Kia Forum banner

Clutch slips when air temperature is above 95F/35C

1K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  cobra259 
#1 ·
Hello,

This has been going on for a couple years, but only on the hottest days. Two years ago, I was driving in city traffic when I noticed my clutch was slipping and found it very difficult to maintain speed without inducing friction on my clutch. The car was high mileage so I assumed it was time to take it into service.

The KIA dealership replaced the clutch and throwout bearing and I assumed that would fix the problem. Well, it didn't. Some time later, maybe during the same summer, the same happened again in Atlanta which left me parked in the center lane of I-285 for half an hour before an off-duty officer stopped traffic to let me push the car to the shoulder.

I changed the fluid in the meantime. Now I've ordered some insulation wrap and a covering for the hydraulic line where it passes 3/4" from the O2 sensor on the exhaust manifold. I was suspecting that it was heat radiating from the pipe causing the fluid to boil, but I have my doubts.

Last week, I was driving on a rural freeway and found that it was slipping and I was barely able to keep the car above 60 mph. So that tells me that air currents alone weren't enough to transfer heat (or that heat transfer from the exhaust line is not the primary cause).

Here is something interesting. If the outside temperature is 93 degrees, the car behaves fine. At 94, marginal behavior. At above 95, failure will occur and an extensive cool-down time (t>1 hour) is needed to move the car.

What are your ideas? Certainly, I'm not the only one to experience this problem.

Thanks, Tim Legg
 
See less See more
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top