Just got back from France without my MK2 vRS FL CR 170 as on the 4th day we were there the clutch wouldn’t engage the gears and the pedal was sticking half way up. The car was recovered to a local garage near the campsite we were staying at after the recovery vehicle driver had told me the clutch fluid reservoir was empty. After lots of tooing and froing with my breakdown company it transpired that the garage were saying my car needed a new clutch at a grand sum of 1400euro. Now I found this very hard to believe since I had driven 4 days earlier from Newcastle to near Paris without issue and bearing in mind my car has only done 57k with a FSH I feel it’s very unlikely that my clutch has failed as is more likely one of the hydraulic cylinders that seem to commonly go.

Thankfully it seems the breakdown company has agreed to my car being repatriated to the UK so I have asked for it to be delivered to my home address. 

My question is (if it simply is a leak) would I be able to put some clutch fluid into the reservoir and pump the pedal a few times to get the clutch temporarily operational to allow me to drive a couple of miles to my local garage or is topping the fluid up not as simple as that? 

Cheers for advice 

Unfortunately the original garage is probably sort of correct. You car has a concentric slave cylinder which is inside the bellhousing. They are known to fail and usually ruin the clutch friction material due to fluid contamination. Check for the tell-tale leak of brake fluid drips at the base of the gearbox bellhousing. Obviously the garage needs to check the clutch master cylinder first.

 

Be careful driving as the clutch mastercyinder is fed from a pipe from the brake fluid resevoir - safety alert!

 

I'm afraid it's a gearbox off job so so might as well change every component of the clutch and the DMF whilst you/they are in there - sorry not a cheap job.

Edited 24 August, 20187 yr by bigjohn

As above its worth changing the dmf at the same time as the clutch, budget about £750 from an indy garage.