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Tuesday
Apr102012

* * Suffering a broken clutch

This particular family crisis started with an absolutely hysterical call from our only daughter, Whitney. Jane and I were listening to a speaker in a huge conference room at the Homestead at a Rotary International convention when cell her phone rang. Whitney, on the other end, was crying inconsolably, like we hadn’t experienced since she was a child. What could possibly be so terribly wrong? I immediately assumed she’d crashed her mom’s car. Instead, she merely broke it.

Jane and I exited to the lobby where I took the phone from her. I said soothing, parental words to Whitney, assuring her that if nobody was hurt, somehow things would someday be fine again. Finally, she calmed down.

Long story short, Jane had loaned Whitney the family car, a Subaru wagon. Whitney’s own car, that her grandmother had given her when she turned sixteen, had failed inspection. It was already twenty-one years old (same as Whitney!) and it had some quirks, to put it mildly. For example, you could easily withdraw the ignition key while driving down the road. She was intent on trading it for something newer, which I knew she wanted to do but hoped she would wait just one more year until she finished college. One option was to take ownership of Jane’s car and let Jane get a new one. So we thought we’d give that option a test run. Jane and I were going away for the weekend. We’d take my car and leave Jane’s car for Whitney to drive and see how she liked it. Only problem: it had a 5-speed manual transmission and Whitney was accustomed to her old car’s automatic. She had practiced several times previously, and we all thought she knew how to do it. To put it mildly, things didn’t go well.

At our insistence, Whitney left the Subaru by the side of the road and got a ride back to town. I told her we’d handle things when Jane and I got home.

The following week, we had it towed to a transmission shop and had a new clutch installed. $777.00.

I asked Whitney on several occasions what she may have done to ruin the clutch. She said she didn’t know. Turns out, the car has a unique feature, found only on Subarus. It’s called a Hill Holder, and it keeps the car from rolling back once the driver releases the brake while shifting his or her foot to the accelerator to move forward uphill.

After getting the car home with the new clutch, Jane began driving it again and Whitney bought a used Honda 4-wheel drive car, with an automatic transmission. All was well again (damage to our checkbook notwithstanding).

Soon, however, Jane began to have trouble herself, with the car shaking as it began to move forward after the Hill Holder was engaged. Questioning whether she was using the clutch properly, I tried it myself and got similar results, along with a burning smell from the clutch. Thinking about it afterwards, I began to conclude that the Hill Holder wasn’t releasing properly, so the car’s brakes were fighting against the clutch, and the clutch was losing! Ironically, one of the reasons we chose this particular model when we bought it was for this very feature, reasoning it would be easier for Whitney to learn to use a clutch on a car that had it, and now its failure to perform properly was the source of her misery!

It seems you can find any information in the world these days on the Internet, so I Googled key words like “Subaru,” “Hill Holder,” “clutch,” and “burning.” Turns out, other people have had problems with the Hill Holder, too. In fact, I found a forum entry where someone had shown how, in five minutes, the Hill Holder could be disabled. So I considered doing that myself. Instead, I called the repair shop that had installed the clutch. The owner insisted I come by and let him adjust the Hill Holder to release sooner once the clutch was released, to see if that would solve our problem.

So that’s where we stand now. I drove it this morning and all seems to be working well. I went to the dealership to ask if the clutch replacement could be covered on warranty, since its demise seemed to be no fault of ours. You probably can guess the answer: “no.” Parenthetically, insurance is no help either; they’ll pay to repair your car if you crash it but not if you break it.

In hindsight, it seems that Whitney’s hysteria was as much caused by the stresses of her academic life as the car problem. And as it turned out, she’d likely done nothing wrong. Hopefully we won’t suffer through another episode like that for awhile!

 

References (14)

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  • Response
    Batman tenía su signo, tú tienes el tuyo
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    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
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    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
  • Response
    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
  • Response
    Response: vesta talent
    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
  • Response
    Response: Jayson Woodbridge
    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
  • Response
    Response: Jayson Woodbridge
    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
  • Response
    Response: Jayson Woodbridge
    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
  • Response
    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
  • Response
    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
  • Response
    Response: dr. terry simpson
    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
  • Response
    Response: Dr. Terry Simpson
    Michael Abraham, author - Weekly Journal - * * Suffering a broken clutch
  • Response
    I think you are going through in a very painful week because broken clutch is very painful because in this way the people are not able to move easily. I hope that the people will able to feel good in their life. I will pray for your good life.
  • Response
    Response: SHOWBOX APP

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