Jayelem

Hi. My own efforts are detailed in the thread, but in summary: SUK said (and I quote) "We are not aware of this problem, and we have no record of it happening". Citizens Advice said to use the trade association (Motorcodes). They said the only option was to sue the dealer who originally sold the car, but they wouldn't hold out much hope. I looked at starting legal proceedings, but that was an initial £200 fee, with more if you lost the case, and having just shelled out £3K+, I didn't have the heart to do that. I'd still say this is at a level now that's beyond individuals (especially with Skoda's "see you in court" attitude) and I believe a consumer group or class action is entirely appropriate, and for me, that's Motorcodes.

SURELY we are now at a point where Trading Standards, Motorcodes or some formal legal challenge is mounted to this known, original, and cynically-denied problem? Blameless owners have shelled out millions to pay for a fault that was built into their cars. I tried and failed, but surely, the more pressure they get, the sooner we can end this blatant scam. A legal challenge might be difficult, but I'd advise anyone who's had this problem, or feels strongly about it, to write to Motorcodes, quoting this thread. What possible excuse can they have NOT to act? We should ask that question.

Richard: Two things in your post ring true: "it's just us minions discussing this..." and "until they are finally called out..." In my view, the technical liability of VAG is beyond doubt, and it's very obvious that it's not in their interests to accept liability. If it was a couple of cases, it would be different, but this must be hundreds of customers significantly out-of-pocket for the same provable OE fault that is actively, if not dishonestly, denied ("Not aware of this problem" "no component fault" etc) I think we are well past the point of debating IF or HOW, and with the multiple, repeated, provable failures, it's time the industry bodies, trading standards or consumer groups stepped in. Its very clear that Joe Public Vs the world's biggest motor manufacturer is simply a no-contest. We need support.

Donbrig: At the risk of repeating myself, it's worth going over the "normal wear and tear" point again. As a Chatered Engineer with thousands of metallurgical failure analyses under my belt (including my own Skoda, as above) I feel well-qualified to comment, but actually, this is a very simple situation. I would be very sure that your failure, and all the others, would, like mine, show "beach mark" striations on the spring fracture faces, and any first year metallurgy student will tell you that this is the definitive symptom of a fatigue failure. At this point, it's game over, because we have a major transmission part that fails (with no possible input or contribution from the driver and with disastrous consequential effects) at an unrealistically low 40K miles or so. In or out of warranty, that's clearly unfit for purpose. If you wanted to go further and say why it failed by fatigue, then the operating stress/fatigue limit, as in my posts above, has to be a prime contender. Another possible contribution is the "fretting" (micro- welding) I saw between the diaphragm spring and its retainer, which can initiate fatigue cracks. What didnt cause it, at least in my case, is faulty heat-treatment of the spring, which looked absolutely fine. There's no doubt in my mind that the most basic metallurgical analysis would prove to a court's satisfaction that this was an original, inherent fault that is totally outside any influence of the customer. For reasons I've already explained, that person isn't me, but with the multiple failures of Skoda, VW, Audi, and probably others, my feeling is that this surely is within the remit of Motorcodes as an industry regulator and consumer champion. Why should us minions have to take the fight as individuals to a global conglomerate with massive power and finances behind it? Why do we have to scramble for tenuous safety links? Why are they allowed to blithely ignore obvious OE failures, hiding behind passive threats like "so sue us"? This is not only unfair, but is also willingly deceitful and completely immoral. We need US-style consumer-protection laws! You got a much better response from Motorcodes than I did, but I wish someone would ask them to read this thread in detail and explain their inaction. I think it would also be good if Audi, VW and other owners who have found this thread could join forces somehow. How many cars, at what cost, have failed, and how many are yet to fail? All in all, a disgraceful situation

No, I'm sure they can't. I was just answering your question about denial. It's inconceivable, though, that SUK don't have chapter and verse on this years-long problem, and I was annoyed the best they could do was "it's news to us"

I asked formally: "This cannot possibly be a one-off, do you have in your warranty records multiple failures of this type?" Answer: "We are not aware of it"

Interesting point. As I've said many times, this is a fatigue failure, and as such, a lower stress could help, but only if the part has been incorrectly designed. Look up "S/N curve, fatigue" and you'll see a graph with a decreasing straight line that, at a certain point, levels to horizontal. This means if the stress (S) is below this point, the number of cycles to failure (N) will be "infinite" (meaning generally more than 10^7 cycles.) Above this stress, the cycles-to-failure rapidly decrease, so for these clutches to fail, they are operating on the slope of the S/N curve, ie. a poor design. Reducing the pedal travel (hence S) would help, but as the clutch wears, it would likely become crunchy, and of course, the main point is you shouldn't have to do that. It's just a bad design, with Skoda in denial and sometimes offering customers "help" with a built-in, day one problem that the customer cannot influence at all.

Quite honestly, I think you're wasting your time. As I said many times above, this is an immoral, possibly illegal, way of handling a proven, known and original manufacturing defect, but SUK are absolutely and totally rigid in their attempts to minimise claims. I guess they have to do this, because any admission of liability would unleash massive open-ended costs for the whole VW group. In my view, the only way would be individual or group legal action on what should be a very easy-to-prove case. In retrospect, I think a decent welder might have salvaged my box, but I think your chance of any payment at all is near-zero.

Quite. But as with the emission debacle, it shouldn't be up to VAG to define the rules to suit themselves. By any definition, they supplied an unfit for purpose product, and as I said above it needs someone to pick the legal fight. If not, things will continue as-is indefinitely.

Good luck with Motorcodes. I tried that route and they were no help at all. "Sue the dealer, but it probably won't work" in summary.

Good luck with this, I'd be interested in how you get on. If you trawl through my many posts above, you'll see that my situation is complicated by the dealer's inability/unwillingness to help, and the involvement of a third party, but the fact remains that an original, known, widespread and proven manufacturing fault cost me thousands and cost VAG a loyal customer. As I've said several times, if this practice isn't in breach of trading regulations, it's certainly morally dubious.

Thanks for this, I'd love to talk to a solicitor about it, because as I've said many times, SUK's stance is immoral at best, and may be contrary to consumer law, whoever did the repair. The problem is, an initial 30min consultation is, I believe £150-200 (£400/hr!!) and I guess the best result would then be that I had a case, which would then incur more costs that I'd only recover if I won. I'm already nearly £4K down, so I really can't afford to risk that, and I suppose that's what SUK banks on. I could do with a friendly solicitor who'd do it on a no win/no fee basis simply because they believed in the rights of the little man over dubious business practices. (Well, I can dream!) Sorry to hear your own car my be about to eat itself, hopefully, if it does, this thread will be of some use to you, and to others as well. As a footnote, I'm now in another manufacturer's car, which is great, but actually nowhere near the quality and functionality of the Superb, which I miss a lot. I was, and would have been, a loyal customer, but all I feel now is resentment. Surely that's not "Simply Clever"

Good luck with the SUK negotiation, I did everything I could, and they wouldn't even acknowledge the issue, let alone even contribute. I'd be interested to know which clutch the independent fitted. Original Sachs, uprated Sachs or LUK

Thanks very much for taking the time for such a comprehensive and well-thought-out reply. I've consistently tried to convey as much information as possible in a way that will help other owners without either coming across as a knowall or, worse, patronising. I'd love to debate the points with you in detail, but I guess a forum isn't the place to do that; it so often comes across as point-scoring, and I respect what you've said too much for that. You're right, of course, that incorrect heat-treatment would be a prime potential cause, but I'm fortunate to be able to check that. I was able to take a microsection at the point of origin, and actually, it was beautifully heat-treated; fully Martensitic, with no appreciable decarburisation, and a hardness that was completely appropriate for a spring like this. I think if it had been poorly-hardened, a fatigue failure would have been easier, and at higher hardnesses, a brittle failure would have been more likely. My thinking, therefore, was that i) The spring was good, but liable to fail because of the environment it lived in, and ii) With the volume of cars the VW group produce, a batch failure that ranged over many years and several models was absolutely inconceivable. Also, assuming the Feb 2016 release date of the bulletin is accurate, that's more than six years after my own car was built. Were they really producing hundreds of thousands of defective clutches during that time? If you wanted to describe a fault to a non-technical public, then I guess the phrase "Quality Deviation" would cover either case. I've been careful to use phrases like "in my view" or "I think" because that's all it is, my own work and my own view of how a failure like this could happen (albeit based on several decades of failure analysis) and all my conclusions have been based on observations and measurements on an actual failed part rather than hypotheses. I'm happy to take some of your points on board, and please don't think I'm trying to get one up on you, like many tecchies, I find failure analysis fascinating, (and I know exactly what you mean about being lured into the wrong conclusion.) I suppose the only people who know for sure, though, aren't likely to share that information with us, and the bottom line is that for many customers, it's been a huge expense through no fault of their own. Thanks again for taking the time to comment.

I can't agree. Start from the premise that this is 100% a fatigue failure; that is, repeated loading at a level below its ultimate strength produces an accumulation of defects in the steel's structure that initiate slow-growing, stop/start cracks that eventually grow to the point of ultimate failure through overload. In any manufactured part, there are literally hundreds of variables within manufacturing tolerances that can influence this (dimensions, surface finish, stacked tolerances, vehicle variables, alignment, variation in other system parts, materials etc.) and what I'm saying is that the design of this clutch is susceptible to these entirely normal variations. That is, the fragile design makes the clutch more prone to failure, it doesn't necessarily mean every one will fail. Put it this way; if yours failed, and a dealer offered you a like-for-like clutch saying don't worry it was a "bad batch" would you accept? I sure wouldn't. Haven't there also been failures across a very wide range of build years, from early Golfs to Yetis? I think "bad batch" is often used as an easy get-out clause by tradesmen who don't understand what's really going on.

FWIW, I looked at Sachs' site, and put in the details for my vehicle. This is the clutch they offer... a totally different design. I wonder why? https://www.sachsperformance.com/Performance-Clutch-Kit-XTend-3000970036-S

The steel's OK, I think. This is about stresses imposed and defect creation. Most fatigue failures have a fair spread of results because so many tiny variables affect it. The aim of the designer is to maintain the stress at a level below the fatigue curve.

Stubie: Relative movement between spring ring and clutch produces surface defects through "fretting" (micro-welding under pressure and friction) then, these propagate through fatigue cracking as the clutch is operated. The cracks grow until the ring cracks all the way through, then it dislocates from its housing. It looks like the fatigue life of this clutch is only about 40k miles. There has to be some variation, or they'd all fail, but in my opinion, there is next to no chance of this being a bad batch, and I think this is a pure design issue. I'd be interested to know if today's Sachs clutches show any changes.

Wow, that puts another perspective on it, doesn't it? Good spot. There must be many thousands of these failing worldwide. I wish there was somebody with the appropriate resources and motivation to start a class action, as previously suggested. Many people are relived at having to contribute "only" £1200 or so, but when they are neither at fault, nor able to control this failure, why should they contribute at all? The clutch may fail out-of-warranty, but it could easily be demonstrated that the fault was designed into the car. With car lifetimes easily in excess of 100K miles, I'd argue that a large, expensive failure of key component at 40K that does so much consequential damage demonstrates this clutch is not of merchantable quality.

Please don't think I'm being obtuse, but it's an important point. When we talk about responsibility, we have to differentiate between responsibility to the consumer, and root cause. I don't know if this is Sachs' design or if they're working to a Skoda or VW group design. If it's a Sachs design, then of course, the root cause lies with them, but I'm pretty sure no consumer would pursue a second or third tier supplier, or the parent company of the car manufacturer. When I was being brushed-off by Skoda UK (who wouldn't discuss the problem, or even acknowledge it existed) I wrote to Skoda in the Czech Republic. Their response was "everything we do is handled through SUK, talk to them". I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure our dealings as customers can only be with the people we have our contract with.... the dealers.

Skoda design and sell the car, and are responsible for its quality. They may, of course, have a secondary claim against Sachs, but that's entirely their business, The customer can only have recourse against the manufacturer, via the dealer.

Just one small correction, there's no possibility at all it's the loose piece that does the damage. The clutch/gearbox clearance is tight, and the protruding spring (about 6x harder than the gearbox) machines its way through the box like a lathe tool, hence the noise.

Exactly the same as mine, and every other example of this known, long-standing,original design fault. I celebrate everyone who manages to get a Goodwill contribution, but that's exactly what it is; a contribution. Hundreds of loyal Skoda customers are thousands of pounds out of pocket, and thinking themselves lucky not to have had more money effectively stolen from them through a fault that was designed-in and incubating in the car from the moment it rolled out of the showroom. How many more are out there that haven't failed...yet? Yours? Is a known, proven fix in place, or will thousands more worldwide be saying "Wow, I'm really grateful Skoda let me pay ONLY £1200 to fix their incompetent design"? How many have had a second Sachs clutch fitted? (What an irony that would be) I'm no longer a Skoda owner (having had several) but I'm damned annoyed.

Trawl this thread, the photos are there. Not a pretty sight.

Silver1011: Be aware that once it's with your local independent, you have forfeited any chance of a Skoda contribution, whatever the problem.