Over the last 200 miles of so, my '01 has developed a squeak when I depress the clutch pedal. Initially I thought perhaps the pedal needed to be greased, but I am thinking there's something wrong with the clutch master cylinder. To me, it almost feels like the rod in the cylinder is scraping the wall.

Has anyone else had this issue?
Any other inputs on what it might be?

BTW the car only has 17,000 miles.

thanks,
-S

 

Yeah my '01 has this problem as well. Sounds like something needs to be lubed. I too thought it was the pedal at first, but the sound is definitely coming from outside the passenger compartment. I've seen a thread about this problem in Under the Hood, and the general consensus was it's likely not causing any damage...just annoying. Still, I may try and get a tech to poke around when I take the car in to see about getting the wear holes in the top fixed under warranty .

 

God knows what it was but mine lasted for about a month and then it was gone.

 

It may come back.
This issue seems common enough. Another local owner has this same thing. The dealer changed his slave cylinder - no joy. The noise is coming from the tranny. It might be the release fork and some people have had luck with getting rid of the noise by removing the slave cylinder and greasing the fork.
Then, for no apparent reason, the noise stopped for a few months. It's now back. I surmise that it could be a lack of lubrication on the throw out bearing spindle. It has been seen that on some cars, this spindle was poorly greased from the factory and the constant back and forth motion of this bearing pushes what grease there is to the ends of its travel. And then, in time, depending on the usage, temperature, humidity, some of the grease gets pulled back onto the spindle and the noise goes away (for a while). Will it do harm? Can't say for sure. I suppose it could eventually cause undue wear on the bearing or the spindle or both, but I thing you'll be replacing the clutch before this happens.

 

Got a solution for you...took the car in today to see if they could identify the squeak and repair my soft top under warranty. No love on the soft top, but they had no problem with the clutch noise. Turns out there was a "Service News" release in February (note: not a TSB). See the picture below...

Seems to have worked!

 

I had exactly the same symptoms. It started as an intermittant problem at about 5000 miles. The dealer greased the throwout bearing, and that fixed it. I've done another 14000 miles with no more squeaks or groans.

 

It would be great if all it took was to grease the release fork. This can be achieved without too much work. However, if the problem exists in the T.O. bearing spindle, this requires removal of the tranny and we know what all else is associated with that.

 

i'm having a problem with a sticky clutch too.......but my engagement point has also changed drastically; it is now maybe only 10% off of the floor (very low to the floor). Sometimes it feels like my clutch isn't fully disengaging the engine from the wheels as I have felt some slight grinding through the shifter when shifting from 6th into neutral). Also sometimes I have trouble engaging first or Reverse from a stop (it feels blocked) so I have to release/put in clutch and try again.......The engagement point used to be maybe 60% off of the floor (more than half way up).....is this a symptom as well or is my problem something completely different?

 

I had a creak and groan on my clutch and the problem was lack of grease between the slave cylinder "plunger looking doodad" and the fork. All you have to do is remove the slave cylinder (2 bolts) and dust boot and clean and lube the ball and socket joint where the plunger pushes the fork.

Easy fix.

I have an 00 with 50k miles.

 

I had a similar problem. The pedal squeaked and felt like it was grabbing when just barely off the floor.
Re-greasing of the release fork solved this problem for me.