None of my previous cars have ever needed the clutch serviced, so I might be mis-diagnosing the problem. But I do think my clutch is slipping already. The car is only a few months old and it's never been launched hard. It's 100% stock with a wideband installed. However, my driveway is on a pretty steep slope, so I often smell some clutch burn when pulling out in the morning.... or I stall trying to avoid it.

So here's what's happening. Before, when I was cruising at any speed in any gear and I quickly stabbed the gas pedal any significant amount (anywhere from ~1" to WOT), I'd get a smooth rise in revs proportional to the rise in velocity. Pretty normal.

As of a few days ago, when I give a quick stab in any gear, the RPMS spike up about 1k RPM, the car pulls forward really hard, then everything settles down. Is this a slipping clutch, or something else funky with the drive-by-wire-system?

I've attached a log of a WOT 4th gear pull starting from ~3k RPM roll and the graph. You can see the revs jump as soon as the TPS peaks. Is this clutch slip or could it be something else? I'd be really surprised if the clutch is going out after just over 4k miles!

 

sure sounds like clutch slip. if this is true, then you suck at driving a manual

or you could be another "western_man" with a leaking input shaft, leaking to the flywheel...but then that's more severe and a lot more noticeable.

 

It sounds like one, I was in the same situation but in my case it was my fault, (went from a Jeep Wrangler to an Evo)... Your best bet is taking it to a dealership and have them swap it out, you're covered until 12,000 miles

 

*shrug* I dunno, it's not my first manual, nor my first manual mitsubishi. my last car was a ralliart. Not awd and not turbo, but +5 years and the clutch never had any problems.... with over 100 1/4 miles passes to boot. The evo seems to want to bog like crazy when starting on an uphill slope!

 

to your credit, a lot of people say the evo's stock clutch is "delicate" and is not to be abused or used inappropriately (riding the clutch included). so it does take more pedal control than your usual run-of-the-mill clutch. as long as your car is stock, you can get your clutch replaced as part of your powertrain warranty. they'll probably give you the bs that it's a wear-and-tear part, but it's not supposed to fail prematurely either.

 

Parts are cover for defect, not abuse or driving the car on the steep incline while feathering the clutch.

What i guess happen is just that. You probably kill it going up your parking spot. Sorry.

 

I wouldn't say I feather it. I usually hold revs at about 4k-4.5k with ebrake on, and let the clutch out as fast as i can without shocking the engine while letting the ebrake off. If I start with the revs any lower, it'll bog and stall 100% of the time. If I rev any higher, I smell clutch for the next 5 miles. Once I'm moving, I feed it more gas to keep it from bogging and try to keep RPMs over 3k. Sometimes the revs dive until the car is about to stall (even at WOT), then I just clutch in, drift back, and try again. The slope is one of the reasons I wanted an evo: my old car didn't have enough front wheel traction to make it out a lot of times

To make it worse, the road the driveway empties out on is fairly busy, 45mph, right after a blind bend. So as soon as the car gets to a stable speed, I usually have to stop at the top (still on a ~45degree incline) and do it again when traffic clears.

I don't think you could argue that it's abuse or normal wear, since I was able to do the same exact thing for over 2 years in this house with my old ralliart, which already had years of wear on it. And in a lot of parts of the country, situations like this are very normal.

 

... why do you use the e-brake on a hill, especially if you have driven a manual before? How steep is this driveway were talking about? Something that steep and im suprised you can drive down it without bottoming out... Try and take it in for warranty and see what they say, hopefully it will all be covered. Good luck with it.

 

about 45-50 degrees. I've always used the ebrake on hills if its steep enough to cause you to roll backwards when shifting from brake pedal to clutch pedal. Otherwise, when you're trying to engage, the trans has to overcome that backward movement first. Puts more wear on the clutch. Is there an advantage to not doing that?

The evo sits high enough that it wont bottom out. My ralliart was lowered and I had to revert the suspension to stock when I moved to this house. No lowering the evo for me until I move

BTW, my grandmother lives in Verona. Thats where I learned to drive stick back in the day

 

No, i bet the ebrake helps save some life on the friction surface, but its just something I never really thought of. My stock clutch went on me when I did the turbo upgrade, and I have beat the sh*t out of my twin disc and its taken every bit of it. Hopefully they will swap it out for you under warranty, but im sure you know as well as all of us, they are real jerks sometimes. Anyways, good luck with it and post back what they say.

 

take it as constructive criticism, but by that statement alone, i can safely say that you are horrible at driving a manual. i know it's a bit more tricky when you try to drive up a hill, but the key is not holding the e-brake and launching your car - that's what you do when it's your first time driving a manual car, which you're not. you really need to take more notes on how your clutch works, what's the threshold before its fully engaged, at what part of engagement your rpms fall quickly, how to recover from it, etc.

sorry to do this to you, but you need more practice. as a pointer, find a place with no cars that has a small incline. start at the bottom just before the incline, and then raise the rpm up to 3k. slowly engage the clutch, and make notes on how it reacts as it climbs up the hill. it will wear your clutch a bit as you learn, but once you have a good idea of the clutch's characteristics, you can launch from a steep incline without using the e-brake or riding your clutch at all. good luck

as a side note: i'm quite surprised at how long your old ra's clutch lasted with the way you're driving. but remember, you were driving a lighter car. you probably don't notice it, but it does take less torque to move the old ra, where it takes more for the heavier evo x, which will contribute to your clutch wear. burning your clutch at 5k+ is never ever a good idea.

 

Holy. Shat.

 

My clutch started slipping only after 8K miles + ~380 whp and lots of abuse.

 

yea so basically you launch every second of ur life

 

Hopefully warranty will cover this. From the sounds of it you fried it. You need to learn how to feather the clutch out at a lower RPM to climb that hill.