Clutch noise

[WolfRichter]

Good morning Renault people,
I hope, you're doing well.
Whenever I depress the clutch I can hear a slight hissing sound.
Now what I fear is that it's not a hissing but a grinding noise from my throw out bearing singing the song of its people and then I can only hope it will make it another couple of weeks before I can get around to changing it.
However before I encroach on such an epic journey I thought, since gearbox and clutch are in front of the engine, depressing the clutch might reflect the engine noise differently.
So is a slight hissing noise while holding the clutch pedal down normal?

 

[jcarruthers2]

Hi

It does sound like the release bearing. I have driven for a time with a noisy release bearing and it was fine for quite some time. It is when you start to hear it disintegrating that a breakdown is imminent.

 

[WolfRichter]

What does it sound like when it's desintegrating?

 

[jcarruthers2]

Hi

It depends on how old your release bearing is. The older ones are all metal and the later ones such as the Valeo brand is a combination of metal and plastic. When it is really bad, you will either hear a very heavy bearing rumble or the metal clip which holds the bearing together start to break up and make a metallic whipping noise (or bits of plastic/metal breaking up if you have the Valeo release bearing). It is unlikely that it will do any damage.

It is just time to take the gearbox out and change the complete clutch (release bearing, center plate and pressure plate). It is not worthwhile to change just one component as six months down the line you might have to take the gearbox out again.

However, from what you have described, yours is only making a slight noise, you could continue driving it as it is for quite some time.

 

[angel]

What does it sound like when it's desintegrating?

You can feel a rumble on the clutch pedal when slightly depressing it.