New Clutch

[Blue-S]

Originally Posted by rick3000

Thanks, I am going to take it by my dads mechanic and see what he thinks. I don't think my driving style is wearing it out too quickly, I don't sit at red lights with the clutch pushed in and 99% of my shifting is smooth, however I can't account for the 17k miles the previous owner put on the clutch.
Right now it drives fine, but the clutch pedal is very stiff. And I have a feeling if it is slightly slipping I may not notice because I am used to it. I am planning an 800+ mile road trip at the end of August, so I would rather be save than sorry.

I bought my 2000 Boxster S in January of 2009 with 65k miles on the odometer. The car had been to the dealer just before the sale, and the repair order had noted that the clutch pedal was heavy. I didn't get around to replacing the clutch until about 6 weeks ago, at over 67,000 miles. It's just a weekend/fun car, so I put few miles on it.

The clutch pedal started out stiff when I purchased the car and became stiffer with more use. The engagement point became somewhat erratic, and the amount of travel it took to engage the clutch (but NOT the clutch pedal travel) became shorter, which made the car progressively harder and harder to drive smoothly. Eventually, the engagement became so quick that I would occasionally stall the car when pulling away from stops. I never did detect any slip.

The new clutch is a night-and-day difference. The engagement is very smooth and progressive, due mostly to the fact that there is now a pretty long pedal travel distance between initial clutch bite and full engagement. The clutch can now be slipped and modulated when engaging like any other normal manual transmission clutch. I'm much happier driving the car now! Prior to the clutch replacement, It was getting to the point that I didn't like driving my Boxster because of the hair-trigger clutch engagement. I'm glad that I didn't wait for the clutch to begin obviously slipping before replacement.

BTW -- I bought my Sachs clutch kit from Gripforce Clutches via Ebay. It appeared to be a legit Sachs kit as opposed to a counterfeit. I did the work myself, so my total cash outlay (including some clutch fork parts) was around $400.