Can A Slipping Clutch Cure Itself

[Turbo7379 3]

Last week I was doing some gardening work for a relative. I had cut a mountain of stuff out of her overgrown garden & I had to reverse a trailer up her steep twisty gravel avenue to lift it. This involved a lot of maneuvering & riding the clutch - lady was impressed as no-one in over 40 years of her living there had been able to back a trailer right up to the front of her house! She thought I was a God when I did it a second time!

 

Unfortunately this took its toll on my clutch as I could smell it afterwards. It started slipping on the way home & for the next few days. Last Saturday I took a few mates to a race meeting 100 miles away. Clutch was still slipping on the way down but on the way home it was ok & hasn't slipped since!

 

Can anyone explain this? My thinking is maybe I overheated the friction plate & glazed it. Then the long drive has worn the glazing off, giving it better grip.

 

I'm not sure what to do now. I have to remove the shafts to fit new diff seals & a new bottom engine mount but it's a lot more work to take off the gearbox to check the clutch but . I'm heading away to a rally in 3 weeks which is a 400 mile drive away & I don't want the clutch giving up then. Any suggestions?

 

BTW this was on my 406 HDI daily driver. Sorry for posting on a 205 forum but a clutch is still a clutch.

[johnnyboy666 195 1 Cars]

my clutch was slipping in my Gt for about 6 months and didnt seem to get any worse, pain in the arse though as I had to drive sensibly everywhere to avoid it slipping.

Im assuming if its 400 miles then it'll be mostly motorway? If so you can avoid straining the clutch for most of the journey

[Anthony 1,000]

Sounds plausible - certainly I've had a clutch completely lacking bite (but didn't obviously slip) after it got very hot, and that reverted back to normal after a day or two.

 

If you've a 400 odd mile journey, it might be worth going for a drive and deliberately drive in situations that will show a slipping clutch - high gears under full load up hill, that sort of thing - and if it doesn't slip even in that situation then I'm sure that it'll be fine.

[Turbo7379 3]

I had to drive sensibly everywhere to avoid it slipping

I had to do the same - not easy in a torquey diesel. Mind you I gained 4mpg in economy!

 

deliberately drive in situations that will show a slipping clutch - high gears under full load up hill

Already tried that, no slippage! I might try the trailer on again, that will confirm it's ok.

 

TBH I was sure the clutch was done. I have done quite a lot of towing with the car & the previous owner was a caravaner, so I have been expecting it to go for ages.

[C_W 3 1 Cars]

If it's been slipped a lot and overheated it can come back to normal after a while I would also agree that the clutch can recover from perhaps an overheated glazed on the plate and flywheel. I had an A3 TDI which drove fine but when I had it remapped the clutch slipped like mad if you lightly touched the throttle in 4thgear or higher at low revs. The engine was partially mapped on the road so I reckon the guy doing it was not very nice to the clutch. A month or so later it settled back down and was fine.