Ok so recently I been feeling a chatter in my 1st gear or clutch. My Mustang is a daily driver except in snow with 35,000 miles on her. When I let out on the clutch in 1st gear from a standing stop level surface I am feeling a chattering in the clutch or rear end of the her. I called and talked to the dealership which i trust and they suggest that the transmission fluid might be low. Now I do not have a rack to put the car up on to check such a beast. But what would cause the chatter when letting out the clutch on 1st gear? All other shifting no response to chatter. I do not feel it on the downshifts at all. I wonder if I have strut on the back axle that is broken, cause it feels like a wheel hop alittle too.

Any suggestions or has anyone had this issues too?

 

It is a 14 with under 36,000 miles it should still be under warranty, take it in to the dealer.

 

I can tell you right now, this likely has NOTHING to do with transmission fluid lol. There is probably something wrong with the clutch. They'll have to remove the trans to find out.

 

The fluid being low would really only cause an issue like that in an automatic transmission. Sounds like you need a new clutch, warranty won't cover it beyond 18k miles I believe? It's considered a wear item like the brakes.

 

By chatter, are you referring to a noise or a shudder vibration?

In either case it's likely the clutch or pressure plate assembly. A leaking seal or hydraulic throw-out bearing can contaminate the friction surface and cause the shudder (if that's what we're talking about). This would not be considered a wear issue, and should be covered.

Broken or lose rivets in the clutch disc can cause either a staccato noise, or a shudder vibration. This would be not be considered a wear issue unless the friction plate is so worn, that the rivets are broken due to a worn out friction plate. Since you didn't report a grinding or scraping noise, I doubt the friction plate is worn out.

Also consider that driveline bearings can also exibit similar behavior.

If I'm misunderstanding your issue I apologize but your description leaves me guessing.

You need to get the car up on a rack and investigate right away, otherwise you'll be getting a tow truck service soon.

Like poster above stated... Take it to a dealer and have it checked out, it may (and probably is) still covered by warrenty.

Just my 2¢

 

What happened with my mustang

60K miles clutch started shuddering a little at first then horribly coming out of 1st and reverse

No matter how much gas you gave it or how quick you let the clutch out, it felt like when a beginner driver is learning to drive stick and stalls the car out—that kind of shuddering.

The ford dealership said it’d take 1 whole month for them to get to the repair on my car and that I’d have to leave the car with them for the entire month.

Obviously, I couldn’t go without a car for that long, so I did some research and found a highly rated private mechanic shop near-ish me.

They diagnosed the problem and installed a brand-new clutch and flywheel (regular ford replacement clutch and flywheel—i.e., not a fancy performance one)

No check engine light initially, within 24 hrs check engine light came on





Went to mechanic. Hooked up scanner #1 (Zurich ZR15S)



I took a picture of the code: P0304 (meaning cylinder misfire in 4th cylinder) to look up later even though mechanic told me not to worry about it.

I looked it up and seemed like it was potentially pretty dangerous

Did some research on ford forums and found discussions about people having had a similar error code (as well as other P03 codes for other cylinder misfires) specifically following clutch and flywheel replacement. These forums mentioned crank relearn and misfire monitor neutral profile correction as potential solution.

Went back within the hour with that limited info and mechanic was initially very hesitant to believe that that was the issue or the solution to the problem—he had never heard of a crank relearn on a mustang, he said.

Understandable: he’s reacting as a doctor would if you came in and started spouting off things you think are wrong with you from having looked at web md—i.e., he’s the professional and people who come in with that type of commentary usually have no idea what they’re talking about.

However, he looked on scanner #2, higher tech looking and didn’t see an option for crank relearn.

Might’ve been a snap on scanner (?), not positive on that, but it definitely looked more like this one:
Mechanic cleared code, said maybe it was a glitch since I wasn’t experiencing any engine misfire.

Went home. No problem till next day, check engine came back on.

Later that night, I actually felt the engine misfire (before I experienced it, I wasn’t sure exactly what that’d feel like, so I wasn’t 100% sure if I’d even be able to recognize it, but once it was actually happening, I knew immediately). The feeling was like a vibrating ratatat when depressing the gas pedal, and when I felt that immediately looked at the check engine light and saw that it had began blinking. That all lasted for about 10 seconds, then it was fine again, though the check engine light was still on.

So, then I was worried, so I did more research: texted mechanic that there was a lot of talk about check engine light problem after clutch and flywheel replacement on mustang forums. So, despite me not being a professional mechanic, asked him to look into it again with the key terms crank relearn/misfire monitor neutral profile correction.

See official ford technical service bulletin (TSB) outlining the problem:



Had car towed to shop just to be safe since I’d experienced an actual engine misfire the nigh before

He hooked up the Snap On scanner above and when I got there, he said he thinks I might be right. Cleared the check engine light, then ran the profile correction.

Link vid to people running that profile correction:



Been 2k+ miles and running like a top now, no check engine light has come back, and the car is running great. Note: for a few hundred miles (about 500 or so) after clutch and flywheel replacement, there was slight shudder (nowhere even near what it was like when I first brought it in) in shifting out of first and reverse. However, have read others experienced the same break in period post clutch and flywheel replacement, and shudder went away completely by 1k miles.

Turns out then whenever transmission is removed from engine, the computers inside the car need to be recalibrated.

See 2:06 for what it looks like when your transmission Is separated from the engine to access the clutch and flywheel for replacement:

Bottom line: super easy fix, just have to know about the “misfire monitor neutral profile correction” process and send them this doc/insist that your mechanic hook his scanner up and run it, even if he’s understandably skeptical because he’s never heard of it.

 

Thank You So Much For Updating This Topic. I Actually Have a Member That Just Had Some Clutch Issues and This May Apply To Him! Great Write Up!

Much Appreciated! I Remember a Tech Mentioning it at the Dealership Years Back But I Did Not File it Under hard Memory!

I Swear it's getting to the Point You Put Too Much Air In Your Tires and The Radio Quits!

I Sent Member A Link!

Mgb,

Kc

Love To Have You Stick around & Introduce Yourself & Post Some Pics!

https://themustangsource.com/forums/f650/

 

Thank you very much for providing some very valuable information that other folks may also find as very useful should they encounter similar issues as you recently had... In the meantime, welcome aboard!

 

I do know from the forums when I have to do the clutch in my 2013 that I also have to do a crank relearn and the tuner for my truck (SCT X4) can actually do it as well as my laptop with ForScan on it. Just throwing this out for the Backyard or future Backyard mechanics that might not know this with the newer Ford motors.