Is the clutch to the floor bound to happen?
 

I have a 2012 GS M6. There have been a lot of threads about the "clutch to the floor" issue. It hasn't happened to me yet, but is it a sure thing that this will eventually happen to all of us with a clutch and manual trans? Anyone with a high mileage manual car that has never experienced this? If you guys with a clutch can please post whether or not you have had this issue happen to your car and the miles on your car. Either current miles for those that never had the "clutch to the floor" issue, or how many miles you had on the odometer when it did happen. Thanks in advance. And I'll start.

2012 GS with 5700 miles and still on the original master cylinder.

I was considering making a thread about this too since its been happening often lately.

I have a 2008 Z06 with just over 50k miles. Hasn't happened to me yet. It did happen to my previous 2008 base C6 though (to the previous owner at 30k miles). I'm very tempted to just replace it now though because I would hate to be stranded and get a tow.

I do the ranger method every 3 months as preventative maintenance. It seems like it's not very likely that this will happen if the owner regularly does the ranger method to prevent the fluid from getting too dirty. Hopefully that helps.

Yep keep the clutch fluid nice and clean...:thumbs:

'08 here with 82k miles. I have done the ranger method of fluid replacement a few times when the pedal was a little sticky. It does help.

My understanding of it is it is due to some sort of high pressure pulses in the system.

For me, I had no issues until it happened with 12k miles and clean fluid. When it happened to me, I was getting on it going down a hill, shifted at 6200ish after being WOT. I suspect if you never go WOT, never shift at high rpm, and generally drive like the car is a Buick, you would never see the issue. If you drive the car hard, I suspect it's an inevitable occurrence.

Had mine changed out earlier this year at roughly 42k miles, and I'm religious about using the Ranger method. I was going about 5 mph when it happened.

Jabcat, I know my car falls under the 10yr/120k miles coverage, but I am only trying to figure out if this happens to everyone at some point or is there some owners or high mileage cars that never experienced this problem. Also, if someone did experience the "clutch to the floor" issue, I would like to see if there is any relation to how many miles were on the drivetrain when it occurred. I'm not looking forward to having to go through this some day and I'm just trying to figure out if this only happens to some C6's or is this definitely in my future.

Would you recommend I just swap it out even if I am not currently having issues? I do keep the fluid clean, but it looks like you did too and it still happened.

If your car is stock, I would just bring it to the dealership and have it done since it would be free. I've heard some stories of people just saying the pedal got stuck a few times and they performed the service at no cost.

​​​​​​​I absolutely would not bring my HCIE Z06 to a dealership so I would end up doing it out of pocket. My 08 Z06 is out of warranty anyways.

My next question was going to be if keeping the fluid clean is the key to preventing this, but there seems to be no consensus on that either. :confused2:

That may be worth a shot. The last thing I want to do with my car, is have to call for a flat bed while being stuck on the side of the road.

Yeah, I know, but there are reports of people who got it fixed by just claiming it was stuck but got the pedal to return. Worse they can say is no.

Same here. Absolutely do not want to deal with that.

Original owner of an 2006. In 2007, at around 18K miles, the pedal was slow to come back once. Installed a remote bleeder, and thereafter I flushed the clutch fluid once per year.

The original master + slave now have 142K miles and work perfectly. No pedal problems ever recurred.

That would depend on how close you are to the cutoff for GM to cover it.

At 40K mine did not have a problem, but I cleaned the fluid when it needed it. Several friends had theirs stick to the floor and when I asked them about changing the fluid they had never heard of it, so I'm guessing that changing the syrup out of your system back to fluid helps.
I got the master cylinder upgrade without a big deal, but I have a very good service manager. Technically, you have to break down to get it fixed, which is kinda dumb. The time to get this done on their dime is probably expired for the earlier models. Mine is a 08.

The TSB is for a specific failure of an internal part of the master cylinder. The problem of stuck to the floor can be also caused by the master leaking through its seal. That seal is subject to wear over time regardless of how clean you keep the fluid.

So is the replacement cylinder an improved design or has the same proclivity for going bad? According to the dealer history, mine had it replaced by the previous owner, and I have been rangering it annually. Plus I've got Maxcare warranty, so there's that. Still I'm wondering if I'll get stranded by it one of these days anyway.

If it's something you worry about, then I agree, go to the dealer. As some of us have talked about before, it's about your approach. If you come in on Monday morning stomping your feet, acting like an expert, and demanding they do it, they'll probably tell you to kick rocks. If you have a history of being a prick there, same thing. If you come in on a slow day and let them know your car had the symptoms before and you're concerned it may be the master cylinder failing and suggest the TSB, then they might just do it.
Contrary to what some people think, dealers don't do warranty work for free, they're actually paid quite well.

If you have the replacement cylinder, then the faulty piece inside should be updated. The fluid reservoir should say DOT 4 on it to indicate the newer version. You'll still need to keep the fluid fairly fresh to minimize wear to the seal, so keep up with the ranger method.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...14717-a-4.html

This thread has an image of what fails in the cylinder.