I didn't really gettin drive it like that. I had the guys at the dealer bring it to my job (I work at a quick lube place) nd I just drove it in nd looked under it for any leaks or anomalies. driving it in, the clutch felt fine. it again, it smelled like something was kind of burning. but I bought it any ways cause it still under warranty nd I figured I could have Infiniti fix it if needed. or I have 5 days to return the car if I don't like it (bough it from herb chambers). oh and the car has 35k on it. idk, after reading these post, I'm paranoid like crazy.

 

Mine had 55k but mind the fact that almost 12k of that was from tracking my car for a whole year and my clutch still feels pretty stable. I guess I got a good 08 tranny =). Only thing that bothers me is the clunk that I get when shifting from 1st to 2nd gear at 3k rpm. It normally doesn't happen above 3500 and below 3k. So I tend to just start in 1st till the car barely get moving which is like 1500 rpm and shift to 2nd. Haven't had that clunk ever since then.

 

I am a novice manual driver, this is my 2nd manual car. the first one I didn't have for very long but I loved it. it's was a 94' 3000gt with 225k on it. from what I've on the g35 driver forum, this guy was saying of u know how to drive manual correctly, u never have to change the clutch for the life of the tranny? this true?

 

So not true. It doesn't matter if you are a race car driver. The clutch goes bad not matter what. Why is that? It is because the clutch are like gears to a clock (those 1970-80's clock) where it sad those turning gears, and those turning gears wear out over time. Most of the time it is the clutch, but there are time where it is the actual gear it self that goes bad to which can be very costly.

I would have to write a 10 page essay if I told you what the gear was like but here is a picture of what a car gearing looks like. Keep in mind that they are not all the same.

 

a customer came into our store with his car (a Toyota Camry, I think) with well over 200k on it. unless he was lying, he said he had never replaced the clutch nd he is the original owner. that was the 1st I ever heard of a clutch lasting that long, I didn't know what to make of him. haha

 

I wonder who has the highest mileage on their stock clutch

 

I think a better analogy would be to compare the clutch friction disk to brake pads. If you drive in stop and go traffic, they wear out faster. Same with the clutch.

Example:

Car A, 60K miles, driven entirely in city traffic, stop and go, little if any highway, lots of gear shifting.

Car B, also 60K miles, driven in rural areas, mostly highway speeds (55 mph), much less shifting.

If you were to disassemble and measure the thickness of both car's friction disks, car b's will be considerably thicker. Driving style plays a role too. If you slip the clutch excessively, often, you will get that burning smell and will wear out sooner.

I sold my last car with ~85K miles on it, (late 90's z28 6spd). It still had the original clutch, and the way I drove it, would probably not need to be replaced for some time. I don't launch hard, never dumped the clutch. I'll typically wait until i'm already moving/clutch fully engaged before getting on the throttle.

Some years back, at ~45K miles, I figured it was time to do the clutch on the bike. Ordered all new steel & friction plates. Disassembled and took a measurement. The existing plates were ~65-70% thickness of the new plates. Talk about wasting $300 on an unneeded clutch parts.

Edit, to answer the question, I do believe it's possible to go 100K miles on an OE clutch, but many factors need to be considered.

 

There are tons of actors that go into how frequently a clutch needs to be replaced. In my old Stanza I never replaced it in 200K+ miles. But that car only had 155 hp to deal with. This car has double that. Also most of those miles were cruising on the highway. Nobody can say that a car should never have to have the clutch replaced. But it probably shouldn't go out at 60K miles unless it's inadequate, under very harsh conditions, or it's been abused.

Clutch fluid will NOT last the life of the car, just like brake fluid. DOT 3 or 4 like we use in our systems is hygrophobic and absorbs water which is bad. It needs to be changed periodically even if it's not discolored or subjected to severe use.

 

Hey Everyone, I am new to this forum.. but I joined after reading these posts. This is what happened to me this past weekend:

Driving on the highway on my way to the airport on Thursday April 19th, I was getting off a ramp on Florida's Turnpike. I needed to slow down to take a toll. I reached to press the clutch and change to a lower gear when I noticed the clutch pedal was completely stuck against the back. I panicked initially, tried repeatedly to pump the clutch to try to get the pedal functioning. Nothing was working.

This is a busy intersection of traffic, the main highway to Orlando International Airport. The car was on neutral cruising, I had nothing left to do but to keep rolling. This ramp has an upward slope, my only hope was to get to the top of the ramp so that I could safely stop. Traffic around me was traveling at 50 MPH. This did not happen. My car began slowing down due to gravity and the upward hill, quickly a truck pulled in behind me without slowing. My G37S started rolling backwards, and the only way I could save myself from an impending collision was to quickly turn the wheel hard right, and let gravity pull the car backwards to get out of the lane. All in time before the truck could hit me.

My car has less than 35k

 

It's hard to think of these things on the fly in an emergency situation, but in the future you might simply brake to a stop and set your parking brake to keep you from rolling backward. Stopping in the middle of the street is safer than rolling backward because your slave cylinder gave up.

Glad you were OK and didn't crash.

 

When the CSC fails, does it leave the clutch engaged or disengaged?

If engaged and the car is in gear, it's still possible to take it out of gear by using the throttle. The trick is to find that sweet spot where the trans is neither loaded (on the throttle) or unloaded (off the throttle). When at that point, the shifter will glide out of gear like it does when the clutch is fully disengaged. This is the same thing you do when shifting clutchless (not recommended), but instead of going up or down a gear, the aim is for neutral.

If failure of the csc leaves the clutch disengaged, then the above is clearly not necessary

Did they improve the csc's at all on future models or it's still highly susceptible to failure?

 

If you are driving when it happens, typically you will be in gear and press the pedal to the floor while trying to change gears and find out it's shot.

It is really easy to pop the transmission out of gear without using the pedal to disengage the clutch. I don't know if people just don't know this or simply can't do it in a panic situation. This transmission is easy to shift to any gear (except 5th and 6th) without using the clutch if you simply have the engine RPM at the correct point. Truck drivers or former truck drivers will know this as they usually float the gears and don't typically clutch at all except when starting in 1st gear.

 

does this clutch/cylinder issue only effect the 08' models or are all g's at risk for this?

 

All G37 and 370z are at risk. Nissan never revised the design of the slave cylinder.

 

dang, that sucks on nissan's part. so when they replace a bad cylinder, what's to keep it from going just as quickly again or do they do something different? is it a bad design or a bad part? sorry if im asking too many q's.