Stock 2016 GTI : Clutch Failure

I feel your frustration. My clutch started slipping like crazy....with only 600 miles on the car! A few things to consider imo:

1) While the clutch is a wear item and only covered for 1 year/12K miles, the flywheel is listed as a powertrain item and covered under VWs 5 year/60K powertrain warranty (pre 2018 models). If the flywheel needs replacing, the labor + flywheel should be completely covered, you may just have to pay for the pressure plate. A decent dealership should help argue that you need a new flywheel as these DMFs can't be resurfaced.

2) Try to have a good relationship with the best VW in your area. $160 for diagnosis?? Fuck that, I would politely ask the servoce manager to have a tech or, even better, the foreman come with me for a quick ride around the block. A box of donuts should do the trick.

3) If all options are exhausted and you have to do a clutch change, I would just take it to a good indy and throw in an upgraded clutch. Screw the OEM one, it sucks. Labor shouldn't be more than $600 worst case scenario.

TheGreekFreak said:

I feel your frustration. My clutch started slipping like crazy....with only 600 miles on the car! A few things to consider imo:

1) While the clutch is a wear item and only covered for 1 year/12K miles, the flywheel is listed as a powertrain item and covered under VWs 5 year/60K powertrain warranty (pre 2018 models). If the flywheel needs replacing, the labor + flywheel should be completely covered, you may just have to pay for the pressure plate. A decent dealership should help argue that you need a new flywheel as these DMFs can't be resurfaced.

2) Try to have a good relationship with the best VW in your area. $160 for diagnosis?? Fuck that, I would politely ask the service manager to have a tech or, even better, the foreman come with me for a quick ride around the block. A box of donuts should do the trick.

3) If all options are exhausted and you have to do a clutch change, I would just take it to a good indy and throw in an upgraded clutch. Screw the OEM one, it sucks. Labor shouldn't be more than $600 worst case scenario.

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This is all good advice.

Same exact situation I was in but at 10k miles. I ended up putting an SRE myself for under $1k in parts(without flywheel) and have now over 23k worry free miles.

The weak point is the pressure plate, so if you put in a stock clutch you're going to end up in the same situation. I can almost assure you the dealer is not including additional hardware that is TTY in those prices.

slow12s said:

the ESC shouldn't leave anything unusual in the logs and isn't going to throw codes if it's operating as it should...have you only experienced this in 1st and 2nd gear at high rpm's?

it's just that clutch slip will cause the revs to increase freely since the clutch isn't grabbing so you'll see the RPM needle redline QUICKLY (or move that direction quickly) and won't be going anywhere (with a burned out clutch)...and then should smell clutch...here is an example of clutch slip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h0MtlPntoI) - if it was just the ESC turning on, consider yourself lucky as these clutches can be hit or miss/garbage (so it's not impossible at all for it to be the clutch since our clutches suck, but hopefully it isn't and hopefully it was just ESC turning on from a mix of hard acceleration and tires starting to wear a bit)

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The traction and ESC was in sport mode when I repruced it all 3 times. Also I didn't see the traction control light come on when it occurred. I was closely watching the dash, because I was watching the RPM's

Although I think you could be on to something. It could still be something electronic or something different than the clutch since the RPMs are dropping. I might try and test and record it this evening one more time. Pray it doesn't break anything worse lol.

cbenjes said:

Right NOW, New German Performance is having a South Bend clutch sale. Forget the dealer, go get yourself an upgrade and tell the dealer to stick it. They aren't going to cover the wear item anyway. They will blame you somehow and take your money.

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Thanks! If VW won't cover whatever the issue is, then I want something that can handle at least 400lb of torque, but still have a clutch feel.thats not too stiff. Having stiffer is okay. I just don't want too stiff, because I do a lot of stop and go traffic to work.

That's exactly what I worry about. They will find a way to blame me.

TheGreekFreak said:

I feel your frustration. My clutch started slipping like crazy....with only 600 miles on the car! A few things to consider imo:

1) While the clutch is a wear item and only covered for 1 year/12K miles, the flywheel is listed as a powertrain item and covered under VWs 5 year/60K powertrain warranty (pre 2018 models). If the flywheel needs replacing, the labor + flywheel should be completely covered, you may just have to pay for the pressure plate. A decent dealership should help argue that you need a new flywheel as these DMFs can't be resurfaced.

2) Try to have a good relationship with the best VW in your area. $160 for diagnosis?? Fuck that, I would politely ask the servoce manager to have a tech or, even better, the foreman come with me for a quick ride around the block. A box of donuts should do the trick.

3) If all options are exhausted and you have to do a clutch change, I would just take it to a good indy and throw in an upgraded clutch. Screw the OEM one, it sucks. Labor shouldn't be more than $600 worst case scenario.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. Yeah they said flywheel would not be covered IF damage on it was deemed to be caused by the clutch. Otherwise it would be covered.

What clutch and flywheel do you all recommend for a daily driver in lots of traffic to work? A little stiffer is okay, but I don't want anything too stiff or too loud. Some increase is of course fine, I just don't want anything drastically stiffer and louder.

Also if flywheel is not damaged, what's the benefit to leaving the OEM flywheel versus putting in a different one? Also what's the purpose of an upgraded seal?

Thanks!

AndroidPurity said:

Hmm I will look into the TTRS kit. Do you have a good source where to buy the kit? I'll probably just have a good shop here install if it comes to that point. There's a few Euro speciality shops around, and a couple of performance shops. I will check with them if it gets to that point.

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FCP Euro

Alright so here are my options after a ton of calling and haggling today....

1.) I got my local dealer to match the labor price of the other dealer which is about $1,130 ($270 less). So he is saying about $2,100 for clutch and about $3,100 of flywheel is needed too. Which he believes it won't need cause I likely caught it early (I agree with him).

2.) Called a local VW/Audi performance shop, they can do clutch install for $650 in labor and flywheel too with no additional labor. So with a stage 2 daily south bend around $1,800 + tax for whole thing. About $1,300 cheaper than dealer, plus getting a better clutch and flywheel wheel.

3.) Trade it in if I can my loan value ($16,900) paid off. Then a low mileage 2016 GTI with DSG. My car payment should be the same if I stick to under $20k. Even if the trade in offer is a bit short of my loan maybe offer the difference to pay on used GTI with DSG if the difference is less than $2k.

I think I'm actually going to fish around and try for option 3 and see what dealership have on the market used for 2016+ GTI DSG. If I can find one under $20k with no accidents and get at or close to loan value trade in, then I'll likely do that.

If not, then I'll likely do the option 2 with the VW/Audi performance place for around $1,800. In the mean time I'm going to baby it drive it easy till I figure out which option over the next week.

AndroidPurity said:

Thanks for the info. Yeah they said flywheel would not be covered IF damage on it was deemed to be caused by the clutch. Otherwise it would be covered.

What clutch and flywheel do you all recommend for a daily driver in lots of traffic to work? A little stiffer is okay, but I don't want anything too stiff or too loud. Some increase is of course fine, I just don't want anything drastically stiffer and louder.

Also if flywheel is not damaged, what's the benefit to leaving the OEM flywheel versus putting in a different one? Also what's the purpose of an upgraded seal?

Thanks!

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Wtf....sounds like a lazy service department. What else would cause a bad flywheel?? If they weren't dbags, they could say you complained about the clutch shuddering and not being smooth or some BS that could be explained by a bad flywheel and at least TRY to get it covered by VW. It's not out of their pocket, just takes a little effort on their part to please the customer.

In any case, I think the new clutch depends on your goals. If you plan to never tune, I'd probably just go with the RSR clutch. If stage 2 or above, probably DKM.

good luck getting a semi-even trade from MT to DSG for anywhere near 2k difference.

Dude....you're gonna take a bath trading it in. Plus you still owe $16K. Just upgrade the clutch and enjoy it worry free as it will most likely outlast the car.

It's literally one of the few weakpoints on this platform along with the turbos. Unless you're sick of driving manual, it makes zero sense to trade it in over an upgraded clutch.

Still, I would seriously consider checking out other VW service departments in your area and seeing if any manager can help you out.

Android, what part of MD are you in?

AndroidPurity said:

Well I was able to reproduce it twice since then in dry road conditions in 2nd gear, sport, traction off, full throttle. It gets up to around 3800-4000 RPMs, then drops 600-800 RPM without letting off throttle at all. So I guess this was around 33,000-33,500 miles when I first noticed this.

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This description makes no sense. If your clutch is slipping, the RPMs would spike during acceleration faster than normal, while you dont feel like you are going faster. You're describing the RPMs DROPPING?

Okay I see this question has been covered. Very weird though.

AndroidPurity said:

So I called another VW dealer just 205 min drive further and they're only going to charge me $1,182 labor + $300 clutch (something like that) + $875 flywheel. So that's over $1,100 cheaper than my dealer, which pissed me off more knowing my dealer was ripping people off.

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I'm in MD also, so just curious who are the two dealers you've talked to?

I would get it fixed. Unless you are buying new.

Just for reference since we're talking prices, the local vw /euro specialty shop quoted me $850 labor for new clutch and rms install. That's right on the line of worth it vs doing it myself.

Wow.. that's ridiculous.. I got a Sach 4 puck clutch, VW TOB and Sachs DMF for about 1200.00.. and 500 for labor from a reputable indy shop. Go to FCP euro and order your parts. and get the RMS replaced while your at it. Forget that Stealership...