This has been going on for awhile but recently seems to be getting worse.

When going slow especially up slight hills or under any sort of power at all and I push the clutch in there is a horrible noise like the tranny is about to fall out of the car. It's a big CLUNK sound. It happens on flat ground SOMETIMES but never quite as loud. When sitting idle I can push it in and out and I can definitely hear and feel it engaging a little bit but nothing alarming. The sound however when it does clunk is making me really nervous. And it's damn embarrassing.

i bought the car with 26k miles and from day 1 I would rev Match (best I could) while downshifting and try to punch it. The clutch would not engage enough to throw me back like my 2009 6mt sedan would that had 45k miles. So I assume the idiot before me returned the lease because they never learned to drive a stick shift.

Point I'm getting at is do other 6MT sedans make these noises? It it were a constant thing that did it always I wouldn't care as much. I am under warranty for another 90k miles but a clutch is a wear item so they might tell me to stuff it. Even though a clutch burned up st 30k miles is absurd. Any advice or help?

A note is that it did this before and after my Z1 tranny mount was installed. Can't say if it improved or not since.

 

It is normal and nothing to worry about.

Our cars use a dual mass flywheel and when it is under a load the spring between the two masses is compressed. IF the clutch is pushed in while under load, the spring unloads and returns to the middle position and we hear a rattle.

Note the springs around the outer edge:

 

ok thank you. it does it when coasting down a slight hill like exiting a taller parking lot. I push the clutch in to move to neutral and it goes CLUNK. and super bad when going up hill into my condo and there is a speed bump at the top. even worse..... most of the other time it is quiet so the lack of consistency made me nervous. I appreciate the help/info.

 

I also experience this when the car is under load, especially in lower gears. I usually just time my shifts by feeling when the car is not accelerating/decelerating.

 

not sure i'd call the OP's symptoms normal. my 6MT sedan, while not the quietest or smoothest, does not make any loud clunking sound shifting in to neutral. that seems odd. rattling and a bit of chattering, sure. but no clunking, bumping, grinding, etc.

 

it's not all the time. if it were I'd be a bit more ok with it. but it's literally sounding like something is falling out the bottom....... but again only when going up or down a hill under some sort of load. when just coasting on a flat surface or even parked sitting there and I push in the clutch I can hear a faint sound almost like a click but nowhere near enough to make me worry. I had a 2009 6MT sedan for about a month this year and it also made a little noise like this but not much. it also seemed to have a lot more "bite" and much less slippage when rev matching on a downshift. not sure that's relevant or not.....

 

My 7at does this from time to time as well in the same situations you describe.

Had a real hard bang that felt like the rear axle had a chain wrapped around it for a moment.

 

The trick to smooth shifting is to do it when the trans is not loaded. That is, no acceleration or deceleration is occurring. It's a matter of timing it right with the throttle before disengaging the clutch. Otherwise it's a shock to the driveline and clunkiness will result.