Hello everyone!  I feel like weeping as just before Christmas my DMF has finally failed and the auxiliary belt is sheering off.  So that is a £1500 bill on our 2005 1.9 car.

I have to tell them if I am going to go ahead or not.  What would you do?  It has 90000 on the clock - I probably do 8K a year.  The timer belt was just changed this Spring and I have not had any other problems with it over the last 5 years.  Apart from the odd electrics anomaly.

This or a new one? 

Please help - all suggestions welcome I feel weak at the chest. :(

£1500!? Who has quoted that? I paid less on a previous car for clutch, DMF and a reconditioned gearbox to be fitted (including the cost of the gearbox).

Phil

yeh, that would be the South East for you...

it does include a new clutch and thinking about it he did mention the rear brakes replacement but I was deep in brain fog by that time as I was expecting only the dmf

On the 1.9 you're probably better off buying a single mass flywheel.

Shop around for some quotes and you may be able to save a bit of cash.

All depends on the overall condition of the car and if you want to keep it another few years or not.

I am not tech minded so doubt I would be able to shop around - I am taking the garage's face value they have been good compared to others so far.  I trust them. Ish.  Is the single mass cheaper then? Would you think it was good for a few years?  My thinking is that it depreciates £1K a year anyway so if we get to keep it for a year it sort of makes no difference - just not sure if I should be cutting losses with that bill...

A solid flywheel conversion kit can be had for £330

 

http://www.carparts4less.co.uk/cp4l/c/Skoda_Octavia_1.9_2007/p/car-parts/car-transmission/clutch-and-associated-parts/solid-flywheel-conversion-kit/?633440150&1&4f01b45187a6ce88100bb2f2def0c989305d3ea3&000299

 

A decent mechanic shouldn't be charging more than 3-4 hours labour to fit this. My local VAG independent garage (Lincoln) charge £36/hr labour, so shop around. 

Edited 19 November, 201510 yr by softscoop

Where in the SE are you?

 

A local member may be able to suggest a reasonably priced garage.

 

It often works out cheaper to buy the parts yourself, and simply pay them to fit, providing you are 100% sure that will fix the problem.

The price of £1500  is for the dmf, clutch, rear wiper motor replaced and both rear brake pads plus a new aux timer belt replacement and re-aligninment of...something having had the belt shear a bolt off (sorry can't be more specific - I had switched off at that point just thinking !!!££££!!! ) .  I already had a price of one £900 for just the dmf so I think they are the cheapest I have found round here and I have tried them all.

It's just really galling at this time of year and being clueless I don't know if I am being mad for considering paying for repairs on a car this old.  Although it is the first time I had to pay anything out in 5 years.

And yes, I am in Surrey so you can pretty much add on £200 to a Northern quote - I have travelled up to my Dad's in Sheffield in the past to make good savings!

Near to Biggin Hill? Can put you in touch with a specialist who may well be cheaper

Thanks for the offer but I am in Epsom and need to get it all fixed tomorrow.  It's going to be ball park I reckon so just deciding to go ahead or sack in the car.  I am leaning towards thinking that for £1500 all the bits that will go wrong are now going to be new in a car that seems to have been otherwise reliable (the def is a consumable after all) rather than spending 5 times that for an unknown car...?

Would you?

I had the DMF, clutch and remap done on my Superb TDI MkI at AMD Essex for about £900, maybe 3 years ago. £1500 is daylight robbery.

 

Is it a main dealer?

£900 is more than Skoda quoted me for a dmf and clutch. You really need to look at whats needed and contact other garages. It sounds like they cottoned on that you are not techy minded and thought "we can make a few quid here"

Thanks for all the replies.  I don't see I have much of a choice but to go with this guy - he has consistently come in a couple of hundred less than other garages for services etc.  He quoted about £800 for the def/clutch originally before the rest came up whilst another garage had said £950.  I guess I live in a stockbroker town.  I need the car for work and am going up the M1 at the weekend too, so I need it done.  I can swallow paying ££ over the odds for being pathetic at haggling/sourcing but I think my question is more

- is it worth fixing a car this old with 100K on the clock?

Definitely worth fixing, but if you can, go for an SMF instead of another DMF, it will last much longer.

 

Your car will easily do 2x the mileage it's on currently.

cheers soft scoop.  I think that was secretly what I wanted to hear!  We don't really have the cash for a new one.  I asked him about the smf and he said he would do it but generally doesn't bother unless its a transit.  Having googled it it seems split as to whether it is better or causes problems.  I am just doing small town/country roads short journeys and don't really do more than 8K a year.  I fear my habit of using a high gear and resting on the clutch has done it in.  Need to relearn old habits.  To be honest, by the time it goes again in a few years (hopefully) I will be looking to buy a new car anyway. 

100k is nothing on modern engines, especially a pd engine.

 

When you swap to a SMF you will find the clutch more like something from the mid 90's. Much heavier and more rattles. The point of the DMF is to make the transfer of vibrations etc through the gearbox much smoother to give a nicer drive.

 

I did the swap in my vrs (pd170) and I forked out for a dmf within a month. Ive still got the smf and clutch with only 400 miles wear on it in my living room.

 

It might how ever be different on the 1.9 pd engines with the 5 speed box. Unfortunetly its a gamble.

If it was me i'd go for a dmf again. If you are not doing massive miles then no point going for something which will last longer as you wont wear the dmf out quickly. My dmf lasted 80k and it was used as a tow car then when i bought it at 67k it was remapped to 223bhp and still lasted another 13k before properly giving up.

 

I cant see you getting much benefit with a smf over future possible maintainence which by the sounds of it wont happen.

Hmmm my thoughts entirely Ryan-re.  If I can learn to drive properly it should be fine ha.  Knowing me, going off map with the smf would result in problems.  Sods law.  

Yeh, I feel a bit sick at being seemingly over charged but as a leveller, I have been charged £80 for wheel alignment in this town.  If I felt confident driving it up North, I would get the labour done there but the auxiliary belt looks set to go imminently.  Well.  I have had nothing but praise for the car so far so I guess I have to swallow the bill and never think about it again.  Even if something does go wrong in the near future.

Now just the small problem of Christmas to tackle...

Have you contacted skoda?

 

They quoted me about £850 for a dmf and clutch replacement. Add on the aux belt (part will be a very small cost) and i'd say about 1k with skoda parts/labour warranty

there was also two rear brakes replaced and the back windscreen wiper motor replaced in the cost.  I think it is steep for the UK but bottom end for round here and I'm not in a position to travel or wait unfortunately.  Plus, they seem to be good guys that have done work as add ons in the past for free.  After the last service I noticed later on that they had fixed back a bit of the rear wheel arch that the car wash had bent without anyone mentioning it.   That's pretty good customer service in my opinion.

Right.  So a quick call round this morning and a local dealer has costed £1500 just for the dmf/clutch and nothing else.  Told you it was expensive down here.  

Out of three dealers that I called, one said "fine no problem for smf we did it for taxi drivers a while ago", one said "What?...No idea what you are talking about I wouldn't." ?? and one said "Should be fine but we wouldn't be able to order the part from Skoda as it is non issue".

Which hasn't convinced me.  Ach.

That is a joke. It would be cheaper for you to drive a bit further north, get everything fixed on the car, stay in a lavish 5* hotel overnight and still have some change from what they would otherwise have charged you.

This is up to you. Either go for 1500 bill or find a cheaper one.

If a dealer doesn't know about SMF possibility it doesn't mean it can't be done (I've heard about a lot of succesful cases. In fact I haven't heard about an unsuccesful one if it's done for the right car). Maybe your dealer wants to do a more expensive work or maybe he's a dumb one. Once I visited some garage with a possible gearbox bearing failure (so said by one of official dealer's mechanic!!! Actually it was a DMF failure). They looked at the car for some while and then asked - how do we repair that? I answered that if I knew I would have done it myself but it's definetely connected to the gearbox (no idea whether they knew where to find that). You might guess that I drove away...

Do you desperately need a car this weekend? It might simply work out cheaper to hire a car for the weekend from Enterprise. They do a £9.99/day weekend special.

That will give you time to shop around and sort out parts.