My father gave my daughter his one owner 50k Corolla. The clutch seemed to be slipping so my local gas station mechanic replaced it. She drove to Chicago from St. Paul, and soon felt that the clutch was slipping again. She took it to a chicago Toyota dealership. They said the clutch needs replacement. They did the job and now a few days later the clutch feels like it is slipping again. What is the cause?
There’s not enough info known about how the clutch job was performed to know what is going on.
If the disc only was replaced then a weak used pressure plate could be killing the new disc.
A warped flywheel can also kill a new clutch disc.
An out of adjustment clutch (too tight) can cause a new clutch to slip.
Questions though. Did your father have any clutch issues with this car and did these clutch issues only surface after your daughter started driving it?
If so, it’s possible that her driving habits could be killing the clutch. Aggressive driving, driving around with a foot resting on the clutch pedal or riding it, etc, can kill a clutch pretty quickly.
Fifty thousand miles is a bit young for clutch failure and if the clutch jobs were done properly I’d tend to think your daughter may be the reason the clutch is dying.
Many years ago, I had a similar situation with a Triumph TR-3…It turned out to be a pin-hole leak in the transmission case allowing oil to slowly seep into the clutch. We concentrated on the mainshaft bearing and seal, but that was not the source of the oil leak…The amount of oil was small, and was overlooked as the reason for the repeated clutch failures…
<font type="Times" color="Green""An out of adjustment clutch (too tight) can cause a new clutch to slip." — ok4550
That is what I think it is. Does the pedal have 1" to 2" free play before clutch pressure takes hold? If not, the clutch linkage should be adjusted to add a little free play to the system. That is not difficult to do.
I assume this is a hydraulic clutch? Is it self-adjusting? I wonder if the self-adjusting mechanism took out too much slack in the system. I think the self-adjusting mechanism can be reset to its initial default position by a method given in the owner’s manual.
Hydraulic clutches seldom have mechanical adjustments…The master and slave cylinders are designed to compensate for wear…
True enough, but the OP did not mention the year of the car. A random look at the clutch MC on say an '05 model shows the MC has an adjustable pushrod.