millardmt

Hello to all of you dear people (and the rest of you too),

I need some advice but first I need to define the problem. I found another thread entitled "Clutch chatter" [https://www.scionlife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175316&highlight=chattering] but, to my astonishment, there didn't seem to be anything like 100% agreement about what that phrase means. After 40+ cars, I feel silly saying this, but 'clutch chatter' refers to any failure of the respective surfaces of the clutch disk and/or pressure plate to smoothly slip against one another until full engagement occurs. The purpose of a clutch of course is to mediate the load upon the transmission's mainshaft until, in the judgment of the driver, it is appropriate to effectively 'lock' the clutch components - and therefore the powertrain - together.

Sorry to repeat the painfully obvious, but I read where people are accusing the throw-out bearing, and all sorts of other peripheral hardware, as being at the root of so-called 'clutch chatter' which is, of course, nonsense.
"Chatter" involves overload, weak springs/diaphragm (or other structural failure), heat distortion or other aberrations in the mating surfaces, and/or oil contamination. Period.

Anyway, here's a bit of history. I bought my silver xB very late in the year, and there were more than 300 miles showing on the clock. Although the vehicle looked perfect, I was certain that the miles had been put on by the boss, an employee or, worse, a sibling thereof (any of whom might very well have beat the cr$p out of the manual transmission and/or clutch).

I haggled and got $600 off.

Things have been fine since. Since I'm an old fart in a mid-western state I hate, I don't drive much, and my total mileage is still only 5,635. I always drive very fast everywhere BUT I never slip the clutch. I gently engage the clutch fully and THEN I floor it.

All of which brings me to my point. Depressing the OEM clutch has been amazingly effortless since I bought the car - suspiciously so. (But there has been no slippage.) During the last few weeks however - which have been in the 50 to 90 degree range - my clutch has started to "chatter" about every third morning, that is, when I engage first gear and start to feather the clutch. (The chattering is vaguely audible but it manifests very tangibly as a rapid modulation felt through the pedal.) After that, clutch engagement throughout the day is uneventful.

I called my dealership who - quite reasonably - requests that I leave my car over night so that they might try to replicate the problem when the car is nice and cold. At this point, however, I deeply suspect that I could bring it in 100 times to the dealer without the problem showing itself.

I know the only advice you can give me is to wait until the problem worsens to the point where any driver can feel it. What I do request is for one or more of you who has experienced this problem to try and predict how quickly my clutch problem will likely deteriorate. A month - a year?

I know now why you forced induction folks always upgrade your clutches.

Thanks very much, Marc