Clutch fault?

that sounds like the clutch itself, on hydraulic releases there is a master and a slave cylinder for the clutch, they would usually only be replaced if leaking, your symptoms are not leak symptoms.

Is a new clutch likely to go after 5 months? The original clutch survived

80k miles of my driving and I've not changed my driving style and never ride on the clutch at junctions etc. Bad fitting maybe?

The problem I had that caused the clutch to be replaced in the first place was that I came round a corner, slipping the car into 2nd gear as I did so - however I changed gear a bit too quick and mistimed it slightly causing it to crunch as it went in. It did go into gear but when I tried to go up into

3rd gear it wouldn't go into gear at all. It wouldn't go into any gear except with the engine off. The RAC guy thought it the clutch and so took it to the garage who replaced it for 440 quid. Could they have done a repair job on the old clutch and left that in while telling me they replaced it?

Ian

It doesn't sound as though you neded a clutch before !

Does doesn't it. If it's difficult to get the car into gear then it suggests that the clutch isn't releasing properly, but if there was anything wrong in the hydraulics then the clutch would engage earlier rather than later. I guess it could be a blocked rubber hose or something similar.

Unless it needed bleeding.

If it needed bleeding it would still engage earlier rather than later, that's if it disengaged at all. To me the symptoms suggest that excess travel is happening, a stop is being reached. I'm not familiar with the rover 600, but I think what has happened is that the garage have fiddled it by either only fitting a clutch plate and not the cover, or they've bent something to allow more travel, this used to be a popular dodge on early minis.

This is nothing to do with the slave or master, the clutch has at least got to come out.

Steve

Thanks for the opinions guys. When I got the car back after the clutch was replaced, I did notice that overall it seemed to engage a bit higher up than before - I couldn't be sure this wasn't just me, but I did have a few occassions of unsmooth gear changes because of having to let the clutch pedal come up higher than I was used to before it engaged. I thought this may have just been the way they set up the new clutch, so I didn't follow it up.

If a clutch hasn't disengaged properly would it create a symptoms like this:- on one of the last gear changes I made in that troublesome rush-hour crawl before parking up, I pushed the clutch pedal down, changed to 2nd gear and released the clutch pedal and it didn't seem to engage at all before the pedal was fully released but the car was in gear?

I took the car into the garage yesterday and they say there is a small leak in the clutch cylinder. Of course they want to replace that but it sounds like they really should be taking the clutch itself out and looking at that as well (it's under warranty). I really want to take the car to my regular mechanic, who I trust, but then I'd have to pay afresh :-(

Thanks Ian

A small leak in the clutch cylinder, either master or slave, would cause problems, but not until it ran out of fluid. Has the level dropped? Is any fluid running down the clutch pedal? is there a pool of fluid where you regularly park?

For my money these guys have screwed it up.

Steve

I think I've got bigger problems now! They are telling me the head gasket has gone (they did compression test and got readings of 2/0/3/3 across the 4 pistons, normal value 12-14 apparently, - he said he is suprised the car is still running), oil has leaked onto cambelt and cooling system needed a couple of litres top-up, so about £700 to sort the gasket & cambelt out. He also reckons the power steering pump has gone because of all the oil around there, but I think that was left over from when it did go earlier last year, however he reckons that should have been an MoT failure anyway (only got it MoT'd 3-4 weeks ago).

As for the clutch cylinders, there's no fluid running down clutch pedal. It looks like something has been dripping onto the driveway - it could also be engine oil - it's not that bad though, ie: no pooling. It's been sitting outside for 3 hours now and no wet fliud anywhere. As for levels in the clutch reseviour, they are OK - not sure if he topped them up though, but he did say there were bits of rubber in there - I think I can see it - kind of scummy black stuff. He reckons 300 quid for new master/slave & fitting.

Hmm, getting expensive and by the sounds of it the original clutch problem may still not be fixed!

Regards Ian

IanW ("IanW" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Remind me what car it was? Because this is sounding to me like scrap o'clock.

From the OP: Rover 600 on 95K miles.

With respect to the owner, that was probably the case last October...

Chris

I must put my prices up, on Tuesday I did a headgasket/belt job on a Rover

400 for 450 all in, obviously too cheap!!

It's this:

I'm going to get it checked out by my regular mechanic - at the end of the day, if I scrap it and buy another car in the sub-2k bracket (and it would have to be sth that looks reasonably good) then something is quite likely to be going on that too, so it may be easiest to repair this one. Will just have to see what else might be on it's way out.

Ian

Chris Whelan (Chris Whelan ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Oh, ffs...

Well, quite.

IanW ("IanW" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Ah. A 600 turbo. That's a slightly different kettle of fish from a cooking 600, I s'pose, but even so. I'd doubt it's viable unless you're DIYing.

Whatever, I wouldn't have anything more to do with these geezers, it stinks to me. Now there's a head gasket gone very badly according to those figures, yet you haven't mentioned any symptoms that might account for that. They've screwed you over the clutch and now they're trying to screw you again.

There's always dirty black stuff in the fluid reservoir.

You haven't mentioned misfiring, power loss, overheating, coolant loss, oil loss, smoke, or any other symptom you would expect to have. And £300 for master and slave sounds a lot to me, but as I said, I'm not familiar with the 600.

Tell them to get lost. You'll probably have to put the first clutch repair down to experience because if they get the car in their workshop you won't see it again this side of a mortgage. If your regular garage will give you a statement that the clutch hadn't been changed, you might get to have a word with trading standards, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Steve

Those compression figures are wrong, an ordinary car engine will not run at much below 80 psi (roughly 5 atm) normal compression is about 10 - 14 (150 psi or thereabouts), your figures of 2 and 3 just could not run, end of story. It is also very unusual these days for a blown head gasket to get so bad as to bring the compressions down by an enormous amount on one cylinder, let alone all. In any case why are they looking at the compression when they should be looking at the clutch?

Mrcheerful

Well, the oil does need topping up maybe once a month, similarly the coolant (or perhaps every 3 weeks), though it's been like that for ages. There's a little smoke coming out of the exhaust but not much and it's never leave trails of smoke in it's wake (except on cold days of course). Haven't noticed any misfiring. Powerloss I would definitely notice as I do like to use the cars acceleration capability (though don't often take it over 4k revs in any gear, as it accelerates quick enough without thrashing the engine). The engine does get hot after more than about 20 mins in slow moving traffic, but the fan kicks in and brings it down again as required.

I'll certainly get my regular mechanic to check and see what he says. If that does turn out to be the case, then maybe I could take it back to the dodgy guys and tell them I want the clutch fixing properly as originally paid for else I'll get trading standards onto them.

Ian

Well, they originally phoned up and said "do you know there is no water in the cooling system and the engine's leaking oil" and said it looks like the head gasket has gone, so they suggested doing a compression test, which I said OK to.

Ian