Droopy Clutch Pedal...

Wednesday, we set off for 3-4 weeks round Sicily.
But on Thursday I started to notice the clutch pedal returning sluggishly.
This got worse in an erratic fashion & sometimes, after not using the clutch for a very long time (motorway) the pedal actually went down & stayed down without freeing the clutch...
Pulling the pedal back up & trying again several times seemed to get back to normal, but the symptoms came back sooner or later.
The brake fluid level was OK at Max.
At this time we were 1500km from home & quite close to Sicily.

Overnight we decided to call VW Assistance & they got a breakdown truck to us very quickly on Friday morning & took us to a VW garage not too far away.

The workshop was deserted - no vehicles & no mechanics - which seemed odd...
After a long wait with no visible activity, a mechanic took the van for a couple of minutes test drive & reported back to the desk that he found no problem...

When I said there certainly WAS a problem, they said they might be able to look a bit further Monday or Tuesday, but Wednesday was a holiday & in fact the whole week was a bit of a holiday & of course if they needed to order any parts that could take some time...

So we decided to head back north, hoping to get to a more dynamic part of northern Italy or maybe Switzerland before progress became impossible.

In fact, by anticipating the need for using the clutch, and by "priming" it by pumping the pedal down & up several times first, we managed to get back home OK.

Now the van is at our local dealer, though they are fully booked for the next 2 weeks...

I assume that the symptoms (1. Pedal can go down & stay down without releasing the clutch: 2. No loss of brake fluid) suggest an internal leak in the master cylinder?

Anybody have any comments, experience, tips?

Thanks!

I saw a thread about this on another forum, I think this may be more useful than I could be

http://www.vwt5forum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=378982

Assuming it is the slave cylinder then budget for a new dual mass flywheel and clutch at the same time. Nobody in their right mind would pull the gearbox out and not do that job at the same time.

£2k? Any advance on that?

I don't know where in Sicily you were headed, but there is an excellent VW service centre in Palermo which really seem to know what they are doing.


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Surely if it was a leak at the slave cylinder, I would be losing fluid from the system??
But there is NO fluid loss. (Brake fuid reservoir still at Max after 1500km with problem.)

Can anybody help me locate a diagram of a T5 master cylinder to try to understand better?

Thanks!

It’s on the end of the pedal (top), the is slave inside the bell housing.

The clutch may well go to the floor first time of use, but work better as you drive. The mechanic will have benefited from trying the clutch after you had pumped up the pressure in the system by driving to the workshop.

So if you can 'pump up' the clutch pedal as you have suggested, then there could be no leak of fluid but a worn master or slave cylinder.

Alan

How come the brake fluid has an influence on the clutch? I had the symptoms once a Touran, but it disappeared again before I managed to go to the Mechanic.

As I understand it, they are a hydraulic clutch (no old fashioned cable) and share the same master cylinder - i.e. the brake master cylinder, as both require an incompressible liquid for them to work. Saves VW fitting two master cylinders when they can get away with one for the sake of some extra pipework.

cbdubs said:

As I understand it, they are a hydraulic clutch (no old fashioned cable) and share the same master cylinder - i.e. the brake master cylinder, as both require an incompressible liquid for them to work. Saves VW fitting two master cylinders when they can get away with one for the sake of some extra pipework.

Click to expand...

Modern cars rarely have separate clutch and brake reservoirs.

WelshGas said:

Modern cars rarely have separate clutch and brake reservoirs.

Click to expand...

That explains my lag of knowledge. The last car I directed by tools on, was my former Opel Kadett B (1969). RIP

Could be a case of 'boiling' brake fluid?

We have had that happen to us. On a trip in Wales we had to reverse uphill on a narrow road because of oncoming traffic. The hill was too steep for the reverse gear, really, so we went with a slipping clutch and lots of smoke and stink.... After that the clutch felt soggy and was lower than normal. We feared we had ruined our clutch plates.

Back home we had our dealer take a look. The plates were fine. But they told us that when the break fluid gets really hot, near boiling point (as it probably had with us), it degrades very rapidly and the viscosity changes heavily. They changed the fluid, and our clutch was back to normal again!

Perhaps something similar happened to you?

Unlikely. Unlike brakes the clutch slave cylinder isn’t in contact with the friction plate so no heat is transferred.

Your Welsh Hill problem was simply the clutch plate over heating.
Get a new mechanic/dealer!

Sounds like air in the hydraulics to me. Should be a simple enough job for your mechanic. We had the same thing happen on a VW Passat TDI we once owned.


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VW changed the clutch master cylinder & that now seems OK.
300km later we are on a breakdown truck again, now with electrical problems!
But that is another story...

2000km after changing the clutch master cylinder, the droopy clutch pedal is starting to come back!
I need to fully depress the pedal to free the clutch & take-up is very near the bottom.
Pumping restores normal feel for a time.

I am certain that when I take the van back to VW, they will tell me a need a new slave cylinder (& why not new clutch & flywheel while the box is off?).

Can anybody explain to me how a fault in the slave cylinder could possibly give these symptoms WITHOUT ANY FLUID LOSS from the brake reservoir?

I don't have any problem with doing all the above work if it is necessary, but I really don't want to do it if it is NOT necessary!

Is it necessary to bleed air out of the clutch system, or should that happen automatically due to gravity?

Thanks for any solid advice (not guesswork, please!).

Yes the system needs bleeding.