If I drove it that is??

Dual mass flywheel on my SMax is knackered. Car isn’t worth enough to get it fixed and we’ve been thinking of changing it anyway. Probably for a van next spring…

But if i drive was to drive it, what woukd actually happen if it reallys **** up??

Other car is too small for bike really, we’ll more than one anyway….

It’ll let you down in the middle of the night on a spooky, misty moor and the werewolves will have ‘ya!

DMF failed catastrophically on my T5 on the M8 motorway years ago. It had been a bit noisy at certain RPMs but failed suddenly without warning while cruising along.

What you end up with is two bits of heavy metal no longer connected together inside a casing, with one of those bits of metal still connected to the engine. Lots of banging, screeching and grinding metal sounds as the outer ring smacks into the casing and the inner ring.

When we took it apart it had worn quite a decent groove into the casing. Not sure how likely it would be to destroy the casing but judging from the wear and noise it made it does seem possible.

I personally wouldn’t risk it unless the car was only used for local journeys because if it fails you will be stopping suddenly.

It’ll let you down in the middle of the night on a spooky, misty moor and the werewolves will have ‘ya

That I am fully expecting!!

It will eventually fill your starter motor with swarf/metal filings and potential kill your gearbox and crank flywheel pulley as the engines power pulses are fed through to them rather than being absorbed by the floating mass of the flywheel.

Just make sure you shove the clutch in when starting or shutting off the engine.

Think it’s gonna be going to we buy any car pretty soon anyway.

Was quoted £1300 to fit a new one and its a 2008 car with 155k miles and quite a few dings. So just not worth it!!

Had this on my old Focus – clutch and DMF on the way out, traded it in on its last gasp. Think I got a trip to the Lakes out of it before that, but almost didn’t make it back as it got worse the further you drove it.

We had a new dmf on our Smax a few years back. Can’t remember how old or mileage but we sold the car for £3500 at 8 years old 108k on the clock so prob 70-80kish. I think it was just shy of a grand including a clutch. There was some talk of welding it up but I didn’t like the sound of that.
Prob best get rid sooner rather than later if you’re not keeping it much longer as you say

I paid £800 tops at a local Suzuki dealer to get my Mondeo done a couple of years ago, IIRC that was the clutch and DMF at the same time, no way an SMax should be more as it’s the same engine.

There was some talk of welding it up but I didn’t like the sound of that.

Great way of buggering more expensive bits as Rusty says.

More than the car is worth (I’m guessing, if it’s anything like my Mondeo) but not disasterous if it’s an otherwise reliable car.

We had a similar thing – Smax got to 110000 miles and the DMF started rattling. Drove it for a couple of months with no real issues, until the day before it was booked into the garage for a replacement and it just wouldn’t go into gear. Clutch pedal just went all the way to the floor. Humph.

Had it towed to the garage where it was discovered the front subframe was rusted to hell, the timing belt needed changing, the rear calipers were leaking and the exhaust was holier than swiss cheese. Unexpected new car/van time then

I think I had DMF issues with my old Passat. I remember bing quoted for a new DMF to be fitted and being shocked at the price, so ended up going for a plain single mass version that was way cheaper. Yes, it juddered a bit more when you tried to baby the clutch, but I was heading for a new car (ok, van) at the time and so I knew it had limited time left.

I think I drove it like that for a year before I bought the van.

Might ring round a couple of other places and see if it’s any cheaper.

They did say they could put a solid flywheel in but that would still be 1100, so may as well go for the good stuff!

This is a local indy Ford dealer, so could well be over inflated but they have always been pretty reasonable before….

Forgot to add – use more revs and lighter engine loads rather than letting it labour/lower revs. Basically try and smooth out the engine power pulses yourself rather than relying on the DMF doing it and it’ll be reet*

*Possibly

You can fit a solid flywheel to a Transhit TDCI but you must fit a heavier weight crank pulley – check if similar is available if you are going the solid route.

I’ve just had it done on my S-Max and it’s pig of a job. I have a mate that works for Ford and he did it as private job. It’s an hour 8 book time for the labour alone. Whole subframe of the car has to come off. I supplied the parts from Euros which was the flywheel, clutch and slave and that was £500 on its own.

Yeah I looked at the SMF for mine but they only make sense for taxi drivers and the like where the mileage is so high it will save them replacing the DMF again in another 100k miles. For normal use the SMF saves little on the overall cost.

Take starter off fire welder up….

We spent £1200 on on the DMF and clutch for our 2008 seat Altea XL with 120k on the clock. The plan is to get the mrs another car if a couple of years and the kids can beat the Altea to death as they learn to drive and use it as a runabout. Wouldn’t have repaired it if the kids weren’t so close to driving age.

@ads678 – ours was due to cost just over £900+VAT if that’s any help for comparison (Cumbria)

I might have a ring round, but reckon it’s still gonna be a fair bit over a grand, so might just bite the bullet and go for something newer.

Just bad timing as I’m in the middle of a loft conversion and some other house renovations…

Failing DMFs can last for quite some time, and might never fail in any kind of major way.

Depending on the style fitted, failure can range from losing drive, going so off balance it’ll cost you more in dentist bills getting fillings put back in than replacing the DMF, snapping crankshafts (this is also an issue if you fit a solid conversion), wiping out the gearbox input shaft, or the complete catastrophic failure where large chunks of metal potentially wipe out anything in the DMF’s path as it ejects itself through the gearbox casing (this was a pretty common Landrover failure method, and why early TD5s got recalled for new flywheels).

The dealer will be expensive because they’ll likely be quoting for genuine parts, which will be expensive. If you’re happy to use the dealer, then it’s always worth asking if they’ll quote for aftermarket parts instead.

Got it booked in to a different local garage who have quoted just short of £800! so only the £500 cheaper than the ford garage….

Nice! No doubt it will be genuine but not Ford rebranded Luk as they’re about the only ones who make the part.

Got it booked in to a different local garage who have quoted just short of £800! so only the £500 cheaper than the ford garage….

Excellent, I was going to suggest shopping around but you already have 🙂

Sounds a good price, I had my Jag X type (Ford TDCi engine) done about 5 years ago for just shy of £700 so £800 sounds about right.

Did my Passat myself recently. Got a genuine part off ebay for £200 and took me about 6 hours. Had been driving it for two years running lumpy. Took the undershield off and wondered what all the little bits of metal were that were laid on it. Got the gearbox out and saw two massive holes in either side of the dmf where it’s inards had escaped.

On my Transit, it rattled like you’d dropped a bag of bolts into the clutch housing, every now and then the clutch wouldn’t engage properly so you’d have to do clutchless gear changes and hard starting.

In house garage refused to look at it on three occasions as they claimed they were all covered to solid wheels when brand new.

As it chewed everything up it started to quieten down, and then broke down for another driver!

If you want a laugh, this is the sound clip I played to the garage…nah, it’s a solid flywheel mate…