Karoq - 8000 miles - Clutch Failure HELP!

[adamdun]

I will start by stating that my wife has been driving for 15 years and has always driven a manual. She has run a nissan micra for 2 years (first car no power steering either!), a brand new fiat 500 for 5 years, a brand new VW new beetle and a used mini country man for 3 years all with regular servicing and maintenance and has never had any serious issues.

 

Last week her 2018 plate Karoq broke down on a busy junction, transmission totally disappeared without warning. She did not have any indication of an issue until she tried to pull away in 1st and couldn't. The car was recovered and taken to the nearest open Skoda/Seat dealership. On monday they called to ask for permission to remove the gearbox to investigate stating that if it was found to be wear and tear then it may not be covered but it was likely that it couldn't be wear and tear given the age and mileage. Low and behold they call yesterday to advise that they have found signs of overheating on the clutch/flywheel/etc and the whole lot needs replaced. They have advised this could only be down to the way it has been driven (effectively blaming my wife). I have never known her to over-rev or to ride the clutch in any car so can't understand how after less than 8000 miles this could be possible. This car has had its first annual service and so far as I'm aware has not had any recall work done it - I believe there is a software issue to prevent kangarooing in 1st/2nd).

 

Has anyone else experienced any similar issues and would anyone suggest an alternative to user error that may cause over heating and damage to the clutch?

 

I would add that the dealership are passing all responsibility for the decision to refuse a warranty claim or goodwill onto skoda and have advised us that they are looking for £300 for the investigation and in total it will cost £1700 to replace.

 

The car is on a lease which is up in May and my wife is not the registered keeper on the papers - not sure if this makes a difference.

 

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Adam

[SimonAudi]

This is NOT an isolated instance - have a look here... 1 guy on 3rd Clutch...  I suggets you point the dealer and Skoda to read this..

 

 

 

 

[SurreyJohn]

Firstly insist any parts are retained and you want them back for investigation 

insist repair does not remove any contamination by oil etc in case clutch slave cylinder is faulty.

 

If they want to charge you a whopping £300 for investigation, advise you want your own independent inspector in attendance.  (You don’t have to, but for that price say you want detailed report)

 

Either dealer will get scared because they intended to take easy route, charge you for repair, and not gain enough evidence to make warranty claim.   Or you have ruined clutch

 

Clutches will burn if overloaded or slip.  But need to identify what caused this, assuming it wasn’t racing starts, could also have happened due to faulty slave cylinder, oil leak, faulty or broken spring, assembly misalignment, bad adjustment (so not fully closing) etc.   The investigation needs to eliminate all these options one by one.   Simply saying clutch is burnt is summary, not an explanation of what caused it.  If they don’t identify what cause was, how can they be 100% it was your misuse.

 

Effectively, you need them to prove you damaged the clutch, not a fault caused it.   Many garages seem to take view if they dispose of replaced parts (which strictly you own, especially if buy replacement parts), they are doing you a favour, but actually they are removing the evidence to leave you unable to claim a fault.

 

Gathering evidence of other failures to present is important, so see if others are recorded (this forum), or places like Honest John (and check other VW group cars with same engine for similar fault).  If it is regular, more likely to be a fault

 

 

Edited 6 November, 2019 by SurreyJohn

[adamdun]

Thanks for your assistance. Skoda are passing the buck between themselves at the moment and digging their heels in about the warranty claim but I will persevere.

[adamdun]

"The technician has removed the gearbox as per authority and inspected the clutch and related components. Found signs of overheating due to clutch slipping, causing it to burn out. The flywheel also has signs of overheating and face damaged metal to metal. We are unable to carry this repair out under warranty as we have not been able to find any defects in the components within the gearbox that could cause this."

 

Response from skoda dealership

[Smokeyjoe]

Did you drive the car? Did the clutch seem to have a high bite point? Maybe the clutch was slipping in normal driving because of a insufficient spring tension in the cover plate or poor manufacturing tolerances. If so, then it should have been evident when driving that the clutch needed to be lifted nearly all the way before the bite point.

[adamdun]

I drove the car on rare occasions and I must admit the biting point felt high but I didn’t think much of it at the time. I also felt that the car was sluggish in 1st and 2nd taking off again just thought it was the way the car was.

[Smokeyjoe]

40 minutes ago, adamdun said:

I drove the car on rare occasions and I must admit the biting point felt high but I didn’t think much of it at the time. I also felt that the car was sluggish in 1st and 2nd taking off again just thought it was the way the car was.

 

If it was like that from new, then it could explain why the clutch failed at such a low mileage. Did you ever notice the engine was running faster than it should for the given speed when pulling away and your foot was completely off the clutch? The cars are so quiet it might be harder to tell, but a clutch slipping will mean that the engine will rev faster than it ought to. Ask your wife if she ever noticed it.

[Guest]

On 06/11/2019 at 23:04, SurreyJohn said:

Firstly insist any parts are retained and you want them back for investigation 

insist repair does not remove any contamination by oil etc in case clutch slave cylinder is faulty.

 

If they want to charge you a whopping £300 for investigation, advise you want your own independent inspector in attendance.  (You don’t have to, but for that price say you want detailed report)

 

Either dealer will get scared because they intended to take easy route, charge you for repair, and not gain enough evidence to make warranty claim.   Or you have ruined clutch

 

Clutches will burn if overloaded or slip.  But need to identify what caused this, assuming it wasn’t racing starts, could also have happened due to faulty slave cylinder, oil leak, faulty or broken spring, assembly misalignment, bad adjustment (so not fully closing) etc.   The investigation needs to eliminate all these options one by one.   Simply saying clutch is burnt is summary, not an explanation of what caused it.  If they don’t identify what cause was, how can they be 100% it was your misuse.

 

Effectively, you need them to prove you damaged the clutch, not a fault caused it.   Many garages seem to take view if they dispose of replaced parts (which strictly you own, especially if buy replacement parts), they are doing you a favour, but actually they are removing the evidence to leave you unable to claim a fault.

 

Gathering evidence of other failures to present is important, so see if others are recorded (this forum), or places like Honest John (and check other VW group cars with same engine for similar fault).  If it is regular, more likely to be a fault

 

 

 

Agree with most of that apart from the garage needs to prove to the owner.  Unless the car is under 6 months old it's the other way round, it's the owner who needs to prove the fault was present when he bought the car.  And even then this is a wear and tear item.

 

OP says he's never known his wife to slip the clutch but unfortunately that in itself is no evidence, the possibility exists she may well have been sliping the clutch.

 

As SurryJohn says, you need to give the parts to an expert to examine. Personally I'd gather as much evidence as possible of other reported clutch failures with the 1.5tsi but have to say I can't recall reading any. It may well be a down to a faulty part but proving this may be difficult. The £300 investigation charge tho...  that sounds very steep, in fact the whole job sounds very expensive. Have a word with an indi clutch specialist and ask what they charge, might be able to reduce costs there. ( the Skoda dealer may price match if u say you're taking it elsewhere ).

 

PS - citing  the above example of clutch failure is useless. It's almost a brand new vehicle, it's a Kodiaq, with a 2.0l diesel engine and was towing a horsebox + horse uphill. Both the clutch and gearbox would have been different. Whatever the issue was in that example, it's 100% unrelated to an 8000 mile 1.5 Karoq. Evidence needs to be clutch failures in 1.5tsi manuals  ( could be from VW, SEAT, SKODA, AUDI - they all use the same setup ).

 

Sorry to be so negative.

 

 

Edited 9 November, 2019 by Guest

[Berisford]

....

Edited 9 November, 2019 by Berisford

[moley]

Was the car serviced at a Skoda Dealership and if so did they ever report anything regarding the clutch ie high biting point?

[SimonAudi]

40 minutes ago, Berisford said:

....

Deleting was a good choice before you got burned... by others....

 

[stupra]

adamdun,

 

Have a read of these Ateca forum threads by Mr David Gatenby, Not sure of your engine size but this may prove very useful.

Good luck in resolving your issue, keep everyone informed.

 

https://www.atecaforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1975&p=31103&hilit=clutch#p31103

 

https://www.atecaforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1916

 

Stu

Edited 9 November, 2019 by stupra
Additional text added

[Teds]

This Ateca referred was a 1ltr manual.  From what I remember of the Ateca forum, there were a significant number of clutch problems with 1ltr manuals about a year ago.  The vehicles would have generally been built in early 2018 so the issue may have been resolved by the time Karoq production started.

 

David Gatenby won in small claims court but I think you need to be very persistent and thorough to go that far. Good luck.

[Grumpy Geaser]

Interesting  take on the dealers / manufacturers response. The clutch failed on my Yeti at 35k miles (2.0L diesel) - the only symptom was a slight judder when pulling away from a stop and a 'scraping' noise which was not audible inside the car. I had to cover the cost of gearbox removal for the diagnosis but was invited in to inspect the damage - it was worth the visit. In my case the damage was due to parts failure Skoda paid some and the warranty company paid the rest of the few thousand pounds as the gearbox needed rebuilt. The dealer was exemplary from providing a car, covering me with their insurance and handling all the paperwork.

[J.R.]

On 07/11/2019 at 20:24, Smokeyjoe said:

 

 Did you ever notice the engine was running faster than it should for the given speed when pulling away and your foot was completely off the clutch?

 

A slipping clutch would manifest itself in the highest gears first, it would have absolutely no drive whatsoever in 3rd 4th & 5th (& 6th if relevant) before you would ever notice anything whatsover amiss in 1st gear unless trying to tow a caravan up a 1 in 3 slope.

 

[Smokeyjoe]

1 hour ago, J.R. said:

 

A slipping clutch would manifest itself in the highest gears first, it would have absolutely no drive whatsoever in 3rd 4th & 5th (& 6th if relevant) before you would ever notice anything whatsover amiss in 1st gear unless trying to tow a caravan up a 1 in 3 slope.

 

Quite agree - it should have read 'or' when pulling away not 'when'.

[silver1011]

Skoda keep telling customers that they've never had anyone else complain of the same issue. Be sure to call them out as liars...

 

 

[Berisford]

11 minutes ago, silver1011 said:

Skoda keep telling customers that they've never had anyone else complain of the same issue. Be sure to call them out as liars...

 

 

 

Standard industry practice, certainly the same at BMW, Ford & VW, in my experience.

 

It's the way they say it with a straight face that amuses me most.

[silver1011]

The beauty of online forums such as these. We can work together.

[Tblitz]

Hi Adamdun

Can I ask if you ever resolved this issue?

I am having almost the identical issue.

8500 miles. Clutch failed. Had a high biting point from new which I assumed was normal for the car but now realise that it wasn't.

Skoda saying not covered and due to driver influence. My wife and I have never had clutch issues before.

Did you get Skoda to settle this or did you just end up paying up?

Thanks

Nathan

[Sile1604]

Hello, 

I have the same problem with the Karoq 1.5TSI, manual transmission. 

On June 1st, the car let us in the middle of the railway without any previous signs. The car has 18 000 km. 

The cause: clutch failure

Dealer answer: inapropriate usage of the car, so the warranty will not cover the issues.

The dealer claims it never heard about such a problem, but as I see on the forums in a known problem. 

 

Is anyone who manage to resolve somehow this problem? How did you proceed? 

Thanks a lot

 

PS: I’m from Romania, Bucharest and the car was bought in November 2018.

[silver1011]

Skoda will never admit to it being a manufacturing fault without a professional independent opinion.

 

You'll need to pay for an independent analysis (gearbox removal) out of your own money, and then present Skoda with your evidence and claim under warranty.

[Cotton63]

I also have this problem with a 1.5 Petrol manual Taroq purchased in July 2018 with extra 5 year warranty which we have used mainly for long journeys,  holidays in France and to visit family in London and Cornwall ( from Bristol).

In Oct 2019 the car started to smell after a short journey having done 8508 miles so I too took it to Skoda dealer and reported strong smell within cabin and no change in performance. The technician reported that nothing wrong with clutch or performance so must be way we drive. On collecting car from the dealer the smell did not reoccur again although they say they did not do anything to the car.

Last week my wife was driving and having just entered a busy dual carriageway ring road she tried to change up but could not do so the AA confirmed that Clutch had burnt out with 11107 miles on clock. AA transported it to dealer who investigated and said that need to replace clutch and flywheel but found nothing wrong with clutch so must be the way we drive therefore not covered by warranty. We have driven Skodas from 2002 and had no clutch problems plus our main use cars Ford and the Kia had clutch changed at 150000  and  79187 miles respectively.

When questioned they say that these clutches are hydraulic so cannot be adjusted, if so where is the slave cylinder positioned, should they be bled at service and where is the fluid reservoir as there is no mention of it in the Owner's Manual?.

Also how have all the other owners resolved this problem and is the Motor Ombudsman independent are set up by these dealers?.

 

[vadimbo]

 

On 06/11/2019 at 18:23, adamdun said:

I will start by stating that my wife has been driving for 15 years and has always driven a manual. She has run a nissan micra for 2 years (first car no power steering either!), a brand new fiat 500 for 5 years, a brand new VW new beetle and a used mini country man for 3 years all with regular servicing and maintenance and has never had any serious issues.

 

Last week her 2018 plate Karoq broke down on a busy junction, transmission totally disappeared without warning. She did not have any indication of an issue until she tried to pull away in 1st and couldn't. The car was recovered and taken to the nearest open Skoda/Seat dealership. On monday they called to ask for permission to remove the gearbox to investigate stating that if it was found to be wear and tear then it may not be covered but it was likely that it couldn't be wear and tear given the age and mileage. Low and behold they call yesterday to advise that they have found signs of overheating on the clutch/flywheel/etc and the whole lot needs replaced. They have advised this could only be down to the way it has been driven (effectively blaming my wife). I have never known her to over-rev or to ride the clutch in any car so can't understand how after less than 8000 miles this could be possible. This car has had its first annual service and so far as I'm aware has not had any recall work done it - I believe there is a software issue to prevent kangarooing in 1st/2nd).

 

Has anyone else experienced any similar issues and would anyone suggest an alternative to user error that may cause over heating and damage to the clutch?

 

I would add that the dealership are passing all responsibility for the decision to refuse a warranty claim or goodwill onto skoda and have advised us that they are looking for £300 for the investigation and in total it will cost £1700 to replace.

 

The car is on a lease which is up in May and my wife is not the registered keeper on the papers - not sure if this makes a difference.

 

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Adam

 

@adamdun Hi Adam, reading your post about the failure of the MT and your suspicion on the kangarooing fix which was released by VAG for 1.5 TSI with manual transmission I totally stand by the same suspicion. 

I have a Skoda superb from 2019 (Oct) that is fitted with 1.5 TSI as well with 6s MT. Car has only 9000 km. I noticed very clunky metallic noises when shifting gear (especially from 1st to 2nd). The Engine seems to have some weird vibrations in the revolutions that are getting transmitted to the Dual Mass Flywheel at the time the shifting is done which is just nothing else as shaking forcefully the Flywheel.

 

Have a look at below video and let me know what you think. In my case the dealer agreed that there are noises but rushed to explain it as a "characteristic" noise to the latest models and that its normal.