Clutch pedal slow to move in very cold weather

[mikebai1990]

Just got my 2010 Mazda3 a week or so ago, so haven't driven it in all types of conditions yet. Yesterday, temperature was pretty low, probably around 15 degrees F, and I noticed that in the first 10/15 minutes of driving, the clutch pedal was noticeably "sticky", in the sense that the pedal was slow to spring up and press down. It didn't prevent me from driving, but I did have to adjust to the different feel of the clutch pedal response. After some driving, it definitely got better. Is this something to be expected under cold weather conditions?

[AHTOXA]

Yes. I've found via owning different manual cars that some cars are more susceptible to this than others. My '06 GTO was very prone to having the case of a stiff/mushy clutch on cold mornings. A few minutes cleared it up. Other cars were to a much smaller degree.

Edit: in my case, this surfaced at a lower temperature. I usually would notice when it got down to low teens and single digits. However, my case was also likely to be more severe, where it required 3-4 clutch pumps to feel improvement before I even started moving.

[Rope-Pusher]

[tankinbeans]

I've noticed this in my car too. The other day our first subzero morning -14F my clutch started being very firm, not heavy but there was very noticeable feedback. I found it easier to drive my car then.

Perhaps this was a little bit psychosomatic and that I may have been imagining things. Maybe it was because it was forcing myself to slow down that helped.

I tend to think that my actions when trying to start smoothly are performed a lot more slowly than they really are.