Death toll for my Jazz? Clutch

[MaxFrames]

The clutch pedal feels VERY loose for about half it's travel length, then it starts to work, kinda. The gearbox feels very stiff and sometimes when I try to shift the gear does not engage. The clutch pedal felt a bit weird for a few weeks, but this happened suddenly yesterday. What am I looking at? Just air in the oil circuit, or bad clutch {= inconvenient repair, game over)?

[Jocko]

Sounds like a hydraulic issue. Leak at master cylinder or slave cylinder. When the clutch itself fails the drive slips, so you apply power and the revs go up but the speed doesn't.

[MaxFrames]

I haven't noticed any oil stain underneath the car.
Anyway if it's a hydraulic issue concerning one or both clutch cylindres, I guess it's a costly repair?

[Jocko]

You can by them for as little as £30 each.

[MaxFrames]

The unfortunate news is that when, this morning, I tried to take the car to the repair shop, I found that as soon as I started the engine, the gearbox became stuck in whatever gear was inserted with the engine off. So I had to pay a tow truck. I will know next week what's what. I can hear the bell toll...

[culzean]

The unfortunate news is that when, this morning, I tried to take the car to the repair shop, I found that as soon as I started the engine, the gearbox became stuck in whatever gear was inserted with the engine off. So I had to pay a tow truck. I will know next week what's what. I can hear the bell toll...

One good reason for regularly changing brake and clutch fluid is that over time it absorbs water and causes corrosion in the system,  which can damage the seals ( as well as potentially boiling in the brake system under sustained and causing loss of braking force )....  I do ours every couple of years with MityVac - does not take long and can save a lot of grief.   I doubt that even cars with dealer service plans get the fluid changed very often, if at all.

[MaxFrames]

I plead guilty, Your Honor 
Little to no maintenance on  this puppy lately 

[sparky Paul]

The unfortunate news is that when, this morning, I tried to take the car to the repair shop, I found that as soon as I started the engine, the gearbox became stuck in whatever gear was inserted with the engine off. So I had to pay a tow truck. I will know next week what's what. I can hear the bell toll...

A clutch or clutch hydraulics shouldn't mean the end of the road, so to speak. If there's life left in the rest of the car, it's got to be worth a clutch. If it's a hydraulic issue, that should work out cheaper.

[MaxFrames]

I am not sure there is life left. In the last few years the car has been eating engine oil and had had a recurring intermittent problem with the idle, that no one was able to solve. So if it's a rather cheap repair, I'll be glad to keep it, but if it's the clutch I give up.

[sparky Paul]

That's a shame, if the car doesn't warrant spending money on. Rust is the killer here in the UK, but it all depends on the condition of the rest of the car, and its faults.

If the car was a decent example, I wouldn't give up even if the engine was dead - good secondhand replacements are cheap to buy here as they are generally so reliable. Not so good, of course, if you have to pay for a garage to do the work.

There's some threads on here regarding idle issues, might be worth a read.

[bus_ter]

I am not sure there is life left. In the last few years the car has been eating engine oil and had had a recurring intermittent problem with the idle, that no one was able to solve. So if it's a rather cheap repair, I'll be glad to keep it, but if it's the clutch I give up.

I'm curious. What's the mileage? Do you know if oil changes were completed regularly through it's life?

[springswood]

I've just been looking into PCV valve problems in another thread here and symptoms for that include rough running and oil consumption. Have you looked into that yet? Wouldn't be that expensive to fix.

[SuperCNJ]

Have you looked underneath the car to see if there are any signs of oil leaks?

[MaxFrames]

Thanks all for the replies.
As I expected ( ) the garage ignored my request to first diagnose the problem and allow me to evaluate the convenience of the repair, and just proceeded outright to the repair. It was not too expensive, not too cheap either, also due to the tow truck fee.
It was, indeed, the (slave) clutch cylinder. I have been told that the master cylinder could also fail, and there are a few other issues mostly due to poor maintenance (for which I plead guilty). They added 1.5 Kg of engine oil, to give you an idea. They told me that the car may last another year without substancial maintenance, or it may not.