Throw Out Bearing Noise: How to Fix Throwout Bearing Noise

Last updated on November 1st, 2021 at 06:27 am

Anytime you depress your car clutch pedal and hear a loud grinding, rattling, whirling noise, and you ease off the clutch pedal, and the noise starts to dissipate. Then it simply mean a bad throw-out bearing, which can negatively affect your vehicle clutch functionality.

A throw-out bearing happens to be an integral part of clutch operation. Whenever you press down on the clutch pedal, the throw-out bearing applies lot of pressure to the flywheel pressure plate, pulling it away from the clutch disc in order to disrupt power flow and then disengage the clutch.

So here are the subtopics that we will consider in this article:

what causes a throwout bearing to go bad
4 Throw out bearing failure symptoms
how long can you drive with a bad throw out bearing
throw out bearing replacement cost
how to fix throwout bearing noise

with those let’s get started with what causes a throwout bearing to go bad

WHAT CAUSES A THROWOUT BEARING TO GO BAD

As said before, a throw-out bearing is the component of the clutch which temporarily disengages a car’s engine from the transmission during gear shifts. So anytime the clutch pedal is pushed with your foot, the clutch release bearing gets closer to the flywheel.

However, this causes the released fingers of the pressure plate to get pushed in. And once that happens, the fingers of the pressure plate pushes against the force of its spring. You should note that this causes the disconnection between the engines and wheels, allowing you to shift into a different gear.

Anytime the clutch pedal is released, the throw-out bearing will return to its original position. This is where power from the vehicle’s engine once again will be transferred via the transmission into the drive wheels of your car.

Please note that all the components of the clutch and transmission system are vital for the safety and functionality of any vehicle. But once your throw-out bearing is not able to do its job correctly, you will definitely notice some signs to show it is beginning to go bad or complete failure and to this effect most times you might notice throw out bearing noise coming out from your vehicle.

Sometimes your bearing may go bad after years of wear and tear or maybe even from damage due to an accident. But in any case, you need to change the clutch release bearing as quickly as you noticed it having issue.

4 THROW OUT BEARING FAILURE SYMPTOMS

You need to be aware of how a faulty throw-out bearing can affect the way your car performs so that you can immediately follow through with the maintenance and repair procedures. Because the longer the throw-out bearing remains non-functional, the more serious the symptoms will get and also, the more expensive it will become. Below are some of the throw-out bearing failure symptoms.

Unpleasant sound while matching clutch pedal

As a driver, it’s common to hear a grinding or rattling sound when you press down the clutch pedal once the throw-out bearing is bad. And as a driver, these noises will give a lot of concern, but sometimes they could point toward other issues with your transmission or clutch.

Stiff feeling of clutch pedal

Once the problem of bad throw-out bearing increases, it can cause your car’s clutch pedal to become very stiff as you press down on it. However, this should alert you as a driver and must be fixed immediately.

The problem of Gear shift

Almost all transmission problems unavoidably leads to gear shifting problems. Once the clutch pedal is not engaging fully or has difficulty, it can lead to gear shifting problems, which has the possibility to render the car useless until the problem is solved.

Total clutch failing

In conclusion, a bad throw-out bearing can lead to total clutch failure and indeed, this is an expensive problem to fix, so it’s important to address throw-out bearing failure symptoms early before the problem escalate.

HOW LONG CAN YOU DRIVE WITH A BAD THROW OUT BEARING

Knowing how long to drive your bad throw out bearing car can be very difficult, because sometimes you might drive it a long time, other times, not so much. It all depends on when you hear it and when it destructs, but that can vary quite a bit in length depending on certain variables like seat tolerance and stereo volume. However, there will come a time when even the meanest set of 6×9’s won’t help and you will be stranded on the road, being pissed off. A bad throw-out bearing can damage the collar/snout/quill, so whenever you have notice that it has failed, fix it while you have the time to fix it. So now you know how to drive with throw out bearing noise or bad throw-out.

THROW OUT BEARING REPLACEMENT COST

You need to know that a throw-out bearing itself is relatively not expensive. One of the major issues it has is the amount of labor to fix it since the replacement process required that the entire transmission be removed before the throw out bearing replaced.

On the average, a throw-out bearing replacement cost should be around $30-$100. But the cost of getting a new clutch can vary, because it all depends on the vehicle. However, most of them cost around $300 to $800. If there is need, getting a new flywheel will cost you around $50 to $200.

And as we said earlier, the labor cost of replacing the throw-out bearing is where you’ll spend the most money. If you get an expert mechanic, it might take between 4 to 6 hours to replace the throw-out bearing and clutch so at an average of $75/hour labor rate, you’re looking at about $300 to $450 just in labor.

As we said, the total cost to replace just your throw-out bearing would be $330 to $610. However, you will likely want to change your clutch at the same time so the total replacement cost should be around $580 to $1220.

HOW TO FIX THROWOUT BEARING NOISE

One of the reason you are hearing noise when the clutch pedal is out, is because the throw-out bearing is making contact with the pressure plate, and normally a car clutch pedal mechanism is never designed for the throw-out bearing to touch clutch pedal. And if it touches that is when you hear the throw out bearing noise.

This also indicates an issue with your car bearing.

So the only thing you can try is to adjust your clutch pedal to have more free play. And doing this will allow bearing to be pushed away from the pressure plate.

once done, try to find the fork on the outside of the bell housing and attach a semi-strong spring to pull the throw-out bearing away from the pressure plate (when u do not have the pedal pushed in).This will make the noise go away.

For some cars such as Ford mustang that uses a spring-loaded clutch cable, you can pull the bearing into the pressure plate. But note that there is no mechanism to pull the bearing away from the pressure plate when you let off the clutch. But instead, the bearing ends up always in contact with the pressure plate.

Please note that throw-out bearing is something that is integrated into the clutch and replacing it would require an expert mechanic to remove the clutch assembly and remove the throw-out bearing out of the clutch assembly.

Although this can consume a lot of time and would be costly as the throw-out itself can sometimes cost as much as the whole meeting. So in most cases when you have the entire clutch system out of your car, it is wiser to replace the assembly rather than just the throw-out alone.