Clutch or Transmission?

Last night coming home I had a weird major problem with my 2011 JSW TDI. The car has about 63000 miles on it. I was on a parkway with the cruise control on in sixth gear when all of a sudden in popped out of gear and I could not get it into any gear. Lucky there was a driveway close and I was able to roll off the parkway. I shut the engine down and was ready to call a tow truck when I tried to go in gear one more time and it did. Since I was about 6 miles from home the exit for my house I said let me try to get home. About a mile from my house I could not move the shifter out of second gear.
This morning I tried to move it and could not so I called a tow truck and had it brought to the dealer. They had to use wheel dollies to get it off the tow truck. There is oil under where it was parked. The dealer said they could not look at it until Monday.
I did not get a chance to try to see the problem but am trying to figure out what it is. Could it be the cylinder for the clutch? The shifter or the transmission itself.
I have been driving a stick my whole life and have never had a transmission fail let alone in 63000 miles. I have also never had a clutch go at that low mileage so am trying to think of what could be the cause.
I am not happy right now with this and am waiting to see what they say Monday. Any ideas. Thanks

It almost sounds like the transmission leaked most of it's fluid or the clutch master cylinder failed and won't allow the transmission to go into gear.

With the engine off does it still fail to move through the gears?

When they took it off the flatbed they could not move the shifter at all. the tow truck driver had put it it first and drove it onto the the truck.
Whatever it was was sudden. There was no oil in the driveway prior to the failure

Any chance you hit something?

Did not hit anything

I wondered about that also. I did not hit anything that I know of. I was looking underneath quickly yesterday and the plastic under the car looked good.
This car has been pretty much babied since new.
The service advisor mentioned something about a bushing in the transmission/shifter but would that create the leaking oil? It is just strange.

Any seal that fails can dump fluid. It could be a axle flange seal, where your axle goes into the transmission. I find it hard to believe that a car this new would have a seal failure of that kind.

The plastic sheild is very flexible, you could almost tear your oil pan off and by looking at the sheild it would not even be noticeable. In my opinion those plastic shields are for dust only and offer no protection from a hard object that actually comes in contact with the bottom of your car.

If the clutch was still functional (push in car doesn't move& release car moves) then there was some kind of major issue with the transmission.

Dealer Called

I got a call today from the dealer saying that the pressure plate failed and when it did it made a hole in the transmission causing the transmission to also fail. Since they say this is a clutch issue the extended warranty will not cover it but said that they talked to VW and that they will pay for the transmission if I pay for the clutch. I am upset by the whole situation. All my cars have been manual transmission for the last 35 years and I have never had a clutch or transmission fail. As a matter of fact all of my cars were sold with over 100,000 miles and still had the original clutch. My TDI only has 63,000 miles and most of it has been highway. I guess I should be thankful that VW is paying for the transmission but right now I am not very happy with my car.

It is not the matter of the clutch wear when the pressure plate gives up and destroys everything, I wonder why Vw wouldn't pay for all of it. If the clutch was slipping that wwoyld qualify for wear and tear, but like that....I wouldn't pay without fight

ask them to look over the flywheel carefully because that component may be covered by your extended and if it is you have to look over your contract. Some policies will cover a "non covered" component if it fails due to a "covered' component. We all know of the flywheel issues these cars have and it could have caused an issue with the pressure plate.

thanks

I will speak with them on Friday and try to go look at pressure plate and flywheel myself. I am not happy having to pay anything because it was a sudden catastrophic failure but am tired of fighting with the service department. They have been horrible since day one. I will of course try again on Friday and also speak to the warranty company myself but I am not optimistic about a satisfactory response.
Thank you all for your help. I will also look into flywheel issues.

You might even give a call to VWOA. You may want to get measurements of the friction material of a new disk and the one in your car before calling. If it has hardly any wear, maybe you have some leverage.

Donald

Got car back yesterday

I got my car back yesterday. I paid for the clutch VW paid for the transmission. I went after work so the service rep I was dealing with was gone. I had asked to see the pressure plate and clutch but they were not in the car. I will call and see if they are still around.
Even though it took 2.5 weeks, they gave me a loaner car. I may give VWoA a call but I can live with paying what I did. I also doubt they will offer anything additional.
Within two weeks of this happening, I found out my sunroof drains are leaking and I have both rear door hinges not operating properly. Lets see what happens next. I enjoy driving my car, I just hope it doesn't start giving me issues.
Thanks All