I'm just about to have a look see...but I confess I don't even know if its a cable clutch. I last used the car four days ago and I've been away and got in at 1 pm to go to a rehearsal and bong...the pedal hit the floor and stayed there. You can pull it up. Anybody had this happen ?

If you pull it up, and press it down, multiple times in a pumping type motion, does it improve?

Edited 23 March, 20197 yr by Saints92

No, it seems completely detached and is either up or down with no resistance at all on the down. When down the engine starts so obviously that switch still works.

 

Next question...where is the clutch fluid reservoir on a series 3  (diesel 2.0) and is there a bleed nipple I can get at on the slave or is it one of of those self venting pre filled ones...like i've never had dealings with before... ?

 

Now then......does it share the reservoir with the brakes, because I found that fairly empty ? I think I also know where to look for the bleed nipple on the clutch slave, so I will have a go at bleeding the clutch tomorrow. I will have to dig out my ancient eezibleed kit as I'm on my own this weekend with no son/wife to sit and push pedals and such like. It'd be nice if its something simple and curable.......but we are a long way from there yet as i'm just prognosticating...and I have to go and sing in a concert this evening  (proceeds to mental health charity).

 

Edited 23 March, 20197 yr by alfalincs

36 minutes ago, alfalincs said:

No, it seems completely detached and is either up or down with no resistance at all on the down. When down the engine starts so obviously that switch still works.

 

 

Clutch pedal doesn't have a cable anymore. Some have a rod, that comes straight out the master cylinder and links onto the pedal, and that rod has, rarely, been seen to break.

 

I'm sure theres also a spring at the top of the pedal that can come loose if the pedal is pulled the wrong way too severely and can cause the pedal to swing about.

 

Just guessing, obviously, but lying on your back and looking upwards towards the pedal might reveal something.

 

Clutch reservoir should be the same as the brake fluid, you'll see it sticking out the servo. You should be able to see if theres fluid in it by simply unscrweing the lid.

• I'm slowly thinking it through. I last drove the car last sunday...No problems at all, parked it at home, went to London on Wednesday, back on Friday...no clutch saturday. I'm pretty sure its a brake/clutch fluid issue as it looked at Minimum, but there is a yellow plastic strainer I couldn't remove so I couldn't 'dip it'. Anyway, I opened a fresh bottle of brake fluid I happened to have and it took quite a bit to get it back to maximum. Tomorrow I will see if any has leaked and will try to bleed the clutch......and see what happens.  If I get it working its straight off to the Skoda Specialist I use for a checkover just in case a stone has taken out a brake line or something. It needs checking on a hoist. It might even be a loose nipple, but I cant see anything dripping, and the brakes are firm

I have a 2013 superb clutch was on the floor took to local garage he bled it worked fine for 7 months then went again the other day done the same again bled it working ok now. It is the slave cylinder inside the bell housing on six speed gearbox getting job done next few weeks recommend clutch replacment when getting done 

Sound like slave cylinder inside clutch housing as above poster said. Happened to me, new slave and clutch I'm afraid if fluid has leaked onto clutch. If you can look under car (under tray removed) and see greenish fluid on housing then you know slave has leaked.

I hope the clutch isn't contaminated the car has only done 30,000, but I have a feeling you are right about the slave cylinder. I've done a couple of those in the past, but access is everything and I havnt had a good look yet.  Thanks for advice.

 

 

Same thing happened on one of my Golfs. New clutch master cylinder under warranty and it was fine thereafter.

Its the slave cylinder thats failed. I called the AA and we pumped the clutch with new fluid just enough to get the clutch to work, and we saw it dripping fluid, so I was able to drive the car to my Skoda specialist Brookroyd Garage  and the AA man brought me home. The AA were there in 40 minutes from calling them on the App.

 

Hey ho, another bill, but I'm not impressed as I don't think I've ever had a slave cylinder fail at such low miles. I had a few on bangers I ran when I was younger, but not on a 14 plate at 34,000 miles.

Edited 25 March, 20197 yr by alfalincs

Still got it!  By which I mean that I got the correct fault from your original post. Not so great for you (or indeed the part in question) but as a plain diagnostics exercise I went straight to the failed assembly.

I had this on my Toyota, a very slow leak so I was aware it was failing prior to complete failure.  Took some finding by the dealership and it was a small leak on the master cylinder.  Fortunately, the brake and clutch are separate systems.

Oh for the days when you could strip out the slave cylinder and overhaul it with a seal kit costing a few quid and have it all back together in an hour or so. You just know they have deliberately designed it to turn a small job into a big one so the dealerships can make money. I mean it doesn't do the job any better and it fails prematurely. Modern cars eh ! This car  makes my old Alfa 164 a doddle to work on, and to be honest I'd have the Alfa back in a flash if I could. It never broke down in150,000 miles, never mind 30,000.

Was the car standing still for a longer periods of time? Doesn't seem typical for 2.0 TDI O3.

20 hours ago, alfalincs said:

... but not on a 14 plate at 34,000 miles.

 

My Octy's a 13 plate and mine went just like yours at about 35,000 resulting in new slave and new clutch. Maybe more to do with the age (perished seal?!?) rather than mileage, or even the driving style of previous owner  ?

14 minutes ago, vRSWitter said:

 

My Octy's a 13 plate and mine went just like yours at about 35,000 resulting in new slave and new clutch. Maybe more to do with the age (perished seal?!?) rather than mileage, or even the driving style of previous owner  ?

If its a common occurrence then its poor design and/or poor quality componentry. I worked in vehicle warranty claims for three years back in the late 1970s and Its not that difficult to spot patterns of failure that are consequences of  design and/or materials. I am a heating engineer and see the same patterns in central heating boiler failures where you see plastic components failing with a regularity you would never have seen twenty years ago. Water pump failure seems far more common these days for example, and thats mostly down to plastics IMHO.

 

I don't go with the perished seal either..on a not quite five year old car ? God help us we have a 15 year old and 16 year old Fabia in our fleet and no seal failures there. I've had the car for  2 /14 years and covered almost exactly 20,000 miles, so regularly used but not excessive mainly for journeys of 10 + miles. I always run the car gently until warmed up, it gets serviced on time . There is nothing in there that the clutch hydraulics shouldn't cope with standing on their head as the car has never been given a hard time. No tow bar either.

I hear ya, nothing's built to last any more - well not much. Do you happen to know which bit of ours cars is failing, all I know is that the slave cylinder leaked.

4 minutes ago, vRSWitter said:

I hear ya, nothing's built to last any more - well not much. Do you happen to know which bit of ours cars is failing, all I know is that the slave cylinder leaked.

 

I've no idea right now as I left it at the garage late lunchtime yesterday and they were well booked up, so its just there until they can fit it in. I will have a chat with the service manager when they have got it in bits or done the job. They were a Skoda main dealer until 1998 or so when VW got rid of all the family owned dealerships, but they continued as a Skoda specialist and are much more popular round here than the main dealer is. We bought a new Favorit LX off them in 1990 so we go back with them a long way and have found them very good and trustworthy. I suspect it will be either a seal failure..but not due to perishing, or a crack/pinhole in a plastic component due to pressure, as thats what I see all the time in my job. There won't be much to see I expect.

iirc my garage told me something about seal failure, but tbh I wasn't listening properly as they had also just told hoe much it was going to cost and my head was spinning like in a cartoon, with little £ signs flying all around .

7 minutes ago, vRSWitter said:

iirc my garage told me something about seal failure, but tbh I wasn't listening properly as they had also just told hoe much it was going to cost and my head was spinning like in a cartoon, with little £ signs flying all around .

 

Thanks for cheering me up...

Just been called, car fixed. It was the slave cylinder seal which failed........£696......which is an "ouch" figure. Dunno if they have put a new clutch in. Collecting it tomorrow.

 

And to think I sold the Kia Sorento to save money on running costs......its not looking good so far and I had the Kia for 12 years and 145,000 miles. 

37 minutes ago, alfalincs said:

Just been called, car fixed. It was the slave cylinder seal which failed........£696......which is an "ouch" figure. Dunno if they have put a new clutch in. Collecting it tomorrow.

 

And to think I sold the Kia Sorento to save money on running costs......its not looking good so far and I had the Kia for 12 years and 145,000 miles. 

 

This'll cheer you up even more, I paid much more than that  ...

2 hours ago, alfalincs said:

Dunno if they have put a new clutch in.

I'd certainly have measured the depth of the remaining lining, and called you if I thought it would be a good idea to replace the clutch when the box was off.

2 hours ago, vRSWitter said:

 

This'll cheer you up even more, I paid much more than that  ...

I think you took my comment the way it wasn't intended. I wasn''t rejoicing at the size of your bill. It was ironic rejoicing that you had reminded me I was no doubt shortly going to get a big bill.