mcguirejw
Member
My wife’s 2006 Jetta TDI which we bought it in November 2005 (does that make it 2005.5??) recently started making a huge but intermittent racket which our dealer says is the failure of the DMF. Says we ought to get a new clutch while they have everything apart. I bought a warranty and that will pay for the DMF. But they want some $700 for the new clutch including labor. I suspect that they probably had to cut their charges for the warranty company and are trying to pad the clutch part of the job. I know a little knowledge can be dangerous but it seems to me that once you take out the transmission and the flywheel, aren’t you looking right at the clutch and related parts (e.g., pressure plate)? OK a clutch may set me back some $$ (they say 400-some). But $250 labor when everything is already in pieces? Assuming their rate is $125/hr that's 2 hours labor. Seems like a lot of hours for stuff that is already dissembled. If their rate is less, it would be 3-plus hours! Sheesh! A knowledgeable mechanic ought to know if I am right or wrong.Or if I ought to bother replacing what they say is good clutch while they have it all apart?(How woudl they know it's good if they didn't disassemble it that far???)
Of course there is the problem of why the DMF failed—a popular topic here. Here we have only 72k on the car. In all my (considerable) years and our considerable stick-shift cars, I have never replaced a clutch let alone a flywheel. E.g., on her 1985 Jetta (gas), 3 consecutive Audi turbos (1992 2002q, 1994 S-4 [20 valve] and 2000 A-6, most of which logged well over 110k without a clutch or flywheel issue. And other cars, too. Is this German engineering at its finest? Or at its nadir? Is there a better flywheel (i.e. single mass) available in the VW system?
Car is in the shop so I don’t have much time. I am reachable directly at mcguirejwatnescapedotnet. Thanks!
Of course there is the problem of why the DMF failed—a popular topic here. Here we have only 72k on the car. In all my (considerable) years and our considerable stick-shift cars, I have never replaced a clutch let alone a flywheel. E.g., on her 1985 Jetta (gas), 3 consecutive Audi turbos (1992 2002q, 1994 S-4 [20 valve] and 2000 A-6, most of which logged well over 110k without a clutch or flywheel issue. And other cars, too. Is this German engineering at its finest? Or at its nadir? Is there a better flywheel (i.e. single mass) available in the VW system?
Car is in the shop so I don’t have much time. I am reachable directly at mcguirejwatnescapedotnet. Thanks!