(T) Gearbox woes again... should I take it back to Mr Clutch?

Heres the story so far...
I bought my punto Mk2 in may knowing it had a few faults... mainly groaning noise when setting off and PAS failure. Sorted the PAS.

When i looked through the paperwork with the car, it had recently had a refurbished gearbox fitted by Mr Clutch. I also noticed another paper from Mr Clutch where they had diagnosed the groaning noise - worn gearbox mount.

So i got under the car to find that the gearbox mount had been absolutly mangled and bogded back together - the mount had obviously been damaged (no doubt done when removing the old gearbox or fitting the new one) and in an attempt to repair it, it had been welded in place. The weld was very poor and hadn't been protected against rust, so over time the weld had broken on the front side, causing the groaning. Only option really was a new subframe... cost me £50 from a scrapyard.
Now IMO Mr Clutch had most probably caused this problem in the first place and then had the cheek to try charge the guy to have it repaired.

Then i noticed leaking from the diff. Seals were replaced by a mechanic i know to no avail, so i had a look myself and replaced the driveshaft circlip. Problem solved it seemed. Cost around £40 in parts.

Now the other day i heard a clonk from the gearbox as i was braking. over the past 2 days this has now become more and more frequent and much more 'violent'.

I'm sick to death of these gbox problems now and am tempted to make the trip over to manchester (im in bradford) to have Mr Clutch sort it - and i'll make damn sure im not charged for it. its already cost me nearly £100 in repairs that i should have got under warrenty but couldn't be assed making the trip over to manchester.

The thing is, on this paperwork it states that warrenty may be void if clutch inspections are not carried out by them at the milages stated on the paperwork. With it being all the way over in manchester, i haven't bothered. The clutch is fine, and i doubt it could have caused any of the problems ive been having. Plus, this may just be for the warrenty on the clutch they fitted, not the gearbox.

So what do you think my chances are? What are my rights bearing in mind that the inspections havent been carried out? The guy paid £700 to have this gbox fitted and its had nothing but constant problems.

No chance...

i think you have a chance, just go there tbh, gotta try, id try get a refund too basicly just say, sort it out, get rid of this dodgy welding or im going straight to small claims court, seeking legal action and informing trading standards, something along those lines... doesnt matter about the inspections if they have done dodgy welding imo.

im tempted but i need to know where i stand first.

The welding was repaired. it was the mounto on the subframe and i just replaced the entire subframe. the new knocking is from within the gearbox and it sounds pretty serious. I had one side up on stands and tried rotating the wheel back and forth, and you could hear nasty sounds within the gearbox.

feeling really f***ed off at the mo tbh

I'd cut your loses and fix it yourself, Mr clutch are a joke tbh.

damn right. I'm so angry about it all tbh, and the fact they tried to charge the previous owner to repair THEIR cockup is absolutly discusting... they were obviously exploiting his lack of car knowledge.

I'm tempted to give it a go myself, but theres a helluva lot of parts in a gearbox, which means a helluva lotta things to screw up in the process. would be an experiance tho and im always up for learning more.

No no sorry, I mean remove the box yourself and take it somewhere to be rebuilt to save on the labour costs.

As a guide a place local to me charge 120+ parts (parts are pretty cheap).

Maybe.. I'd not bother about the Mr Clutch mob frankly. In any case, the "contract" was between them and the previous owner, so they don't owe you anything unless there is a transferrable warranty. For all you know they could have told the owner and he said "yeah just fix it as cheap as possible because I'm selling it tomorrow" for instance.

It doesn't sound worth the hassle.


If you try to repair it, you can quite quickly reach the cost of a recon' unit (labour and parts). Try to find a re-con box and fit that. The genuine Fiat ones are quite dear but near enough like new.

Ralf S.

thats not bad at all, i was expecting much much more than that! ill have to make some enquiries.

i rung them and they said that the warrenty is still valid to me, tho i didnt mention the inspections. tbh the invoice is for £700 and dated a couple of months before i bought the car, so unless its a dodgy invoice it should be valid - either way i still have a warrenty on this box.

yeh i took a look at some boxes from scrap cars and ill be looking £150+, but i think i'd rather have this one overhauled with warrenty just for piece of mind.