Melted Throw Out Bearing
 

Just wanted to share my experience with you here in case someone else runs into this issue.

Background
This is my first full time manual car. Daily driven track oriented build I would consider my driving style moderate-aggressive. Have had 3 trackdays and two Auto-x sessions. Put on about 42,000+ miles at the point of failure in 18 months.

Symptom
Its started as a weird noise every time I pressed down the clutch. I would describe the sound as water running through copper pipping I've also heard it compared to marbles rolling around in a can. I've read about other owners her who've had the same issue but like me it would come and go.

Failure
Was at a red light and went to take off but when I released the clutch something was wrong, as the car could barely move and there was a smell of something burning. I pull over into a neighborhood and get towed to the closest Toyota dealership (FYI the Toyota road side will only tow you to a dealership/service to have your car serviced). I had to sign of on a $130 inspection fee, and the service rep assured me that if this was a warranty issue that i would not have to pay a dime. Hoped in a 35$ a day rental and was on my way to work while I waited to hear back from them. They kept me updated and let me know exactly when my car was being next in queue and when it was being expected. Then I got the call i was waiting for. Techs think its the clutch, so repairs will not be covered under warranty. They ask me to approve an $800 tear down to further troubleshoot, which would go towards the final cost of the repair which was quoted at $1600 - $2000!!!

Thanks, but no Thanks
I told them I'll need to think about that since that's alot of money to pay outta pocket. The service rep tried really hard to get me to approve the tear down, I even got a follow up call from his manager who tried to tell me all the benefits of having a Toyota service center doing the repair, they have all the experience, warranty, quality, etc. Ultimately since I'd be paying out of pocket I had to decline the service and go to an independent shop to get my repairs. I just couldn't justify dropping that kind of cash for OEM parts...

We can Rebuild, We Have the Technology
During the time when I was thinking about it, I called around to local shops to get quotes for the repair. Evasive Motorsports list a clutch labor for $400 and some of the other places I called quoted the $400-600. My mechanic fixed it for less then these places even, and they have had lots of experience working on other Subie trannies, so i felt good about going to them. I'm going to have to give him a shameless plug for fixing me up, Check out their 4.5 star Yelp reviews: HERE
I checked around an OEM replacement oddly the OEM replacement clutch kit from Exedy was a little over $600 while a Stage 1 Exedy clutch kit with LW flywhell was $400 shipped. The choice was easy, go big or go home...
When my mechanic got in there he told me that the throw out bearing was completely melted. While the clutch, pressure plate and fly wheel were completely intact. I considered leaving them installed, but he was going to charge me the same amount in labor anyways, so I had him install the full clutch kit, and going to hold onto my OEM stuff.



Take away
So the lesson I learned here was lay off the clutch! :bonk: I had a bad habit of holding down the clutch at lights and leaving the car in first, that will wear your throw out bearing prematurely. If you "ride" your clutch or do a lot of hard launches all of this will wear out your clutch and parts. If you hear the same noise, water through pipes or marbles rolling around in a can, you should take your car in to get it inspected. Maybe you'll be luckier then me and get it repaired under warranty if you catch it early enough.

Thanks for reading! :burnrubber:

How does the new clutch compare to oem?

Yep, holding down the clutch pedal wears the throw out bearing.

Great, my car has been occasionally making this noise... I haven't noticed any unusual behavior in the clutch though, so perhaps I'm good...

I really like the feel of the new clutch so far. The pedal feel is slightly heavier, and the engagement point is a little bit smaller requiring me to relearn how to drive her, but in a good way. It grips right away when releasing the clutch, which makes stalling the car easier, but I've since gotten used to it. The Revs go up and down with ease now. Both good and bad as RPM's drop off faster, but rev-matching has never been easier, the littlest blip is all I need. With that being said the car idles a little bit rougher, my gf didnt really notice, but i'm hyper sensitive to it sitting in the driver seat. The throttle response is improved quite a bit too. While the lighter FW coupled with a lw crank pulley doesnt give your car more HP, the car can use its power to do other things, like turning your axels :burnrubber:

Are you sure that's the cause? I've done that my whole life... if you need to get moving in a hurry (e.g. truck barreling down toward you), it's a few less steps you need to go through...

As this is you first manual car ( full time as you stated) it could be that you tend to ride the clutch a bit which would have a similar effect imho

I'd love to blame it on some cheap faulty part, but doesn't really matter as the clutch and throw out bearing isn't covered by warranty anyways, not sure how i would prove otherwise...

If you google search:
You can see there are a few other folks who have that same noise/rattle when they depress the clutch, and I'm sure not all of them leave the clutch depressed as I did...

Hmmm.......DARN......that's a bad break......:(

Thanks for the heads up.

Although the throw-out bearing just "works" when the clutch is disengaged ...... it is a bearing and should go round and round a lot of times ...... unless it got "dry" ...... because it was overheated by happenings around it.

Somewhere in the above paragraph is a theory .... ;)

humfrz

Thanks for giving us the heads up. When I started driving a manual, I was concerned whether or not leaving my foot on the clutch and having the car in first was an issue or not; like @CSG Mike I was inclined to do so since I felt it would save me time to start moving and demand less patience from people behind me (especially when I was just learning). Almost everything I read and people I've talked to have said that you will wear on the throw-out bearing if you do that, but that it shouldn't be too drastic of an issue. Anyone else able to chime in on this?

In this regard, considering your clutch and pressure plate intact and at only 42k miles, I'm a little surprised this wasn't under warranty. Regardless, grats on the new clutch and flywheel and thanks again for the well-documented incident.

I've seen a throwout bearing melt down just like that. It was on a high mileage car though. A friend had me look at the car because it was hard shifting, I adjusted it, and literally felt the last of it melt away as i drove it after the adjustment.

One thing that I've seen is when the clutch linkage is adjusted too tight, the clutch still operates, but the throwout bearing is being spun ALL the time, which causes it to heat up and wear out early.

Air in the hydraulic line can expand once hot, and can do the same thing.

I always go into neutral at stoplights so I don't put extra wear on the throwout bearing, but they should last a long time, even when used for lengths of time like at stoplights.

My throwout bearing was just replaced on my s2k, but I had 117k miles on it, and it wasn't destroyed, just had no grease left.

Yeah... I've always driven all my cars like that (holding the clutch in at a stop) with 100k miles on them with no issues.