Clutch Gone

lawrie29

lawrie29

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CLutch has started to slip on the car. Tis a 1.8 focus on a t plate. Any ideas on
A: how long it will last?
B: how much a new one will cost?

Ta.
 
a: depends how much coke you pour on it!! probably about 200 miles max
b: £60 + labour at random (ish, based on 106 pug)
 
going to say the clutch could last 10 miles or a couple of hundred , what you can g'tee though , is it will fail at the most inopportune moment !!!! , cost , around the £250 mark i reckon , a word of caution though , the more it slips , the more chance of killing the flywheel as well , thats assuming it is not a DMF clutch :)
 
stu_the_flat said:
Ford clutches are famously rubbish. It cost £450 to get it replaced on my Puma £250 for "clutch kit" and £200 labor as far as I remember.
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Strange :thinking:, my Mondeo is 11 yrs old. 235,000 miles all on the same clutch and still going strong.
Being a Ford employee with a high percentage of mates who drive Ford cars of various ages and forms and guess what, no clutch problems. In fact I've owned 12 Fords in 29yrs and only had to have one clutch replaced.
 
The clutch is a pretty reliable item on a focus, a large proportion of the cost of it's replacement is through the concentric release bearing/ slave cylinder. Last time I checked the cost of a genuine unit it was equal to the cost of the clutch.

If the bearing isn't noisy and there's no evidence of leakage the unit can be left alone and just the driven plate and pressure plate renewed. Unfortunately a great deal of garages don't bother and just tell the customer it needs one. This can be through profit greed on the parts, inability to check the parts serviceability correctly or just plain "old school" mentality.
 
nilagin said:
Strange :thinking:, my Mondeo is 11 yrs old. 235,000 miles all on the same clutch and still going strong.
Being a Ford employee with a high percentage of mates who drive Ford cars of various ages and forms and guess what, no clutch problems. In fact I've owned 12 Fords in 29yrs and only had to have one clutch replaced.
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20,000 miles a year suggests a lot of motorway driving, clutches don't get used much when on the motorway hence your 235,000 miles on one clutch 60,000 stop start round town miles destroys clutches.

I had an X reg Transit that ate clutches at £1000 a go £400 for a flywheel, £250 for a clutch and 1/2 the van in bits to fix it, when my 1st one went at 2 years old I couldn't just buy the clutch as they'd modified it so it wouldn't fit my flywheel, I had to buy a new flywheel even though there was nothing wrong with it
 
wack61 said:
20,000 miles a year suggests a lot of motorway driving, clutches don't get used much when on the motorway hence your 235,000 miles on one clutch 60,000 stop start round town miles destroys clutches.

I had an X reg Transit that ate clutches at £1000 a go £400 for a flywheel, £250 for a clutch and 1/2 the van in bits to fix it, when my 1st one went at 2 years old I couldn't just buy the clutch as they'd modified it so it wouldn't fit my flywheel, I had to buy a new flywheel even though there was nothing wrong with it
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I bought the car at 4 yrs old with 149,000 miles on the clock and yes it had spent those first 4 yrs mainly on motorways. Since then it has had mixed driving, I only use the handbrake when parked, if I need to hold the car still in traffic on an incline which is every day leaving work and numerous other times too, I always hold it on the clutch.
 
i have a focus 1.8tdci 2004 plate and it has a squeeky clutch, i was told at the garage that its a common problem with the focus.

should i be worrying though?
 
Wack, again a common urban myth that you need to renew the DMF every time, i've looked at hundreds where there has been no reason to replace them.

there was a mod for the flywheels back in the day, but there was also a work around which resulted in a clutch only replacement if the repair shop bothered to look for it. And as for 1/2 the van in bits, I have changed a DMF on a 2.4 Transit in 47 mins!!!! admittedly it involved air tools ;)
 
digitalfailure said:
Wack, again a common urban myth that you need to renew the DMF every time, i've looked at hundreds where there has been no reason to replace them.

there was a mod for the flywheels back in the day, but there was also a work around which resulted in a clutch only replacement if the repair shop bothered to look for it. And as for 1/2 the van in bits, I have changed a DMF on a 2.4 Transit in 47 mins!!!! admittedly it involved air tools ;)
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fwd or rwd though , makes a difference , plus if you had air tools then i would like to bet you had a ramp as well :lol:
 
whitewash said:
didnt ford have an issue with DMFs on diesels causing a problem a few years back?
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Still do to an extent.

Try reversing a Transit T280, or T30 that has been racked out up the smallest of inclines, then try and keep a straight face while saying Ford clutches arent poo. The older none DMF where ok, if the clutch goes on a vehicle with a DMF then really its the clutch, flywheel, and starter motor should all be changed at the same time.

From experiance and not just mine, once the clutch start to slip and smell, the ford units tend to fail pretty soon. There isnt normal much warning.
 
russdaz said:
Still do to an extent.

Try reversing a Transit T280, or T30 that has been racked out up the smallest of inclines, then try and keep a straight face while saying Ford clutches arent poo. The older none DMF where ok, if the clutch goes on a vehicle with a DMF then really its the clutch, flywheel, and starter motor should all be changed at the same time.

From experiance and not just mine, once the clutch start to slip and smell, the ford units tend to fail pretty soon. There isnt normal much warning.
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What a crock of crap, I'm sorry but that really is !

If the clutch starts to smell it's a sign of excess heat in the clutch facing not complete failure, due to the removal of some of the nasty materials from the lining they can't soak the heat away as quickly as the old materials, that coupled to the smaller sink area of the dual mass flywheel brought higher operational temperatures. In a vast majority of cases the smell will dissipate within a few miles of normal driving. The only failure mode of the flywheel that would require replacement of the starter is through failure of the spacing washer between the two flywheel masses allowing metal to metal contact. That contact generates a metallic dust that chokes the starter.

Vehicles with a particularly harsh duty cycle can be retrofitted with a solid flywheel and a heavy duty clutch if needed.

And a final snippet to, the root cause of the Transit "weak" drive train was a poorly chosen reverse gear and diff ratio combination at design level coupled with poorly trained sales teams spec'ing motorway type diff ratios for vehicles that'll always be found dragging a mini digger etc.

hope that throws a little more light on things, i'm a sucker for facts :)
 
paulyoung666 said:
fwd or rwd though , makes a difference , plus if you had air tools then i would like to bet you had a ramp as well :lol:
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FWD is a different kettle of fish really, only the early 100ps and 125ps variants had a dual mass flywheel on the 2000 shape and the 130/140 on the current shape.

Front wheel drive vehicles also accounted for a great deal less driveline failures while in the base warranty, but even with the VTX75 transmission a motivated tech can turn a clutch around in sub 3 hours.
 
digitalfailure said:
What a crock of crap, I'm sorry but that really is !

If the clutch starts to smell it's a sign of excess heat in the clutch facing not complete failure, due to the removal of some of the nasty materials from the lining they can't soak the heat away as quickly as the old materials, that coupled to the smaller sink area of the dual mass flywheel brought higher operational temperatures. In a vast majority of cases the smell will dissipate within a few miles of normal driving. The only failure mode of the flywheel that would require replacement of the starter is through failure of the spacing washer between the two flywheel masses allowing metal to metal contact. That contact generates a metallic dust that chokes the starter.

Vehicles with a particularly harsh duty cycle can be retrofitted with a solid flywheel and a heavy duty clutch if needed.

And a final snippet to, the root cause of the Transit "weak" drive train was a poorly chosen reverse gear and diff ratio combination at design level coupled with poorly trained sales teams spec'ing motorway type diff ratios for vehicles that'll always be found dragging a mini digger etc.

hope that throws a little more light on things, i'm a sucker for facts :)
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To clear something up, I wasnt refering to the smell as being a sign of a dieing clutch. Just every ford clutch that has gone went very very quickily after it started slipping.

There was a Ford TSB at one point may have been changed that did advise to change the DMF, and starter, may have changed. I had mine changed on my last mk3 Mondeo for free under warrentee as a resut, and every signle Transit at work that has killed a clutch has ended up having the DMF, and then Starter changed within a couple months of the clutch dying. I also know they are replacing the fly wheels for solid ones at work. Then again, the work vans are generally pretty much always pretty near there weight limits weather that makes much difference.

Interesting about the diff, cause you would never want to reverse the thing fully loaded would you lol.
 
Trust me, there is no and has never been a TSB released to dealers stating that a starter motor should be replaced during a routine clutch change, the reasons for indicting a DMF are very precise and the vast majority of Ford dealers were and still are subject to prior approval from Ford Motor Company before one can be replaced under base warranty.

The change to the solid MF was always an at customer cost repair and as I mentioned earlier it was aimed at specific sectors of the Transit customer base. Interestingly enough the solid DMF was standard fit for the Turkish market :shrug:

Clutches most commonly die from excessive temperatures within the organic lining material, There are only really 2 ways this can happen......excessive use of the clutch i.e riding the clutch, extended periods of low speed maneuvering which result in high temps and a reduction in the coefficient of friction. Or a failure of the clamping system within the pressure plate assembly.

Both failure modes allow the driven plate to slip between the flywheel and the pressure plate and induce higher temperatures within the lining. Only a pressure plate failure would be considered a manufacturing defect, the other modes are driver induced and thus it's unfair to blanket label the clutch as poor. From years of involvement with Transit I can wholeheartedly state that pressure plate failures are rare.

I will concede that the clutch wasn't as over engineered as that of the 95 (smiley front) Transit that preceded the 2000 shape (V184). iirc it was spec'd to withstand 18% more torque than the engine could give against the 25% of the unit on the older model. One of the reasons was cost, but another was because Transits were being used to get to places that they were never intended to be which often gave rise to much greater warranty repair costs for shattered differentials and transmissions etc.

DMF's die because of failures in the damping system. Starters can die as a result of a failed DMF but not a broken clutch. Likewise I have witnessed a great many clutches that have been returned to service after a DMF has been renewed.

It's a funny old world :D
 
To revive this thread, car is still going and so is the clutch. Doesn't do massive mileage, so not an issue. It sits quite happily at the correct revs at all speeds, just slips if I am too heavy on the accelerator.

Is it possible that the cluth needs adjusting as it is only when accelerating ? ta.
 
My mum burnt out the clutch on her mk1 1100cc ford escort going up a hill in Port Isaac, it was many years ago and i thought the car was on fire (i was only 7) :lol: ford have come on a lot since then .
 
lawrie29 said:
Is it possible that the cluth needs adjusting as it is only when accelerating ? ta.
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Under acceleration is where a failing clutch will be most apparent. If it happened when you weren't accelerating then the car would just slow down and stop with it still in gear ...

Do modern cars even have clutch adjustment? I remember old Minis had a bolt under the release arm you could adjust but it's not something I've seen in a long time (not that I work on my modern, being mid-engined I can't even see the engine or transaxle from the top!). Even so the adjustment on the Mini was to get it set right, once the clutch had started to fail you couldn't adjust it back into working.

The last car I had a clutch fail on (apart from an Imp) was a 405 Mi16x4. That went on for some time with it slipping but as I was using it for a 25 mile/day commute I had to get it replaced fairly quickly. Nine hours labour, the engine and box and front diff had to come out as a unit before they could be split.

I use a sintered clutch on the Imp, that's fun in traffic.

Oh and reading back through this topic, what is a "solid DMF"? I know what a solid flywheel is (have a number of them in the garage) and I know what a dual mass flywheel is, but a "solid dual mass flywheel" appears to be a contradicition.
 
digitalfailure said:
And a final snippet to, the root cause of the Transit "weak" drive train was a poorly chosen reverse gear and diff ratio combination at design level coupled with poorly trained sales teams spec'ing motorway type diff ratios for vehicles that'll always be found dragging a mini digger etc.
Click to expand...

When I bought my Transit chassis cab 120PS in 2001 I needed the maximum train weight which could only be achieved by ordering the 120PS engine with a different ratio rear axle, pulling 6000kg it ate clutches and reversing up a slight incline with the trailer on was a nightmare, the smell was unbelievable.

when it was about 4 years old I had to go to Halifax fully loaded, I ended up going up a really steep hill in 1st gear at 10mph with the clutch almost on fire :lol: All I could think was if I have to stop i'll never get it moving again.
 
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