I have a 97 jetta 2.8L and it has a hydraulic clutch. I have owned the car for two years and the clutch pedal has never returned all the to the top it sits below the brake pedal. So this weekend we pulled off the dash and took a look at everything and lubbed the pedal where it attaches. The pedal started coming back to the top with no problems it last for 24 hours. The master and slave cylinders are not leaking i have never had to put brake fluid in the car. We bled the system and got three air bubbles and i don't believe that it did anything. People that i have talked to are saying that the master or the slave are "sticking" but they are pretty expensive to replace if they don't fix it. I do believe that i need a new return spring that attaches to the pedal i ordered one but when we placed it next to the old one there were two clips broken on the old one and on the new they were still there. we did not know if we were supposed to break the clips or not so we have not installed it yet. Is there any advice out there or does anyone know how to test to see if the master or slave is bad? Also i don't believe my clutch is slipping. But the clutch is getting worse the friction point is almost all the way to the floor and is getting closer to the floor everyday. I feel that soon i wont have a clutch.

we have bled the clutch several times now and we bled it like you bleed the brakes. we decided to replace the master and slave. before we replaced the master and slave the clutch was slipping it just started slipping in all the gears except first it was an overnight thing. so we replaced the master and slave and now my pedal is still not returning to the top like it should it just sits closer to the floor and the clutch is slipping more and more everyday. so now i am thinking i need to replace the clutch. could i be wrong or have done something wrong?

we are currently trying to replace the clutch so I will let you know how things go.