The engine of your car is sophisticated, it is not always easy to interpret all the signals it sends us. Nevertheless, it is certainly essential to try to stay on alert for the slightest sign of weakness in your car to limit the risk of serious problems. If you have the feeling that your clutch is slipping on your Citroen Xsara, you’re right to have started examining. It’s a defect that must be taken into account rather quickly, otherwise you could end up with an unusable car. To help you in your approach our team has decided to write this article which should allow you to see more clearly and make the right decisions to avoid aggravating the situation and ensure that it is indeed the problem you are victim of. To accomplish this, we will first look at what a slipping clutch on Citroen Xsara is and how to examine that this is what is happening to you, and then, what actions can be taken to correct the situation.

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What is slipping clutch on Citroen Xsara and how to identify it?

A Citroen Xsara with a clutch that slips

The clutch of your Citroen Xsara is the part that allows your engine to shift gears. It is located between your gearbox and your engine. It is the part that comes into contact with the flywheel which is located on the engine side and which will receive the power transmitted by the clutch. With wear, the clutch of your Citroen Xsara slips because it is made up of notches that engage in the flywheel, and with wear and friction it wears out. It is said that the clutch slips when its teeth are too overused for it to engage on the flywheel.

How to identify clutch slipping on an Citroen Xsara?

There are many methods to find out that the clutch of your Citroen Xsara is slipping. You can conduct all of these tests yourself.
You can simply find out that your clutch slips when you accelerate and your engine revs up, but your car does not speed up, you may also encounter a burning smell.
To validate the first observation, you can stop, pull the parking brake, engage the first gear, accelerate reasonably by releasing the clutch of your vehicle softly, if your engine rises in revs but the Citroen Xsara keeps stationary it is the sign of a dead clutch.
Finally, you can put yourself, still in third gear, with the handbrake on, and by releasing it, your car should stall, if not, your clutch is almost certainly dead.

What should I do when my clutch slips on my Citroen Xsara?

Some advices to avoir the wear of your Citroen Xsara clutch

We will now give you some recommendations to limit the wear of your clutch and avoid your clutch slipping on your Citroen Xsara. To begin with, it is good not to leave your foot on the clutch pedal, whether or not the pressure you apply is very light you will pre wear the clutch release bearing which will eventually end up in a full change of the clutch kit. Another point not to be missed, do not over-accelerate when you start your car, your acceleration must constantly be adapted to the speed of your engine. If you are at a standstill accelerate slowly, if you are at medium speed accelerate gradually when you release the clutch pedal of your car so as not to make it slip against your engine flywheel.

Replacing your Citroen Xsara clutch

Finally, in this last part, we will address the repair part. In circumstance the clutch of your Citroen Xsara is dead, you might be stuck at a standstill and have no other choice than to call the tow truck, because a dead clutch no longer allows the transmission to transmit power to the wheels. If this is the circumstance, be aware that you will have to replace the complete clutch kit, this repair requires quite a few hours of work and is approximated to cost between 500 and 1200 euros according to the engine and the garage.

To get more tips on the Citroen Xsara, take a look at the Citroen Xsara category.