I’ve managed to kill the clutch in my car and will have to replace it. The garage say there’s more play in the flywheel than usual and recommend replacing it at the cost of lots more money

Anyone with experience of cars? Is it likely I’m being bullsh**ed and what could be the consequences of not getting it done.

Thanks in advance

if you are going to split the trans and engine then you should probably do it all at the same time. make sure you have a new slave cylinder/release bearing too if it is a concentric slave cylinder.

Hi Mike
If you have burnt the clutch out it is highly likely that you have damaged the dualmass flywheel.
The temperature of the clutch burning out is hot enough to melt the grease and bearing cages inside the flywheel.

Regards
Mick

Play in the flywheel?

Either you missunderstood what they were saying or they’re having you on, the flywheel is rather solidly bolted to the crank. Either one of two things, the flywheel is worn (it’s like the brake disk, and the clutch is the pad) and it’s scored or there’s uneven run out and you’ve just missunderstood them. Or it’s a DMF (what car is it?).

I can’t imagine they’re bull******* over a conventional flywheel, once the clutch is off they’re 10 minutes to unbolt and bolt a new one on. Usualy if they’re scored/worn then they’re skimmed not replaced though.

what car is it?

Flywheel worn? This is the first time I have heard of this. Is this common in the UK?

My mate, the boy racer in the far east, would even lighten the flywheel for performance but not good if you are going uphill though with lighten flywheel.

what could be the consequences of not getting it done.

worst case is the DMF (if it is indeed a DMF which do develop play) could eventually come apart

I guess you’d class that as catastrophic drivetrain failure as it can fire bits through the gearbox and generally destroy engine + box

How old is the car? If it’s got any noticable number of miles, doing other work while the engine is out makes a lot of sense. (like, for ford diesels you tend to look at clutch, dmf and clutch slave cylinder) But more info is needed really, what sort of car etc.

Car it’s a 1.6 diesel VW engine in a skoda Octavia.
I can’t remember the exact words they used to describe the flywheel something on the lines of more movement/play than usual.

Thanks for the responses btw

Dual mass flywheel will have excessive side to side rock in it. More than likely due to killing the clutch/bad driving

Always replace it if it’s worn, if it fails it will take out the clutch (again) and can damage the gearbox.

Your diesel skoda will have a dual mass flywheel.

Offroading
Actual mechanic

Flywheel worn? This is the first time I have heard of this. Is this common in the UK?

My mate, the boy racer in the far east, would even lighten the flywheel for performance but not good if you are going uphill though with lighten flywheel.

You don’t wear through them, just wear away at the surface. If the surface is rough then it needs skimming smooth again, otherwise you’d just wear out the next clutch.

Lightening is a different process, you could take away material from the perimiter, the thickness, the center, wherever, or just fit one from a smaller similar engine, all it does is improve acceleration at the expense of making the engine a a bit lumpier and harder to pull away without stalling.

There is probably a “traditional” non-DM flywheel available, you’d probably never notice the difference. Presuably it’s lasted 70k ish miles already, might not have the car another 70k although non-DM version is probably cheaper.