Has anyone had to replace a clutch yet?

It will get it's own post. Apologies.

 

That sucks OP. Funny they’d deny the warranty from a little mud, when /every/ single/ tacoma/ ad depicts it offroading. Ran into a similar thing with my shocks. It’s a shame Toyota won’t stand behind their product

My clutch is also nearly toast at 30k - and it probably only made it that far because i’ve been averaging 6k/month
- I did have an unfortunate clutch roasting incident in Seattle which seems to have accelerated it’s wear though (Reverse is awful when paired with the low-torque v6 attempting to parallel park uphill)

mine’s not slipping yet but is engaging nearly at the floor. Did your engagement point slowly drop as well or did it still bite at the top of the clutch pedal’s travel?

 

And here I was thinking mine is toast because it engages at the top few millimeters of travel....

Mine chatters a bit when i slip it sometimes.

Im only at 16k and I am very conscious of clutch wear. I have had 3 roasting incidents due to the 3.5 lack of low end torque and reversing up hills or obstacles. Now if it looks too bad, i put it in 4 low so i dont smoke it further.

 

I’ve only driven a few tacos but they all engage at the top of the pedal. Seems they set it up backwards somehow.

After my first roasting mine would chatter sometimes, and any amount of slippage would cause burnt clutch smell

You can tell they never intended the 3.5l to be in front of a manual. 0 torque at idle and minimal until 2k is fine when the torque converter spins it right up there

I think i saw on a dino chart that the 4banger makes more low-rpm torque. Ridiculous.

 

Yeah it didn't matter what I told them about my experience driving MTs, or what their ads show, or what I was told by their own Service Lane Manager, etc. They saw an easy opportunity to deny coverage for something which would be impossible for me to counter, so they denied coverage of it.
My engagement point never really changed from what I remember, at least I never noticed a difference. Was driving fine that morning, then half-way through my commute all of a sudden all gears started slipping.

Yeah I would agree to that idea; the 3.5L probably wasn't designed around using with a MT, but more likely they said "...well some people in our market still want a stick so let's just slap one on this new engine and call it a day...". That and the clutch accumulator likely causing additional unexpected wear and tear.

At this point, I'm strongly considering replacing my Tacoma with a ZR2. I mean, if I'm going to switch to automatic, and I've had bad experience with Toyota support, I might as well consider going with the platform that comes with the much better 8speed automatic with front and rear lockers stock. Maybe go with a ZR2 Bison to get a solid deal on additional AEV armor, bumpers, etc, whereas the TRD Pro is just a $2K Fox lift + cosmetic upgrades but costs $6K+ more than the TRD Offroad. Eh, that's a different discussion though.

 

Toyota’s support of their product is laughable. Hope your next purchase works out better

 

Curious, were you initially cordial and professional with your service writer? I find that being polite and treating others the way you want to be treated goes a long way when trying to get a problem resolved.

 

I absolutely was. I knew this situation would come down to subjective reasoning since it's purely up to Toyota's choice to cover the replacement or not, so I was extremely kind and courteous when I opened a service case with HQ. I gave only straightforward, factual information and I said specifically "I'm sure you're used to the majority of callers yelling and giving you their side of a story with a lot of frustration and anger. So to make things easier, I'm asking that you don't just take my word for it...please ask anyone you know that has driven manual transmissions for longer than 10 years about this. Ask them all how long a brand new Toyota clutch should last when driven by someone that has driven manual transmissions for well over 10 years, and prefers them over automatics. Ask them if they bought a brand new Tacoma and the clutch died in under 75K if they would be surprised and expect it to be fixed. What about under 50K? What about if the clutch died in 26K miles, would they be surprised then? Ask your local mechanic. Ask Service Lane techs at alternate Toyota dealerships. Just don't take just the word of the service lane tech at my local Toyota dealership that has my truck right now. Get more info from more experienced manual transmission drivers. And ask your superior what someone in my position could possibly show you to prove that I did not cause the premature death of the clutch. Is there anything other than me telling you that it shouldn't have died that soon?"

They called me back a few days later and told me "We spoke to the Toyota dealership that has your truck and they said it looks like your offroading probably caused the clutch to die in 26K miles. They said it was caked with mud and they could tell that the truck had been offroaded."

I swear to god that's what they told me. They didn't ask any other experienced professionals for feedback. They told me the cause of my clutch dying prematurely was because I offroad the truck, even though they literally show Tacomas offroading in their commercials and marketing/advertising campaigns. Also, I did just get back from Appalachian Rendezvous a week earlier and pressure washed the entire truck including underbody. There may have been some lingering dirt or something I missed, but she literally said "They said your truck was caked in mud..." which, btw, doesn't fucking matter.

That's a longer dump of some of the stress I had to deal with and I'm trying to just let it go at this point, but I do want to help anyone else I can that might experience a similar situation, or maybe they're thinking about buying a manual transmission third gen Tacoma and looking around for any negative feedback. So I'll just stop and confirm for anyone still unsure about a situation like this; Toyota has confirmed for me that they will screw you over to save them money, no matter what viable reasoning you have that you made no mistakes. If a similar situation occurs for you and you want Toyota to change their mind and cover costs for you, you will essentially need to provide some sort of tangible proof that you used the clutch exactly as you should have the entire time you drove the vehicle (which is impossible to prove).

 

Are you still rocking the factory suspension, wheels and tires?

 

OME shocks and coils, 3 leaf AAL, 3° shims, U-bolt flip with superbumps, poly bushings all around, driveline drop, sway bar relocate, UCAs, CV axle needle bearing clamshell replacement, Cooper Discoverer 285/70/17 AT3 XLTs. All done by me, in my driveway, alone...except tires obviously.

 

100% agree. I dealt with them twice regarding some minor issues and i had the worst experience, i couldnt not believe what they were telling me. Good thing that most of tacos are reliable as fuck.

 

And fuck is pretty bulletproof

 

URD Stage 2 with TORQUE-U flywheel and you’ll never have another clutch problem with the truck. My 3rd gen’s clutch took a shit at 40k and I replaced it with the URD setup my self in my garage over a weekend. Wasn’t hard to do, just time consuming. The stock clutch isn’t designed to handle bigger wheels, added weight from armor, millennials, and off roading beyond some light duty forest service roads. The accumulator delete kit definitely helps to quell the stock slippage.

 

u still have kits sell?

 

I’m not making them anymore.

 

Man y'all need driving lessons. I just hit 74,000 miles in my '16 with the factory clutch.

 

Are you running full armor and larger tires on stock gears?

 

No and why would you? Lots of other member have struggled to make it to 50k miles on their factory clutches.

 

Lots of other members also wheel their rigs beyond flat dirt roads which creates stress on the clutch. I don’t know about you but I bought mine and built mine to use on the rocks and to take me places stock trucks arent going to go like a lot of these other members.