I'm driving an 01 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT V6 Manual transmission with 70K miles

When traveling at any fixed speed, say 65 MPH, then accelarating to pass a car or something my RMP's spike from about 3500 to 4700. The engine revs with no appreciable speed increase then the RPMS drop to 3700 or so and the car starts to pick up speed with an associated increase in RPMS.

Since this problem started I've replaced the battery, ignition wires, spark plugs, distributor cap & rotor, flushed the radiator and replaced the upper and lower radiator hoses with no change to the situation. Note, I didn't do this to try to solve this particular problem the work just needed doing and I thought some of it might narrow down the causes.

Is this normal? Is my clutch slipping? What do I do to fix this?

 

Clutch is slipping 100% sure.

Can you explain to us how you drive? What I mean by this, is what you do to get moving and change gears.

 

In the scenario I described there was no shifting involved. I was in 4th and stayed there. All I did was apply pressure on the accelerator pedal.

Normally when shifting I take my foot of the accelerator, push the clutch in, shift to the next highest gear then gradually release pressure on the clutch pedal while simultaneously accelerating.

Hope this helps.

 

Just saw the "100% sure its the clutch slipping" part. Bummer. I can't do that work myself. Any idea how much I should expect to pay for a new clutch?

 

Okay thats how you shift, but how do you start off?

Shifting like that isn't 'bad' but it does put a little extra wear on the clutch. When your foot is at all on the clutch, and on the gas at the same time, you are slipping it, and that reduces the life of it. (unless the clutch is all the way in) If you want to prolong the life of it, then get on the gas after the clutch is fully released.

How much gas do you use when starting off? How soon do you release the clutch all the way? Remembering that being on the clutch and gas = clutch burn.

 

I definitely start the car moving by pushing the clutch all the way in then gradually releasing the clutch while applying gas. I also tend to accelerate fast with a lot of pressure on the accelerator while I'm releasing the clutch. Didn't realize that was burning out the clutch.. it's just always how I've done it.

Friend of mine said it's going to cost close to $1,200 to get that fixed....

 

1200 is a little steep........very steep actually. You can find it for a lot less. There is no set price really, you just have to look around and find the best quote.

Yup, thats how the clutch died for sure.

Oh, and I realize that there was no shifting involved, I was just trying to pin point what killed it.