Originally Posted by shaverj

I've experienced the same in my '06. Typically when exiting the expressway after a long drive, the pedal feels a bit stiff, but then loosens up after pressing it a few times.

I'm not familiar with the clutch setup on these cars but the behavior would point to the slave. This means likely a full clutch job as your dissassembling anyway...Clutch disc, pressure plate, slave, throwout bearing, rear main, flywheel resurface...etc.

Probobly going to be quite a costly fix as manual trans bits will not be covered by warranty. If I recall the clutch and plate alone were somewhere around $1200 last I looked.

If the clutch is hydraulic (again I'm not familiar with this setup) you could certainly try replacing the fluid. Perhaps its boiled a few to many times?