Clutches are pretty easy to do too, depending on the car. the only special tool you need is the alignment tool, which is usually about a fiver (but is car specific) but even that can be bodged with a 1/2″ bar for most engines.

Interesting never done a clutch so nice to know the tools are not much. It was more a post about my general philosophy to things, most things can be be DIY, given time and effort. TBH the only difference between many companies and a DIY is the accountant.

The actual replacement of a clutch is like building meccano. But getting access can be a wee bit more involved.

molgrips – Member

Plenty of stuff to go wrong in an auto tranny I reckon.

What type of auto tranny are you referring to? Tiptronic or those fancy shift up and down auto gear yes, but simple old fashion auto gear?

Mate told to avoid the modern auto gear …

To OP, why not switch to automatic gear car in future? One less hassle so long as you keep up with your maintenance.

Automatics are inherently more inefficient and cost a damn sight more when they fail than manuals (and I have one in bits in my garage at the moment to prove it, with the torque converter leaking fluid all over the floor), unless they’re DSG or robotised manual, in which case they’ll cost even more. Steer clear of autos unless you do tens of thousands of miles of mind-numbing city driving and don’t care about fuel efficiency.

Eurocarparts doing 30% off all parts at the moment. You’ll get original quality for a lot less.

They do have plenty of hydraulic gubbins inside. My sister in law’s Chevy Venture is eating its own tranny after only 11 years and 110k miles. To be honest the car looks and feels way the hell older than that. I don’t want to make generalisations about American cars, but…

coffeeking – Member

Automatics are inherently more inefficient and cost a damn sight more when they fail than manuals (and I have one in bits in my garage at the moment to prove it, with the torque converter leaking fluid all over the floor), unless they’re DSG or robotised manual, in which case they’ll cost even more. Steer clear of autos unless you do tens of thousands of miles of mind-numbing city driving and don’t care about fuel efficiency.

Crikey … that bad eh … mine is not DSG or robotised manual. It’s a Toyota auto so not sure that is except relying on my friend advice. I will ask him again on the pitfall of auto gear but if he is driving one himself, a Landcruiser and his daily work car is Hilux, then there must be something I don’t know.

molgrips – Member

They do have plenty of hydraulic gubbins inside. My sister in law’s Chevy Venture is eating its own tranny after only 11 years and 110k miles. To be honest the car looks and feels way the hell older than that. I don’t want to make generalisations about American cars, but…

hhmmm … not sure how reliable are those American cars but this is Toyota so I wonder if that makes any difference at all … hhhmmm …

Indeed toyota do make pretty reliable cars on the whole, I wouldn’t argue with that recommendation. I’d just avoid autos as the cost of repair is very high and there’s less chance of DIY. Unlike small manual ones where a clutch is a hundred quid, a flywheel generally a couple of hundred and about 3 hours to do a swap. I also hate small cars with auto boxes, but that’s from experience of driving an auto 1.0 micra across cyprus with it unable to decide which gear it wanted to be in.

br. YGM.

Dual Mass Flywheel failures are pretty common on turbodiesels. Seems like somewhere between 80k and 150k, you can be pretty sure it’ll let go. Had exactly the same kind of bill on a HDi Peugeot, and it wiped out any fuel savings I’d made and more.

The only time I think it makes sense to buy a TDI now is if you’re doing 20k a year upwards, and you’re buying new / company car, so you’ve got someone else paying any mechanical bills.

Or of you tow, or like the way they drive. I reckon mine has saved around £600 over its 85k miles, very roughly. If I keep going til 170k I may have saved enough for a new DMF 🙂