P0805: Clutch Position Sensor A Circuit
What to do
Expect the car either not to move or to take up sharply. This is a fault in the mechanism that operates the clutch for you, not something you can work around from the driver's seat. Have it recovered rather than driven if it will not move cleanly.
What this code means
The sensor reporting where the clutch actually is has stopped sending a usable signal. This code belongs to a different machine from most of the transmission range: an automated manual or dual-clutch gearbox, where the clutch is operated by an actuator under module control rather than by the driver's left foot.
On those transmissions the position signal is not a convenience, it is the control loop. Taking up a clutch smoothly means moving it to the bite point, holding it there while slip is managed, then completing engagement — and none of that is possible without knowing where the clutch is. Losing the signal therefore produces either a vehicle that will not move at all, or one that engages abruptly enough to be unpleasant, depending on how the module is written to fail.
A conventional manual has no such sensor and cannot set this code; a conventional automatic has no clutch in this sense either. If a vehicle with an ordinary torque-converter automatic is reported to have stored it, question the scan tool's vehicle selection before anything else.
Likely causes
Start here
- Faulty clutch position sensor · specialist
- Damaged transmission wiring harness · moderate
- Corroded transmission connector · moderate
Less common
- Faulty clutch actuator · specialist
Rare
- Faulty transmission control module · specialist
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
Be the first to write this up
Nothing posted about this yet. Whatever you found is worth writing down — even a dead end saves someone the same afternoon.
What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
Sign in or create an account to add what you found about P0805.