Clutch pedal doesnt come up

[yorkie]

Clutch pedal switch does more than that, if it fails you will suddenly think you have lost the ability to drive properly. Car will jerk whenever you let the clutch in or out and you may even stall when trying to pull away. No idea what it does but more than above.

[sonny]

A mate of mine has a MK4 Golf and he was suffering similar issues with the clutch, then one day the spring for the pedal broke, the pedal then went to the floor and could not move it. The VW dealer said it is a common issue with Audi/VW cars. He had a new pedal and spring fitted.

Unfortunately not that simple with these. Search the forum as LOADS of people are/were having this issue (me included).

Some think the clutch return pipe being replaced will cure it but I can confirm it hasn't cured mine and whilst it hasn't actually stuck down since I had the work done it doesn't seem right. Search this forum for 'clutch issues' and you should find everything you don't want to hear on there.

New clutch & single mass flywheel is the only way forward for me.

SHOULD BE A RECALL IN MY OPINION

Agree, or be knowledge with a 5 year/60k extended warranty

[adsgreen]

Iirc Also the spring is there to push the pedal down not to return it back up.
Take the spring out then see how heavy your clutch feels!

[Dave7]

So many people tend to have this issue with their RS4's. Some at 25k miles and some at 50k - 60k?
I must admit that if mine was like this I would be seriously disappointed so I am surprised that no one knows exactly what is the issue here?
I know people say its the clutch return pipe but this doesn't seem to be a convincing fix?

I must say though that with regards to the clutch feeling a little 'on and off', I reckon thats something to do with the fact that its a quattro and you have a heavy duty clutch and gearbox to contend with. So many people have highlighted this over the the time i have spend posting on here that it can't be a problem as such and just a characteristic of the car that will take some getting used to. I bet if someone came from owning a B5 RS4 or an S3 or even an A4 2.0 Diesel Quattro to a B7 RS4 they'd notice nothing but coming from an E46 M3 or pretty much any other 2wd performance car then they'd be in no doubt in their mind that they thought something was amiss with the clutch... My old 2000 S3 was just the same... My Corrado VR6 of old was sublime but the S3 took some getting used to. I would just say spend some time in it and you'll not notice it after a while - if you drive it like you stole it though then this is when you'll notice it more as full bore starts and gunning it from 1st to 2nd will take a lot more practice in terms of driving smoothly. I tend to be a little more sympathetic with my drivetrain as you should be in reality because these cars don't like to be treated clumsily. I can honestly say that when changing fro 1st to 2nd is the only time I am concious of the issue, once onto 2nd you're off and away with little fuss.

Thats my two price worth anyway. I hope someone shines some light on this clutch return issue though as its effecting quite a few people on here...
DRC is old news, lets get somewhere with this??

[river_rat]

I had this problem yesterday for first time - accelerated hard in 2nd gear, changed up and clutch went very light and wouldn't return properly.

Managed to get in 6th gear by matching revs and carried on, but when I arrived at a junction and stopped I then couldn't get the car in any gear. Fiddled around for what seemed ages and finally managed to get it in 3rd and pulled away (not ideal).

Clutch then returned to normal for rest of short journey.

Is this the same sympton as everyone else (the not being able to get any gear during the problem period)?

[Bladerider]

My experience...

I have had it in my Avant since I owned the car. I immediately got the car checked by my local Audi dealers who found nothing wrong and confirmed my high mile car had already had the replacement pipe. If you search my oldest posts you will find reference to it.

I then found the problem worsening and got a different Audi dealer (part of the same group) to check the car and they convinced my to spend hundreds on replacing the slave cylinder and wanted to replace the master cylinder for the brakes and god knows what else for £2k but I felt that was a load of money that might be wasted.

Sure enough the problem was eased slightly but was still basically there.

So until my clutch goes - cars now done 110k miles - or something gets worse i will just get used to pulling the pedal up every now and again. My car had done 50k miles with this issue with no explosions or any issues other than annoyance and occasional inconvenience !! Admittedly it can catch you out if you have been brisk and get caught by lights and the pedal is on the floor when you go to select first, but you get used to checking and I notice the pedal not coming up instantly anyway as I guess years of track and racing have taught my feet to be sensitive !!

At some point the clutch will go and I will report if a change makes the difference and I will check the bearings and such as well, but I dont do traffic light GP's as the RS4 isnt a very fast car anyway and I match revs down the box so the clutch doesnt really have much to do, or the brakes, Ive done 8k miles with the low pad warning on and they still have life left as I get them checked regularly !! lol

Audi build so much spare fat into these cars and I think they like to consider anything less than half life as "spent" and they can then rip us all off for a few quid when the light comes on and the dealer says jump !!

Im resigned to keeping the damned thing now so I guess the answer will become clear one day !!

J.

[ArthurPE]

I am convinced this is the problem
on most transmissions the throw out bearing guide bushing is fixed to the tranny casing (the bushing and bearing do not spin, ie are stationary relative to each other, so they can't wear badly)

on the RS the bushing floats on the shaft (and the bearing does not spin) and will spin at some speed slower than the shaft due to friction
as the bearing is pushed on the the spinning bushing it wears/heats up, this cuts a groove into the bushing and bearing and this is what 'catches or hangs up
due to the groove and the heat causing expansion/binding, this is why it's worse when pushed/hot

can someone post the audi parts diagram for this assembly?

BMW item 7 is the bushing that the bearing rides on, fixed to the tranny


show how the bearing slides on the busshing/guide

[sar]

here you go arthur...i think your right.

001.png (34.23 KiB) Viewed 3555 times

003.png (32.6 KiB) Viewed 3555 times

[ArthurPE]

I'd like to see item 7 first pic from a high mileage car
wonder if the clip item 13 is tight, ie, no spinning, or just holds it in place loosely

I wonder why they did it differently than all the others?
especially since the tranny is made by the same company Getrag?

[ArthurPE]

does anybody with an aftermarket clutch have this problem?

[Rigsby1208]

I tend to agree with the idea that something is binding due to wear. The clutch feel is inconsistent sometime feels ok, sometimes stiff after a short period of harder driving, sometimes fails to come up and a little clonk noise when it suddenly does release. Its always very hard to do a smooth change as it almost feels like the pedal goes through 2 different stages when the clutch is released. What I mean is for first half of travel its fairly smooth, but then changes about halfway up and feels a bit more heavily sprung. Its just horrible, I change gear with trepidation now. I've been to 2 Audi dealers both say it is normal, I guess they go for quick tootle round the block, in which case its probably not too much of a problem.
I'm toying with phoning Audi customer services to see what I need to do next, its under an Audi approved warranty for the rest of the year.

[mondo2126]

I tend to agree with the idea that something is binding due to wear. The clutch feel is inconsistent sometime feels ok, sometimes stiff after a short period of harder driving, sometimes fails to come up and a little clonk noise when it suddenly does release. Its always very hard to do a smooth change as it almost feels like the pedal goes through 2 different stages when the clutch is released. What I mean is for first half of travel its fairly smooth, but then changes about halfway up and feels a bit more heavily sprung. Its just horrible, I change gear with trepidation now. I've been to 2 Audi dealers both say it is normal, I guess they go for quick tootle round the block, in which case its probably not too much of a problem.
I'm toying with phoning Audi customer services to see what I need to do next, its under an Audi approved warranty for the rest of the year.

I had almost identical problem, when car was taken into Aberdeen Audi for a high pitched squealing noise from the rear of engine they took the box out as they thought it was clutch related, squealing was found to be gasket in vacuum pump????????????

i had previously had replaced the slave cylinder, master cylinder and pipes, the problem was still evident

A pain in the arse when you have the tech in the car with you and thepedal problem doesn't show up, with myself and the tech driving although he got a slight feel at the pedal that something was wrong

they told me they checked the clutch and all parts for wear while the box was out and couldn't justify changing anything so i paid for a new clutch and flywheel £ 1135.00 and got them replaced with no labour charge

4 weeks later all seems to be fine no problems changing gear including a conservative drive back to Newcastle

Sods law i took off my winter tyres and we got snow the next day, with the temps we are getting just now we are gonna need winter tyres on all year

[RS4JAY]

So was this ever 100% resolved. Reading lots of conflicting solutions.

[Surrey Sam]

FON. Top lurking, 4 years and first post

I have never seen a credible one part resolution. My opinion is that the pipe is the first part that fails, but because everything still works, the car continues to be used and then the clutch and flywheel start to wear. When an owner eventually decides to do something about it, replacing just the pipe doesn't totally resolve the problem. Hence why the people who say they've fixed it, usually have replaced pipe, flywheel, clutch plate & parts. The master and slave cylinder replacements are just red herrings for me, sure some report very minor improvement after those but that could be down to just new fluid.

[mister_g]

Subscribed... my clutch has stuck down twice in the past month - fine for 100s of other times it's been used in the same period - perhaps this is the beginning of the end