a new heavier pressure plate (of course this is after I can get access to adequite tuning and a larger turbo). The double disk clutch also sounds promising for some nice drag launches. I would just be worried about the weight added. Maybe pair it with a lightened flywheel to balance it back to near stock?
The transmission fork issue is known by Mazda. My dealer told me that Mazda was replacing trans assemblies in thier entirety so that they could diagnose the issue and come up with a fix. The updated forks and updated sliders is a Mazda update that supercedes the original forks and sliders. This is not a blanket fix, only the cars that have failure are getting the fix he says. My car has been on the rack at the shop for a month now. I should have it back in 2-3 days.

As far as making new discs, and getting rid of that junk LUK self adjusting pressure plate...it akes someone sending one in with more time to let the re-engineering commence. I did not have time, as I was getting it done as Mazda was shipping parts in from Japan...the parts came in and the car has to get off the lift.

The flywheel needs to be sent in as well for consideration on making anew one that can be lighter, and maybe even consider an SFI approved flywheel.

There is no doubt that a entire system from flywheel to pressure plate needs to go in so that a double disc option can be investigated.....as well as for a diaphram style Pressure Plate option. For now, the quick and easy upgrade with minimal time and minimal expense is to reline the OEM disk with better materials in replacing the torsional spring packs with tighter units. This is what I have had done.
See less See more
1 - 16 of 16 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top