I'm in need of some assistance.

This morning I was unable to get my Octavia vRS into gear. The clutch appeared not to be disengaging. The clutch felt ok when I depressed the pedal but just wouldn't go into gear. Got the car towed to Skoda dealer as the car still has a couple of months left on the warrenty. They phoned me to inform me the clutch was burnt out and the flywheel needs replacing. This is going to cost over

if the clutch had burnt out i think you would have noticed the previous day , the usual reasons for difficult gear selection are , hydraulic problem on clutch m/cyl or slave cyl , or a clutch drag problem i.e. clutch not disengaging enough to select the gear , usually 1st and reverse the worst , now both these things could/should be covered under warranty as a drag problem is usually caused by a weak cover plate spring iirc

Agree, burnt out clutch seems like an excuse to me as unless you were hammering the car when it let go (which you wern't) you would have noticed this during normal driving. A burnt out clutch isn't just fine then knackered.

As everyone else, with the note that IMO the only way for a driver to burn out a hydraulic clutch wilfully is to deliberately drag it for an extended period.

I had a clutch fail on a Mercedes 300. There was no advance warning and it failed completely during a normal gearchange.

go to the dealer unannounced and ask to see the manager then get him to show you the parts and explain exactly whats wrong with them

I know of a guy who had a similar clutch failure on a 350Z.

He drove into a car-park, with the clutch working fine, parked-up and went shopping, came back a while later and couldn't engage a gear. The clutch had just expired and, as it transpired, he also needed a new flywheel as well. This was at about 20k miles.

Don't know if it makes any difference to the mode of failure (and lack of warning signs), but this was a dual mass flywheel. Does the vRS have a dual mass flywheel?

cheers for the advice.

i did go into the dealer this morning to ask them to go through everything with me. They can't explain why the clutch is burnt other than it's my driving style. (my previous car a cavalier did 200,000 without the clutch being replaced).

The mechanic said it was standard practice to replace the flywheel when the clutch was burnt out. It seems the vrs has a special flywheel that has an oil inside it and there's a possibility that the oil might leak onto the replacement clutch plates if the previous clutch has overheated.

I've told them to only replace the clutch assembly which has reduced the bill from

How long have you had the car, what was the mileage when you bought it and what is the mileage now?

People are always very quick to blame your driving style if a clutch goes as mine did recently:mad: . The only car I've had that needed a clutch was a Hillman Imp (yes that long ago!). There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for failure. Mine failed after a Revo remap, and you'd have to blame the extra juice, but other people on here have said they have the same standard clutch running 350 horses, far in excess of the measly (but amusing;) ) 200 and something from Revo. Either they don't know where the accelerator is or something else is happening. A clutch that can take 350 horse shouldn't fail for at least 100k on anything less. Doesn't say much for Skoda/VW quality control. Never mind will have a new one fitted hopefully tomorrow - Jabba one. Total

What about a problem with the dual mass flywheel?

Also Mr Clutch will put an entire new clutch pluss all bearings on an Octy TDI110 for £300.

Why isn't the CD changer covered under the warrenty, just sounds to me like the dealer is trying to get out of it and before you give the go ahead for the work I would be calling skoda UK customer services.

Dual mass flywheels are pretty easy to check even off car to some degree.

Hey why not change the engine whilst your there, might give up sooner or later..lol

I'd change a flywheel, but only if it was knackered.

Ross , would the fact that the flywheel had been heated up by the alleged clutch being burnt out cause it to fail ? also i thought they had a type of grease inside not the oil that is mentioned in a previous post , surely it would be ok to emery paper off any slight blueing that had occured if it had been heated up , obviously if there was major heating/micro cracking i would agree that it needs a flywheel

It is like a silicone based grease in the flywheel.

Agreed on the heating up damage.