Clutch noise

[Ploddit]

When I give the car more welly than normal or like today I try to pull away in third I hear a squeel from I assume the clutch.

The car has 210,000 and I've no idea if it has had the 4runner clutch fitted or not.

how long is the average life expectancy for a) the friction plate and b) the DMF?

[red barron]

Clutch squeal

Pulling away in 3rd gear will destroy your clutch completly, if it has'nt burned out already!! Pulling away in 3rd will reduce the life of the clutch friction plate and the pressure plate including the damper springs and eventually most of the drive line components along with the crankshaft thrust bearings!
Oh, and not to mention the gearbox as well!

[TonyN]

My old 4Runner used to make a 'eek' kinda noise when pulling away in 2nd, it did it when I got it, and still did it 4 years later when I last drove it.

TBH, I've changed buggered Surf flywheels at 100k and under quite a few times, but I never believe the mileage on imports anyway for it means little.

[Ploddit]

Pulling away in 3rd gear will destroy your clutch completly, if it has'nt burned out already!! Pulling away in 3rd will reduce the life of the clutch friction plate and the pressure plate including the damper springs and eventually most of the drive line components along with the crankshaft thrust bearings!
Oh, and not to mention the gearbox as well!

Only did it once by accident - Thx anyway will wait and see on this noise then.

@ Tony reassuring that a non DMF also made/makes the same noise. thx.

[Mumpy]

Squeak

I've had this happen to me on other vehicles and in most cases it was always the clutch release bearing.

Not sure how this fits in with surfs but the clutch release bearing only operates when you have your foot on the clutch. When they get a bit old and tired they squeak when they spin up or spin down. Hence riding the clutch bu66ers them up. Also, when they get hot they tend to get louder i.e heavy traffic.

As my apprentice master used to say "If you change the clutch plate should always change the clutch release bearing...."

[Jon Tallis]

Odd clutch noises....

My experience as follows:-

Both my surfs (3rd gen) had squeaky / rumbly release bearings. This will be a regular but light queak-squeak increasing with engine speed. If the noise changes with a tiny bit of pressure on the clutch pedal its definitely the release bearing. Unless it gets REALLY bad, don't worry about it.

My current truck makes a sort of squeal/creak when pulling away hard, esp towing (sounds like your issue). It's been doing it for the last 5 yrs of hard use and is still going strong at 220k. Again - provided the clutch isn't slipping - don't worry about it.

My first truck had an odd vibration at idle that slowly got worse until the dual-mass flywheel separated with a total loss of drive and lots of expensive noises. If you have an engine-speed vibration at idle that you can't trace to an engine problem (e.g. a dodgy injector) DO worry about this.

Clutch life depends entirely on how the truck is used and how sympathetic the driver is.