Hey all, plain and simple explanation:

I was driving to work this morning, and the car felt as usual, everything was great until I decided to push the car a little around 2 corners. I downshifted and pushed it around the first corner, left it in gear and took the second corner, when I went to disengage the gear, the clutch pressure fell to about half of the travelling distance of the pedal. In other words, now when I press the clutch it feels very soft and not doing anything until about almost the floor. Any ideas as to what may have happened? I don't see how cornering affected this. I have a thread open that made me decide to flush the clutch fluid and put new one in since 1) it's never been done before on my car, and 2) the fluid is somewhat below the minimum mark on the reservoir, but I was trying for it to hold until tomorrow which is when I can get to it. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

That's close to empty.
Not good.
Air may have entered the hydraulic system (while cornering maybe?) and air is easy to compress (unlike a fluid).
That may be a cause to the symptoms you describe.
You'll have to find out why/how the level got that low before flushing the system.
You may have a leak, in either the master cylinder / reservoir or slave or hydraulic connections and/or lines.


If you mean "somewhat below the maximum mark", then... I donno.
Pressure plate failure?
Any signs of a slipping clutch?
How did the shifting go with the clutch only disengaging half?
At a stop in neutral with the engine running is it easy to get into first gear?

 

low fluid or air in system

take it to a shop, empty old fluid, bleed until clean clear new fluid
road test and do over.

 

That's what I was thinking...maybe while I was cornering, the fluid was moving around, and since it was low, it may have led air into the system. I was researching as to why the fluid was so low, and a friend of mine suggested that it may have been because my car's clutch line had never been bled since new, and this combined with the fact that most hydraulic systems leak even if it's just neglegible...resulting in an empty reservoir over a period of 4 years. My friend also suggested to look under the dash, where I did see that the piston of the master cylinder stays greasy/leaky, but I've been told that this is normal, and again that most systems leak slightly. So I'm guessing that unless the master cylinder starts losing functionality and the fluid leaks to the point that it starts to run down to the carpet, I should be fine with flushing and bleeding the system.

To answer your question: the shifting was fine and the gears did go in and out normally even when the clutch was engaging at the bottom. I suppose to leaves air in the system as my problem?

Thanks a lot SpitfireS and if you have any other ideas and/or suggestions please shoot them this way!

 

Guys I just came back from Honda...the car has a bad master cylinder. It's getting replaced on Tuesday. If this thread is helpful to anyone keep it open, otherwise it may be closed. Thank you all.