We purchased a brand new 2009 Versa sedan, and after just 204 miles my wife was driving it and the clutch pedal went completely to the floor and never came back up. She called me in a panic and upon looking at it I found that the little ball connection from the clutch pedal to the clutch arm through the engine wall can completely apart.

WARNING: This is a "plastic" part, and comes apart as easy as removing the cap from off a ball point pen!

Luckily my wife was not in heavy traffic when this happened, because she could not shift the car into gears to get her off the road safely.

We took it back to the dealer and they said that they replaced the plastic part. Before driving off the lot it I tested it to see if it would hold, and it popped right off again.Easy as pie!

To say the least, I didn't take the car home, rather I insisted they replace the part again and check with Nissan Corp. about the safety of the part. T

hey said they called Nissan region offices and they were told that it was safe to drive, but no one would guarantee me that it wouldn't happen again! Nor would the dealership allow me to return the Versa and pay extra and upgrade to a safer vehicle.

Shame on Ken Garff Nissan in Salt Lake City, Utah! We will never buy a car from Ken Garff again, and we will never buy a Nissan either. (Well,l at least it isn't a Toyota with a sticking gas pedal!)

ATTENTION: Please be aware of this defect in the clutch pedal assembly, and please let me know if anyone finds a permanent solution to this hazardous design.

Do you have any pictures to show this plastic part? I have an auto and I'm not sure which part you are talking about.

Find another dealer as the one you went to just isn't about customer service. Shame on them.

I have about 35k miles on my MT tranny and can't complain...

this happend to me a week after i had my versa, crazy that it happnd to u

Promise Land wrote:Do you have any pictures to show this plastic part? I have an auto and I'm not sure which part you are talking about.

I will try and take some pictures this weekend.

The part I mentioned is the connection between the arm that goes through the firewall, and where the clutch pedal arm connects together. The clutch arm has a semi-ball shaped extension coming out from off the arm of the clutch pedal assembly, and the plastic part in question sort of comes from the other arm and goes around the ball, much like your fingers going around a baseball. This connection is very weak at best, and is easily disconnected with slight outward pressure away from the clutch arm. I would think that this connection is important enough that it should require a pin or other inhibitor to keep the "fingers" of the plastic part from easily slipping from around the ball.

If this would have disconnected by itself while my wife was driving in heavy traffic, she would have been in a hazardous situation, as she could no longer shift the car into gears. Luckily she was only driving through our neighborhood at the time. As 1Tango says, it happened to him also. So I don't think that 1tango and I are the only two that this has happened to.

I am posting in hopes that someone might have a solution for this faulty part, as my wife and children no longer feel safe driving our "new" Nissan Versa car, and the dealer would not take it back, and we would loose too much equity trading it in after just buying it. But if I can't find a solution, then the safety of my family far outweighs any loss I might incur.

i heard/read about this cheap plastic linkage. hopefully nissan does something about it before someone gets hurt. cutting corners AGAIN!?

didn't nissan learn when renault bailed them out? guess not.

Here is a picture of the offending piece. I made the mistake of lubricating the ball, and it just pops off easier!

Mine has not popped off while driving, but it has an audible "click" and easily felt in the pedal where that plastic piece is snapping around. I can't believe is this all that's keeping your pedal connected to the clutch. A plastic bushing might be fine if there was a metal cotter pin keeping the arm from slipping out.

I've contacted a Nissan dealer in my area, the plastic piece is not a separate item. They suspect it's just part of the master cylinder, but they did not have one in stock. $133 for the clutch master cylinder (part only). This is ridiculous. I'm thinking of cutting the part of the connector with the weak little "fingers" and installing a sturdy metal clip of some sort - or drilling a hole in the ball coming off the clutch pedal so that a cotterpin could be installed. The OEM CMC kits I've seen appear to have the traditional "fork" connector, so I don't know what that might use to keep it on the arm coming off the clutch pedal...

I've got a bit of a kludge fix, but so far it's working:

I pushed the connector all the way onto the arm coming off the clutch pedal, and attached a hose clamp that I wrapped in a rubber band. This keeps the fingers from that plastic connector pressed in firmly at that ball joint so it can't pop off.

I'll post a picture soon, with an update on whether or not it's still holding. Wow! What a difference to not have that stupid thing popping every time I press the clutch pedal...

hmm... 57k of hard driving on mine and hasn't shown anything. May look at making a fix though, scary problem.

i thought i reply on this old post. this use to happen to me when i drove my versa...all the time except it didnt break...i could just keep popping it back in. until my friend drove my car and it didnt happen at all...so it got me thinking...maybe it was me?

so i observed how i drove..and i actually rest my heel on the mat while pushing down the clutch pedal...so i was guessing this was causing me to push the clutch at a angle. anywho im use to it now but i hover my foot over the pedal and push and i have never had the problem since.

I got a same problem 4 weeks ago. I can't believe that that part is plastic. It's under minimum safety standards and it has to be recalled. I think we have to fight for that. I am in Canada. It must be some government institution in Canada and US to protect us from such stupid ideas. It's about human life's. Before it's too late.

This happened to me three days ago as I was about to go on a road trip. It was a blessing that my partner who just wanted to lubricate the clutch because it was "squeaking" discovered the ball pops out of the clutch every time it is pressed. A good blessing that we have a friend mechanic who gave us the scenario of endangering our safety and those in the highway when the pressure from the pedal is gone due to this "plastic" gadget that enables the driver to shift gear was horrific to think about. We decided to change the part for safety reason and adopting the strategy you have done on your own to prevent it from popping. We will sell the car and not buy a Nissan car ever.

I just searched this again and found my old post. Today my 5+ year fix popped off and the clutch went to the floor. Fortunately I was moving slowly at the time, and I wrested it into neutral, then when traffic moved I again wrestled it into 1st and got off the road. You CAN switch gears in a pinch without the clutch, it's just not happy about it.

I'm disappointed after this time that there is not a better fix for this, but the hose clamp has worked fine, and the fix today was that it only needed slight tightening. I also added some silicone lube to the ball part (pedal side).

I don't understand how these geniuses decide to make critical connections that handle decent forces out of plastic...

All in all however, my 2007 Versa has been great. 145k miles and the only issues I've had are a broken AC pushbutton switch (It's just a PCB mount tactile switch - I replaced it using one from an old VCR), and the clutch pedal connection. I also had one tire pressure sensor go bad but that was during the warranty period. No issues since. The car is easy on brakes and tires, it's been very economical to operate.

I never posted the actual fix, so here you go. The rubber band being latex had gummed up and falling apart so I cleaned out the hose clamp and wrapped in a strip cut from a nitrile glove. Hopefully this will last longer. I wrapped the clamp with the nitrile material and installed it on the connector and tightened.



Wrapped with the glove material


Clamp installed

I know this post is rather old but I thought I would post the repair I made which I think is rather permanent.

I used an 1/8 inch steel drill bit and then use a 1/8 inch stainless steel cotter pin, took me all of 30 minutes.

see attached photo.

I know this is an old thread, but this happened within weeks of getting my own Versa sedan (2007, six-speed manual). I was peeved and had it replaced under warranty from my dealer, who suggested it might be my driving style. Odd, but my Pontiac Firebird, Honda Civic, or BMW 328is never had a problem with my "driving style", I instead thought it might be a poor design. Sure enough, less than a month later I had the "click" that other posters mentioned.

Today, I got it fixed up. To make a long story short, drill a hole in the rod that come off of the clutch pedal, slip a washer over it, and put a cotter pin through it. Not coming off now!



Key details if you want to do this yourself:
3/8" washer
3/32" x 1" cotter pin
drill bit (compare to cotter pin)
utility knife (to cut plastic tabs)

A few more pictures of the job "in progress" for those who are curious.

https://goo.gl/photos/fKJAQnm66wYC6Zd56

Maybe $2 in parts for the piece of mind that your clutch pedal won't be failing when your wife is driving the car around!

Blessings,

Austin

The version with the washer looks like a great permanent fix, thanks for the post.

roop1 wrote:The version with the washer looks like a great permanent fix, thanks for the post.

It's been holding up well too. Totally gave me a lot more confidence in the car. I wish I would have done it sooner!

If anyone else has the problem, and lives in Southern California (Los Angeles, Orange County, etc) hit me up. I bought my hardware in batches of 10 (washers and pins). If you're nearby you can have what you need for a fix for free.

Best of luck!

Austin

Guess i get to join your ranks, this just happened on my 2015 Versa. only have about 29k miles on it. Good thing it didn't happen until i was parked. Im going to take it to the dealership and see what they will do.

Why? You just get another crap 20 cent part in its' place. Fix it permanently. I'd be removing the end clip locators to just leave the sleeve that the rod fits over and why did he think he needed to wrap the clamp with anything? Bare clamp tightened hard on the steel shaft itself, not plastic and then it lasts until the end of all time.

If you guys had any idea of how many places you think are safety issues that use cheap crap clips or connectors like that.................well, you would never drive a car again. 85% of all cars now are assembled with a gloved hand ONLY and ZERO tools, it requires lots of parts just like this one to do that. Using no tools if possible speeds up the assembly line and more consistently.