2

I am driving a manual car and I usually have no issues with hill starts. Today, however, after pulling my e-brake on on a hill and then engaging 1st gear. My car would not pull forward from accelerating. I pushed the rpms to around 5000 after which it stalled and then I smelled a burning odor. Subsequently, my car would not accelerate on 1st gear for two times. Now, however, my car is behaving normally. I am worried that I may have an issue with either my brakes or clutch. My car is very new, under 3500 miles. Model is a miata nd.

Edit: I realized I must have accidentally shifted to 3rd gear rather than 1st in panic. This explains why my car was stalling.

1

2 Answers 2

4

More than likely you did what is commonly referred to as smoking the clutch. What this means is you overheated it a little. This caused the smell you referred to. More than likely you've caused a little bit of damage to the clutch, but nothing the car won't live with. If you do this over and over again, then you'll create a bigger issue. One of the big things which can happen is for heat cracks to form on the flywheel and/or pressure plate. This will make it fairly unbearable to drive and would cause it to need replacing. If you aren't having any issues now with it engaging (ie: no roughness or vibration), there's probably not caused any serious damage.

1
  • I literally just did this, I was in 3rd and tried going forward and didn’t realize I was in 3rd then all of a sudden a burning smell and smoke started coming out the left side of my car. I was worried I knew it was the clutch but didn’t know if it would damage it badly enough to need to be replaced. Jul 8, 2020 at 9:47
1

I agree. Most likely you were riding the clutch. It'll smell gross, not like a typical burning smell. It's common with hillstarts because people tend to stress about either dropping the clutch too suddenly (and stalling), and/or rolling backwards.

Basically, when you release the clutch pedal - the clutch plate and the pressure plate become interlocked. To put it simply; it connects the gearbox (and by extension, the wheels) to the motor, causing the wheels to turn (i.e. drive/rotate).

Clutch GIF
←Gearbox | Engine→
The clutch pedal is an extension of the pink fork/lever.
It connects/disconnects the blue pressure plate to/from the gold clutch plate.

So, when you don't release the clutch pedal quick enough - the clutch plate and the pressure plate won't fully engage quick enough; they'll just rub up against each other and generate heat, until the pedal is released enough for them to interlock.


It's like what happens to the tyres when someone does a burnout. The tyres are spinning really fast against the ground, unable to gain enough traction, but generating a lot of friction instead (and thus heat), causing the rubber to burn, smell, and produce smoke.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .