New owner needing info on clutch

[Tree786]

Hi all. New owner of a 2009 1.6 sr auris. 

Having a few clutch issues which i would like clarification on. Even when depressing the clutch slowly on a flat road, the car stalls. Its impossible to creep forward without the aid of gas, is this normal behaviour? 

The last 6 cars i have driven crept forward without the aid of the gas pedal so find this quite surprising. 

The other issue is that the car judders when the clutch is held at a certain point whilst under heavy acceleration. I know this is not normal but has anyone experienced this before?

forgot to add that its a petrol car

Edited May 9, 2018 by Tree786

[yossarian247]

Hi,

I don't think the lack of ability to creep forward on tickover is a fault. I find the engine in mine quite 'revvy' but doesn't have a huge amount of torque at low revs. Try and set off without any revs and it will stall. That is completely normal for these I think. 

Regarding the second point, not sure if I'm missing something but why would you hold the clutch down under heavy acceleration?! Is it not just causing the clutch to slip? Is it noticeable during normal gear changes?

[Tree786]

when parking, if i want to creep forward 1 metre then it will stall. i find this surprising if thats normal behaviour. more tellingly, once the car is up to speed and i let of the gas in second gear  the revs will slowly go down along with the MPH (perfectly normal of course) but once it reaches a low enough MPH it will stall. every car i have driven will maintain the minimum 2nd gear speed/RPM (on a flat road). would be interesting if you could replicate.

with regards to the judder. it happens just before the full clutch/flywheel connection point. i think its most likely a buckled clutch. yes its noticeable during normal gear changes too. mainly in 1st and 2nd

[alan333]

7 hours ago, Tree786 said:

Its impossible to creep forward without the aid of gas, is this normal behaviour? 

The last 6 cars i have driven crept forward without the aid of the gas pedal so find this quite surprising. 

forgot to add that its a petrol car

Were your last cars diesels?

[Tree786]

8 minutes ago, alan333 said:

Were your last cars diesels?

3 petrol, 2 diesel. all creeped forward with a gentle lift of the clutch.

2 of the petrol's were 1.0 litre hyundai's 

edit- if i include rentals then double the numbers. they all still creeped. the only car i have driven that behaved the same as the auris was an old mitsubishi 3000GT non turbo

[furtula]

The car either does not have enough torque, for the current gearing to creep ahead in 1st gear without gas. I would not find this a problem, plenty of gasoline cars are like this.

Mine is 1.6 2007 91kw, and it creepes forward in 1st gear without gas, idle when hot is only 600rpm, but when it creepes it seems to be a bit more. I would say your car probably has low idle, like mine, whereas other cars usually idle around 800rpm.

Your clutch could be warped, or have high spots due to bad driving habits of previous owner(s), i would not fix it as it's not really a problem ,atleast from my point of view.

[Konrad C]

My experience with my 1.8 V-matic engine and the clutch since since I have owned it, is split into two. When I first bought this car I stalled it quite a lot. I still had my od leanburn, which I hardly stalled at all. I got used to my later car which improved more when I sold the old car. 

A year ago the clutch was replaced, and this seemed to make a large difference. The pedal is very light compared a lot of cars, and I can maneuver the car without gas on the flat. The engine revs rise as the clutch engages. Since my car has electronic parking brake (EPB), the accelerator has to be press or the EPB button to release the parking brake, if engaged.
Even this week, I managed to crawl along in traffic using only the clutch to move off, then roll along with the clutch fully engaged. I only press the clutch when coming to a halt. I don't slip the clutch or ride the pedal, biggest causes of clutch wear.    

[yossarian247]

I found a flat, straight and mostly deserted section of country lane today and put this to the test with my Auris. I didn't actually manage to get it to stall but the engine clearly hated it. 

Firstly I tried setting off in 1st with no gas a few times. Mine had a new clutch only a few months ago so it is still quite light. I tried letting the pedal up as carefully as possible, as the clutch bit the revs dipped slightly, then surged to over 1000 rpm, then dipped way down to about 350 and the engine juddered horribly but it kept going and revs rose up again and sort of found a happy medium at around 800 rpm where it would chug along in first gear on tickover. 

After that I accelerated a bit, changed into second gear, took my foot off the pedal and let the speed drop to see how low it would go. It really didn't like that very much and although it didn't stall the engine laboured and juddered quite badly, so much so that I didn't continue it for long. 

I've owned this car since 2014, have covered nearly 60k in it so I know it quite well and think all of the above is normal for it really. Bear in mind though that 2009 was the changeover point for the 1.6 Auris, so yours may be a Valvematic engine like mine or the earlier Vvti engine. Their characteristics may be slightly different. The gearing was different too as the Valvematic has a 6 speed box wheareas the Vvti is 5 speed. 

I would say that of the cars I've driven, those which could set off happily from standstill with no gas were certainly in the minority. The best in that respect was a Citroën Xantia 1.9 TD which had so much torque at idle that I could set off and change all the way up the gearbox to 5th with no accelerator pedal use at all. Whichever gear it was in it would trundle along quite happily on tickover!