Long story short, I had to have my R53 towed because the failed alternator prevented me from driving it home. My brother-in-law had access to a semi truck car hauler and offered to tow it for me but stated he had to load my car on the trailer.

He ended up smoking my clutch trying to load it on the trailer - adding way too much throttle instead of letting the clutch out more. I kicked him out of my car and got it on the trailer myself. In the 10 minutes or so it took him to strap the car down and get the trailer road ready, there was still some smoke coming from my transmission.

I drove the car about a mile today and dipped into the throttle some in second gear to see if the clutch would slip (it did not) and to just get a feel for if it feels different. I pulled my supercharger today in preparation to send back and the whole time underhood, the awful stench of burnt clutch is all over the engine compartment.

I installed this clutch and flywheel in May - maybe 3000 miles ago and this fool just smoked it like I've never seen before. It's an LUK clutch and flywheel (stock replacment) from FCP Euro. I expect there would be hot spots or blueing on the pressure plate and/or flywheel, maybe heat cracking and of course, wear on the clutch disc.

My question is how much damage to the clutch is likely done? I have no personal experience with long term effects of a smoked clutch. I wasn't even that hard on a clutch when I learned to drive manual transmission a few decades ago.

Until I get my replacement supercharger back to me in a few weeks or so, I will not be able to do a comprehensive road test on that clutch. My original, stock clutch went 165k miles when I replaced it and I only replaced it because I had the engine and transmission separated - a "while I am there" kind of thing, so I was horrified at level of abuse on my new clutch from this moron.

 

Take it up a hill in 5th or 6th and floor it. Does it slip? Likely just put a hot spot on the flywheel or surface area of plate. Maybe glazed the disc a tad. Drive it until there is a obv issue.

 

Ditto what The Devil Z said.

Is it good? No.

Is it catastrophic? Not likely.

 

Can only agree with what The Devil Z and Husky44 said.

The clutch slippage test wants to be done in a gear that is as close to 1:1 as possible. In a 6-speed manual this is probably 4th gear but you need to check.

Even if the clutch doesn't slip the flywheel/pressure plate can have developed hard spots from localized overheating. They'll show up as blue/purple if you ever gain access to the flywheel. These hard spots can cause the clutch to be grabby. The hard spots do not have the same coefficient of friction as normal areas and this difference in friction causes the grabby behavior. Only if they are not too bad can a resurface remove them. In most cases replacement of the flywheel along with the pressure plate and disc is called for.

 

If the clutch action is good and you are basically only concerned about the odor, I'd give it a good while before doing anything more. About ten years ago I was in a line of cars taking in a Christmas display and spent a long while inching up an incline before inching through the show itself. The clutch stared to smell awful, though I don't really remember smoke pouring out on that night. The smell remained strong for months and eventually dissipated. That was many thousands of miles ago and the clutch still seems good at about 100,000 miles. With only 3000 on this clutch you may be OK like some others have said. Try to be patient.

 

I appreciate all of your opinions.

I shipped my supercharger today, so it will be a couple of weeks or so before I'm driving my R53 again.

Unless there are any drivability issues, I just going to run this clutch until any issues present themselves.