so last night I was heading home and the car broke down. will not engage in any gear forward or reverse. here are the events leading up to the breakdown.


yesterday around noon I was heading into town from my house which is about 15 miles out of town. I noticed when I would step on the gas the engine would rev up but the car didn't appear to gain as much speed as normal. generally this is a pretty snappy car 2004 mazda 3.
it appeared as though the transmission was slipping however I had very little warning signs of a bad tranny.


throughout the day this "slipping" progressed and by the time night fell it was hard to get up to highway speeds and maintain speeds. I would baby it every time I approached an incline id downshift to prevent having to put the gas to it and in general was very gentle.


I had to follow my dad put to his mechanic so he could drop off his suburu forester and seeing as I don't have my license I had him drive the mazda back towards his house. he was unable to be as gentle as he isn't used to the five speed and erratically shifted and stepped very hard on the gas the symtoms became much more apparent. I told him to pull over jumped in the seat got it up to speed then I down shifted felt a grind although didn't hear much and lost all power. the car will run and I can push it into any gear without any resistance and without pushing on the clutch.


anybody have any insight?> is there any more information I could provide to better asses the problem? if I plugged in a diagnostic tool would that tell me what is wrong? my buddy worked as a mechanic for land air express and has a pretty good diagnostic tool.


thanks for any help much appreciated.

 

It sounds to me that the clutch is not working any more.

It would help to know how many miles are on it and if it has seen some abuse or not. keeping the foot on the clutch pedal would be "abuse". Letting the clutch slip for extended periods would qualify as abuse. Revving the engine and dropping the clutch would qualify as well.

There is not enough information for me to say the transmission took damage but I cannot exclude that either.

 

Clutch 100 percent. This is what happened to my car when mine went. It would rev higher then it would actually move. Then it gets worse and worse until its done and won't go anywhere. Its the exact same predicament I had.