Hi guys, I'm experiencing what I believe to be clutch drag, but only when the car is warm on my 06 JCW 6sp. I'm trying to diagnose root cause, but it seems to be eluding me at present. I'm hoping someone has some thoughts or has experienced similar symptoms:

1) When warm and car running, selecting gear with shifter requires significant force
2) When warm and car running, clutchless shifting is smooth
3) When warm and car off, can select gears as normal
4) When cold and car running, shifting normal
5) When warm on flat ground, clutch all the way in, shifter in reverse position, car slowly walks backwards
6) Mechanic inspected master and slave (both good), bled system, changed gear oil. Only a minor improvement.
7) Clutch pedal stiff, engagement point low, no change in feel for last 65k miles
8) No discernible leaks

It seems like any time I remove the clutch from the equation, everything shifts as normal. When I use the clutch when cold, still no problems. When I use the clutch when hot, difficult shifting.

To me the above symptoms suggest my clutch is dragging, but only when warm. With a supposedly known good master and slave with fresh fluid and a bleed, where else should I be looking for the culprit?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Car has 100k miles

 

Moving this to the Stock Problems/Issues.


How many miles?

 

The car has 100k miles.

 

Is the slave cylinder new? This sounds like a bad slave or master cylinder. If you do your own work I would replace the slave cylinder. I had good luck with mine it lasted till I did the clutch at 130k but other people have had to change the slave several times. Does the clutch slip?

 

Just wanted to follow up on this. Slave and master cylinders were good. Transmission was pulled for a clutch job and the throw out bearing was absolutely toasted. New clutch kit and flywheel made this problem go away.