Fortunately for me, I just bought the car 2 months ago w/ 20k miles on it so it was still under warranty. I actually have to take a second to give props to the customer service at Jim Coleman of Bethesda, MD...called inifiniti road side assistance...tow truck took it back to the dealership and they gave me a courtesy car for today. Car will be ready tomorrow. They have to replace the master cylinder and the slave cylinder & hose. But for all those who may get some enlightenment from this..here is what it felt like:

Tried reversing and was having a hard time because the clutch lost all pressure. 1 minute later the clutch went to the ground and would not come back up. I rolled to the side of the road and opened the hood. All of the clutch fluid was gone. Went to the gas station, bought fluid and put about half a bottle in the car. Pumped the clutch about a million times...it started getting pressure back but then I tried putting it in gear and pushing the break made the clutch go completely flat again. Eventually I finally saw the break fluid leaking out on the right side of the car.

I'm definitely considering extending my factory warranty after the 60k mile one is up in a few years....was a PITA, but hey at least I didn't have to shell out any money.

 

I'm confused, what do the brakes have to do with the clutch. They are two completely separate systems. I assume you mean it was leaking around the front middle of the car (near where the bell housing is).

Now, as I understand it, to get at the csc, the bell housing has to come off, which means the clutch, pressure plate, pilot bearing, throwout bearings are all accessible. Since all this labor is required to get at the csc, it's well worthwhile to have the tech mic the clutch disk and replace the clutch if it's worn more than say 50%. In fact, if it were me, I'd probably take this opportunity to install a better clutch and a heavy duty csc. The only problem with this is that they may not offer any warranty on the replacement parts as they're not OE.

 

They share the same fluid reservoir I believe...the leak was just to the left of the front right tire....I agree about upgrading parts... I would get the stainless steel csc & hose, but since it is still under warranty I'm just going to let them do everything for now. If it goes up again after I get past the 60k mile warranty, I'll definitely upgrade to the better parts.

 

No way. If you pop your hood there's 2 separate reservoirs. They would never be a shared system as brakes are a necessary safety system. You can drive (albeit very poorly) with a busted clutch, but if you have no brakes you'll crash

 

Brakes have nothing to do with the clutch. They have two separate reservoirs and share nothing together. Chances are whatever pressure you generated pumping the clutch pedal leaked out while you were stepping on the brakes. The CSC is busted, warranty will take care of it.

 

In some cars the brake and clutch do share reservoirs, but definitely not in the G.

 

It has nothing to do with the brakes. The brake system and the clutch system are comoletely separate but both have their own master cylinder. They are side by side in the engine bay.

And if you were to replace any parts with aftermarket ones, yes you will lose warranty coverage on the entire transmission/clutch system.

 

o yeah duh ...what am i thinkin...now that i'm thinking about it, the brake fluid was still full and the clutch fluid was completely gone. i don't know why pushing the brake and trying to shift made it go flat again..either way end problem was the master & slave cylinders + the leak in the hose

 

i'm just happy for once in my life something was covered under a warranty!! LOL

 

My G's a 7 speed auto so I don't know firsthand, however my 300z in the day was a manual and the CSC was easily accessible externally-no tranny/bell housing removal required.

 

@Modme Is that so? I thought they were never combined for the aforementioned safety reasons. Maybe in older cars?

@BB Good point about the warranty. Not worth invalidating it at this point unless the op wants full responsibility for potential future failures. After rereading I see the car only has 20K, so lots of warranty still remaining (esp on the drive train which is good for 6yr/70Kmi.

 

Actually, as long as the entryway for the clutch setup was up higher in the reservoir than where the brake reservoir was, it would be fine. A lot of manufacturers have the reservoir setup so they do share the same reservoir, but they put where the tube leading off to the clutch higher in the reservoir, so that if it does leak, you still have enough fluid for the brakes. You just wouldn't have hydraulics for clutch. I believe a lot of Ford vehicles have a shared reservoir.

 

My 2000 Lotus Exige has this setup for the clutch fluid reservoir. Lotus has a long history of doing two jobs with one part...part of their "add lightness" philosophy.

 

Hopefully this is the one and only time you have to do this... ive gotten my mc and sc replaced 6 times and then i had to change the whole clutch which i had to pay for out of my pocket because it was a wear and tear item like the brakes and infiniti wouldn't cover it

 

I hope so too...Sadly I've heard that a lot about this car :/ ....The g35s and 350zs never had problems...what the hell did infiniti do to these models!!