Noob looking for some clutch advice

Hey everyone,

First time poster, long time skulker. Pretty awesome little community you guys have here.

Anyway, I need some help. I've got a 2011 GTI that I got new. I've only put about 43k miles on it thus far. I'm not a racer, I rarely drive her very hard. I mostly drive the 10 minutes to and from work daily (all city driving).

Last week I noticed a burning smell coming from my car. I take it to the dealer and they tell me my clutch is burning out and it's going to cost $2400 to replace (wtf?). I kinda pitch a bitch and make the guy get with corporate to see if they'll cover it (I'm still under my extended warranty). No dice. They say because of the age/miles on the car, the clutch is a "wearable part" and they won't cover any of the repair.

So now I don't really know what to do. I certainly don't have $2400 to drop right now. It blows my mind that 43k miles is an appropriate mileage for a clutch to go bad. Am I wrong? Does that sound right? Should I raise hell at corporate to see if I can get them to cover it? Sounds like a faulty part to me.

In any case, was just looking for some advice from you more knowledgeable folk. I'll take it outside of the dealer for a second opinion, but then I'm worried that would somehow void my warranty. Ugh... pain in my butt.

Thanks for reading and I greatly appreciate any advice on this situation.

Nate

Here is an article on clutch life, which states "it varies". http://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/car-part-longevity/clutch-last.htm. A huge factor is if you are tuned. If you are tuned or considering make sure you get a clutch rated for the torque of your tune.

I have usually gotten 100K, but this was on a non-performance Japanese cards. I have always replaced my own clutches and parts: clutch pressure plate and throw-out bearing would be around $200. For your car the parts are between $240 and $350 from a discounter such as CARiD.

Cost national average here is $700 to $900 http://repairpal.com/estimator/clutch-replacement-cost

Here is a thread for your MK6 that has many getting around that price.
http://www.golfmk6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51974

Thanks so much for the reply George Ab! I greatly appreciate it.

To answer your question, my GTI is 100% stock. Zero mods.

I'll take a look at the links you provided.

Thanks again!

do not use you dealer for this, warranty will not cover it most of the time unless it is a defective part but at 43K any defective part would start to give issues sooner.
find a European specialty shop to do it for you. I'm sure you will find one, this cars are not so hard to chance the clutch but the dealer will always try to drain you.

Thanks for the advice BxGTI, I appreciate it.

Anyone one in the Metro Detroit area that can recommend a good shop I should look into?

Also - I keep reading that the OEM clutch sucks... can anyone chime in on a good basic alternative? I don't need anything fancy. I don't plan on modding my car any time soon.

Thanks again all!

nate said:

Thanks for the advice BxGTI, I appreciate it.

Anyone one in the Metro Detroit area that can recommend a good shop I should look into?

Also - I keep reading that the OEM clutch sucks... can anyone chime in on a good basic alternative? I don't need anything fancy. I don't plan on modding my car any time soon.

Thanks again all!

Click to expand...

Steve's European Automotive is what most of us use. There's also Motorwerks in Walled Lake that do good work.

Also I hate to be this guy but your car is actually a MK6 not a MK7. You may get a bit better results on the right forum. (You can switch forums on the top left of the page).

We have a variety of different stages of clutch for the MK6 that you can check out! It will be much cheaper to buy an aftermarket clutch, then get a shop to install it, then it would be to get the dealer to do everything. I've attached a link below to our online store that shows the various options we carry!

http://store.blackforestindustries.com/trdr2.html

Thanks for the info Goingnowherefast! I really appreciate it. I'll definitely swap over to the MK6 forum... didn't even realize (uber-noob).

Thanks for the link black forest ind. I'll definitely check it out.

You guys are all great, thanks for all of your time.