Hi guys, I'm just relaying a post for a friend with a manual V6 TS Executive. The car has recently been very sluggish and now he tells me that while the engine runs, it does not engage gear even though the gearstick has been physically moved into 1st gear (or whatever gear)

Unfortunately I haven't had time to go out there to check it out myself, but the symptoms were :

1. Three weeks ago he noticed a considerable lack of power while driving, thus needing to use more revs to get the car going --> leading to excessive consumption. The sluggishness gradually became worse and worse.

2. Temperature gauge started to rise, so he replenished the radiator/coolant tank. All seems good now.

3. Now car will start and run, but as mentioned earlier, there's no engagement of the drivetrain when the gearstick is moved into 1st.

So does anyone know what this problem might be? At first when he mentioned the sluggishness and rising temperature I thought he might have blown the head/head gasket, but since the car is still running but not engaging gear, I'm thinking it's more drivetrain related. The car's clutch had no slack nor slippage in it, so I'm suspecting that it has been replaced by the former owner. It's got 207,000km on it and is a 1995 model.

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks

I'm not sure if a dead thrust bearing would cause that. Or perhaps the actual fork that moves the bearing (dunno what it's called) is broken? Strange problem he has there...I hope someone else can shed some more light upon it for you.

So the engines running and your in gear. If you can let the clutch out and nothings happening then i'd say your clutch is stuffed. Sounds like it may have been slipping if he was giving it more revs to get moving.

As stated, could have been slipping clutch and finally a completely stuffed clutch. A few years back my old car somehow developed an oil leak onto the clutch plate, similar type of symptoms, though it slip at first a lot and then eventually grab.

Is there any sound difference between clutch in an clutch out? Might give a vague indication as to whether the plate is actually making contact or not.