Hey guys. My car started to make like a shaking noise in first gear. This only happens when i let out the clutch in first gear. Only on days that it sits for 8 plus hours and when it is mildly chilly out. After about three times of letting my clutch out in first gear it just goes away. To me im thinking i might have air bubbles in my clutch fluid. What do you guys think?

 

you do warm up the car, right?

 

Yes, I have keyless ignition and I usually warm it up for atleast 15mins before I drive

 

hmmm, i don't know about the clutch fluid. If that was the case, you might experience it more often.

 

Are you talking about cold clutch shudder? If so, this is a very common WRX issue. My car does it for the first couple of minutes when cold unless I'm 'assertive' with the clutch. There is a TSB to ease this (heavier flywheel + clutch plate swap), but mine isn't too bad and I've learned to work around it. Do a search on clutch shudder and you'll get about 1000 results for this.

I doubt it is bubbles in the clutch hydraulics unless the clutch feels really spongy. Also, I think this would only affect the feel of the clutch actuation rather than how it engages - and it would happen all the time.

 

This only applies to the '02 model year. I had mine fixed at 20k miles, but I hear they are less likely to replace it if your clutch is near its normal end of life anyway.

 

sounds about right Lorry. Will this occur more often with a Lightened flywheel, ACT clutch and lightned 3 pc pulley set. Helladumb.....i have no idea what your talking about, might wanna rephrase your sentance.

 

RabidNoodle, you have "clutch shudder" which is a common problem with Subarus.

This is not correct. GC8's had this problem as do newer WRX's. Also, when my clutch was replaced for clutch shudder with the "updated parts", I still got clutch shudder.

 

I have an ACT Race Light clutch. But it kinda just started doing it. Do you still think this is still clutch shudder? Also what cuases that and what are the conesquenses of this?

 

Having lighter components will make the shudder worse because it is acting against less mass - particularly given how much energy is stored in angular momentum.

I believe Subaru's fix was to install a heavier flywheel and change the clutch for an alternate part (this should be in the threads mentioned above). I didn't want the flywheel changed so I decided to live with it.

The 'fix' became standard equipment on 2003 and onward, but I have heard of later cars suffering from the same problem. Furthermore, I know two people who had the TSB performed on 2001/2002 cars only to have the problem reappear later - although not as severe.

Helladumb's comment about the mileage is that, if the clutch already has a lot of miles on it (50,000+ maybe?), they would probably not do this upgrade for free.

RabidNoodle, what age/mileage is your car?

 

01 impreza RS. 37k on car. About half that on Clutch