Clutch pedal goes soft and then back to normal...?!?

[steveo1]

Hi folks,

 

2007 Fabia vRS Limited Edition here with 250,000 miles on the clock.  My pride & joy, I might add.   Original clutch & exhaust too.

All happy motoring apart from the usual head lift @ around 100K miles (skimmed head and longer bolts fitted with zero issues since 👊)   

 

Recently, the clutch has been acting unusual.   It will go 'soft' only after I have accelerated hard (as in over taking on the motorway or pulling away from a junction or roundabout).   The clutch travels a lot further before the biting point engages to change gear.  I almost feel like it might not change gear but it will at the  very last point.   This can last for about 5-10mins before the clutch returns to normal (i.e. the clutch has more resistance and requires the usual effort to press it rather than zero effort).      

 

This cycle repeats itself daily.  So, I have been hesitant to 'put the foot down' (not to race, but just push on and get from A to B ).   

 

Any ideas or experience of similar conditions from you knowledgeable bunch 😜?

 

Advice greatly appreciated.

[J.R.]

Yes, the beginning of my clutch sagas which happened on the spirited return journey from a remap, I had a master cylinder full of schmoo and ultimately had to replace the concentric slave cylinder which was allowing air in but not leaking fluid.

 

So a couple of faults and the heat generated from the DPF was definitely causing problems with the former.

 

I even took to hooking up the computer to VCDS to see the DPF temperature and was surprised how high it got when giving it the beans and how quickly it rose, it could be that the stock VAG 170hp engine had a different set up to cope with the heat, it certainly had a bigger turbo, mine was the 108hp engine remapped to allegedly 184hp, probably 170hp.

[steveo1]

12 hours ago, J.R. said:

Yes, the beginning of my clutch sagas which happened on the spirited return journey from a remap, I had a master cylinder full of schmoo and ultimately had to replace the concentric slave cylinder which was allowing air in but not leaking fluid.

 

So a couple of faults and the heat generated from the DPF was definitely causing problems with the former.

 

I even took to hooking up the computer to VCDS to see the DPF temperature and was surprised how high it got when giving it the beans and how quickly it rose, it could be that the stock VAG 170hp engine had a different set up to cope with the heat, it certainly had a bigger turbo, mine was the 108hp engine remapped to allegedly 184hp, probably 170hp.

Sorry, I haven't a Scooby-Doo what you are talking about mate 😕   You reckon a new slave cylinder might rectify the issue?

[bmbmdmb]

Slave cylinder on clutch - mine went and started leaking brake fluid through bottom of bell housing. Check your brake fluid reservoir - it is shared with the clutch. First sign was the clutch pedal stuck down. If air in cable it will feel spongy, hard to change gear, change in biting point.

 

They are fairly delicate. Have a read about bleeding clutch cable and installation. Easy to damage a new slave cylinder.

 

It is almost as much work to access slave cylinder as fit new clutch, flywheel, so I got a new clutch, dual mass flywheel. 

[steveo1]

Replying to my thread here to say that I needed a new clutch and flywheel kit "ZMS MODUL CLUTCH KIT" - to be exact.  

Wasn't cheap £512 +vat! then labour on top.    

 

So, the original clutch made it to 250,000 miles - I'm pleased with that!   Here's to another 250k!

 

Thanks for your advice @bmbmdmb

 

P.S. I also needed a new EGR cooler pipe @ £115+vat...   That would explain why the cabin often smelt like fumes when the car was stationary 🙄