Good morning. I’m Saul Reisman and today we’re gonna take a look at a Mazda here at Saul’s Automotive. Now, Mazda products seem to come in here fairly often, along with many Ford motor vehicle products, as a result of transmission and clutch wear items.
In the case of this 2005 Mazda 6, V-6, front-wheel drive vehicle, the factory clutch made it to 84,000 miles. Not too appealing for most owners. The reason we’re going to be showing you a little bit about this is we want you to understand the time involved with this repair.
When Ford produced this vehicle, they built the motor. They built the transmission. They bolted ‘em together. They then took that motor and transmission and they bolted it to this sub-frame that we effectively call the cradle. They bolted the suspension onto it. They put some knuckles on it. They put some steering components on it. They built everything together for it. That 15-hundred-pound assembly that moves, starts, stops and turns all on its own is then bolted up underneath the vehicle, the body slammed on like a clamshell, a few nuts and bolts added to hold everything together, and that’s all there is to it.
When this vehicle comes in and the clutch disc is worn out, like the case of this incredibly super-heated one that we have here in front of us, the disparity of this color tells us just how hot this clutch disc got. For us to remove it, we must mount a crane to the vehicle from above to hold the engine, then use jacks from below to support the motor as well, then remove the sub-frame, which in and of itself is a 300-pound component. At that point, we can lower the transmission and motor together on an angle to slide the transmission out of the vehicle. Once it’s out, we can then service the clutch, the flywheel, the pilot bearing, the throwout bearing and all of the internal components.
Because of the labor involved, this is a major, major repair. It can be exorbitantly expensive and is often-time what will force an owner to make the decision about selling their car. Please be preventative with these repairs. The design of a clutch repair is to replace everything in the housing. Pilot, throwout, plate, disc, everything that moves, so that we do not have to come back again.
In the case of this owner, the clutch componentry failed, and it was a 12-hundred-dollar labor job.
Well, for many owners, this may be the time in which they decide whether to repair or sell their vehicle. In the case of this vehicle, where it was a 12-hundred-dollar labor job to access the components inside to be replaced, we, of course, replaced every internal component. And if you have any concerns about the clutch disc or wear in your vehicle, before it gets to that point, please come and see us. We offer free diagnostics and we have a lab scope, so that we can physically reach inside the bell housing without removing any components, so we can look inside, measure the thickness of the clutch material still left in the vehicle and tell you exactly how much time is left on yours and how to best plan for this repair.
In the case of this Mazda, that’s something that we should see 80- to 100-thousand miles out of life out of. In the case of some luxury and exotic cars, where clutch life is measured in tens of thousands of miles, rather than hundreds, this is something that needs to be done often and possibly at every oil change.
Again, here at Saul’s Automotive, we offer that as a free service and are more than happy to check the clutch depth and pad life on your car. Please give us a call at 303-919-7769.
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