Sportage diesel clutch slipping

Not sure whether or not you've seen my original thread about my slipping clutch, but you might like to know the story, incredible 'though it may seem.

I bought my 06 Sportage XS diesel in early March 2010 and almost immediately took it on a ski-ing holiday to France.  Pulling on to the autoroute outside Calais I floored the throttle and immediately experienced the clutch slipping, but it re-engaged enough to drive normally when I backed off the throttle.  We proceeded with great care from then on, but this occurred quite a few times more during the holiday. The slippage did not actually get worse and I eventually nursed the car back to England and, on the request of the sympathetic sellers (Twyford 4x4 of Berkshire), took it back to them for inspection.  I hit congestion on the M4 getting there and the clutch again slipped a couple of times in the heavy traffic.

When they examined the car the next day they found nothing wrong.  I went over again a few days later and I could find nothing wrong on driving it with their chief mechanic travelling with me!  We talked about what could possibly have caused the slippage but arrived at no conclusion.  The clutch has never slipped since then.

I have a theory, but most people with whom I've discussed it think it bizarre and unlikely.  The pedal return spring on this model is not particularly strong, although normally perfectly adequate.  If a particle of very hard metal or grit got caught where the pedal goes through the bulkhead into the master cylinder, it could conceivably prevent full return and, in effect, keep the clutch slightly disengaged on an intermittent basis.  I have no evidence whatsoever for this, but I know what I and my family experienced on that holiday! 

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes:  In the absence of any other explanation, what remains is the truth.  You might like to bear this in mind if you take yours back to a dealer, as your symptom sounds identical to mine.

I'm no expert on warranties, but clutch and flywheel can't be regarded as "consumables" so must surely be covered(?)

 

jimreed

Well gents, apologise to any ladies who may have commented, I have this problem with my 57 plate sportage xs. To make a short story long, I bought the car aug 09 approx 36000 on clock, during march 10, clutch started to slip. Contacted 2 kia dealers about this problem, by now car had done 45000 miles, the only help I got from them was "its out of warranty and it will cost £600 to drop gear box to find the problem" great after care service. Well I bit the bullet went to my local garage and they changed the clutch total cost £590. So now one would expect no more probs, wrong fast forward to christmas 11 mileage 61000, clutch has started with same problem intermittent slipping, Again spoke to Kia Bolton all they would say is "they would need to drop the gear box which would be 6hrs labour to establish what could be wrong, but if it is a faulty clutch the parts would be covered under warranty, great no labour costs. So it is now back at my Local garage to have the job done. So to my point having read through all on this forum I'm still non the wiser and even confused as to what could be causing this intermittent slipping and so must Kia if they have no idea without dropping the gearbox. Or could they be hiding a possible manufacturing fault that seems to be plaguing a few Kia owners.
The theory from Mr Jimreed I believe may have some substance, as I have noticed that when the intermittent slipping starts to occour in lower gears, if I dip the clutch releasing it sharply, the slipping ceases and drives correctly.

As for Mr Kia's theory of towing and unintentional slipping of the clutch, I do appreciate that this could happen, but the last 2 cars ( Ford Mondeo's) I have had from new driven for 3yrs towing a trailer 4 days a week carrying considerable weight doing over 100000 miles in each vehicle and never had to have a new clutch fitted, so I am ruling out unintentional slipping!!!!! Why do garages always put it down to driver error!!!!!

So please HELP needed as I will probably be engaged in a prolonged discussion with Kia over faulty parts etc. as I don't expect them to find fault with their parts!!!!!