I recently took off for a 12 hour trip through some remote areas. Before leaving I had the oil changed and tires rotated on my good ol’ 96 Nissan pickup truck. The day after having these jobs done I heard a growling noise, but wasn’t sure where it was coming from. I took the truck to my mechanic and left it with him for a couple of days. He couldn’t hear the noise, and found nothing wrong. He assured me that my truck was up for the trip. We made it to our destination just fine, spent a glorious week kayaking and biking, then headed home. Long story short–air conditioning quit, dash lights came on, lost power, and the engine overheated. Three hours on the side of the road is great fun–not! My brother-in-law rescued me, hauled the truck to his home, loaned me a car to finish the trip, and said he would haul the truck home for me this weekend. Today out of curiousity he decided to take a look, and discovered that it had thrown a fan belt, but the aluminum head does not seem to be warped. But, he said the growling noise I heard is the “throw out bearing” --part of the clutch. The clutch was replaced last summer, by the same mechanic who checked the truck and pronounced it travel-worthy. Would the throw out bearing have been part of what was replaced last year? Should I have to pay to have it fixed now? Is it time to find a new mechanic???
Replacing the throw-out bearing is an absolute MUST when replacing the clutch assembly. The pilot bearing in the flywheel should also be replaced at the same time.
I don’t know if you have a case or not. Check the receipt and see if you were billed for a TO bearing. If it is billed as a “clutch set” then find out who provided it and if a new TO bearing came with it. Normally they do.
If the disc and pressure plate are billed separately, then the TO bearing may have been omitted. A no-no.
If omitted, then a new mechanic for sure.
Any mechanic who doesn’t replace the throw-out bearing (BTW Nissan calls it a thrust bearing) has no idea what he’s doing. It sees a lot of wear and it’s just a little bit extra compared to what it’s going to cost to replace it now.
Here’s a simple test to tell if it’s the throw-out bearing or the input shaft bearing. If the noise happens when you PRESS the clutch…it’s the throw-out bearing. If the noise is there when the clutch is released it’s the input-shaft bearing.
Thanks, guys. You have given me vocabulary to use when I talk to the mechanic. I got the “pat the silly woman on the head and send her on her way” act when I took the truck in before my trip because I was hearing an unusual noise that they couldn’t find. I have a new mechanic lined up.
The throw out bearing and the fan belt are two completely different things and not connected in any way. The only time you would hear a throw out bearing making noise is when the clutch pedal is depressed. Anytime you foot is off the clutch, the throw out bearing is out of the circuit, so to speak.
If you hear a noise under other conditions and then you throw a fan belt, then I’d suspect the idler pulley bearing was bad. That has nothing to do with the clutch. Sometimes when these are going bad, they only make noise intermittently. Its usually worse after extended periods of driving, like on a trip. If you took it to the mechanic after only a short trip, it probably wasn’t making any noise and you would get the “pat on the head” regardless of your sex. Bear in mind that most mechanics are slightly deaf, its an occupational hazard. Shops are noisy.