clutch problem or something else?

[rice]

hello, the car is a 5-spd 95 rolla and all of a sudden the car stop moving, the rpm goes up and the speedometer goes up but the car stays still, can still shift and everything but i smelt something that smells like burnt tire coming from the engine.

took it to the shop and they said the clutch went out and asking for around $1,000 to replace it, is this a good deal? whats going on here, is it really the clutch because the clutch seem to be fine last week and didn't seem to be slipping at all? can the clutch all of a sudden go out like this? i thought it would begin to slip first or something before it totally goes out? ok thanks

[94_Rolla_Guy]

a burning clutch doesn't really smell like burning rubber. The other thing that is strange is that the speedo is reading with the car not moving the speedo sensor is driven off the differential carrier so the problem would have to be further out than that which could be the differential spider gears, or a drive shaft thats broken.. if the speedo works with the car standing still i highly doubt its the clutch

[mr.kenny]

Make sure your drive shafts are pushed all the way into the tranny drive. One may have popped out. Something is letting the transaxle run fast but not transfering the power to the wheels. Also maybe the cv joint is broken or come apart.
If the clutch is slipping the engine rpms would go up but not the speedo.
In the 5 speed the the spider gears are always lubed so they don't fail like the overlooked automatics;... unless you are totally out of tranny oil.... or you blew those gears out by too many burnouts.

[rice]

how do you explain the burning tire smell then? car is driven very carefully, thanks guys

[94_Rolla_Guy]

this is a long shot but the smell could be a cv boot rubbing against itself assuming a CV is broken