I recently purchased a 99 volvo s70 t5 w/ manual transmission, and every time i engage the clutch there is a single chirp that comes from underneath the car. It is difficult to tell exactly where the noise is coming from, except that it is coming from underneath the car. The single chirp also happens when i begin to accelerate or let my foot off the gas. I have tested the clutch by putting the car in fifth gear and pulling the parking break and trying to drive…the car stalled. i was wondering what could be causing the noise. i am hoping that the clutch isn’t going bad because the kit for this car is about $500. thanks for any advice.
Does the car have to be moving for this noise to occur? With the car stopped, transmission in neutral, if you step on the clutch pedal, will it chirp then?
no the car only chirps when engaging the clutch, not when depressing the pedal as when i cut the car on, or when i let the clutch out after placing the transmission in neutral. i forgot to mention that this seems to happen more in the lower gears than in the higher ones, so i’m not sure if thats because of the greater amount of torque generated in the lower gears, but because its not constant throughout accelerateion it doesn’t really seem like a slipping clutch. the car is not all wheel drive.
I think you have a bad throwout bearing. While there you should replace the clutch anyway.
I’ll second the throwout bearing. When they start chirping they usually get worse with time and use.
I’m not so quick to blame the throwout bearing. A bad throwout bearing should make the noise even when engaging and disengaging the clutch in neutral. If I understand you correctly, yours does not. It’s possible that someone at one time taught a newbie hpw to drive using this vehicle and you have some glaze on one of the frictional services.
I taught both my kids how to drive on my old pickup, and one of them sort of smoked the clutch surface…leaving me with an intermittant chirp (and an odor in my nose). 200,000 miles later when the clutch finally wore out (I got 295,000 out of the clutch…I’m proud of that) and I changed it, the glaze was there and some nice purply tint to the flywheel surface.
Personally, I’d keep running it. If it is the throwout bearing it’ll get noisier as time passes until it makes noise when engagin and disengaging the clutch in neutral. You can change it at that time. It won’t suddenly fail and create a dangerous situation.