jmerber

I'm working on my friend's 1996 Audi A4 Quattro. Local Meineke diagnosed this as a bad clutch. Originally had all the symptoms of a bad slave or master cylinder - incomplete disengagement of the clutch. Originally you could disengage the clutch just enough with the pedal to the floor to put the car in gear and start it up, you would need to float each gear once you were moving, tho, because the clutch didn't disengage enough to free up the transmission to shift freely.

I replaced the slave cylinder, and that is when things got really confusing.

Here is a scenario that best describes the current issue:

When the clutch pedal is fully depressed and the vehicle is first started, you can shift freely from any gear or neutral without issue. You can even leave the car in neutral when you start it and freely access any gear - clutch seems fully disengaged.

Put it in gear and let up on the clutch and the car moves normally. Depress the clutch again and you can't get into any gear (although sometimes 5th gear and reverse come easily). So now we are stuck in neutral, 5th or reverse, so we depress the clutch pedal and turn the engine off. As soon as the engine is off we can access any gear easily. Restart the engine in any gear, or neutral, and freely access any gear just like where we began.

Repeat the last paragraph infinitely.

Any ideas? How come the clutch pedal doesn't seem to disengage the clutch when the car has been put into gear while running, but as soon as the clutch is engaged after the car has started, the clutch will seem to never disengage again until the car has been turned off and restarted? Yes it is that confusing.

Drive around town - push clutch pedal down (no disengagement) - turn engine off but leave pedal down - start car (still leaving the clutch pedal down) and the clutch is disengaged.

Thanks in advance!