So, Friday last week I drove to work and everything was fine. Leaving work, I started the car (1.3 diesel 4x4) and the clutch suddenly went heavy. I couldn't get into any gears, so I had to have it towed to the nearest dealer. Their inspection stated that the clutch and flywheel need to be replaced, and the gearbox mounts were misaligned. Due to the clutch being a wear item, none of it is covered under warranty (I have the extended warranty and the car is at 27000 kilometers). All my previous experience has been that clutch wear doesn't just jump out at you, but slowly develops over time. After being quoted 2100 Turkish Lira to replace the clutch and mounts, I'm wondering if I should bother to try and fight this in court (which would mean I'd be without the car for at least 6 months) or just suck it up... I love this car, and the dealer has always been good with me but writing off an expensive repair as user error when it feels like something else is wrong (my guess is the transmission mount failed, causing the clutch to misalign and wear) irritates me to no end...

What would you do?

So that's 2100 fitted you've been quoted? I have a Twin Air 4x4 here in the UK and a clutch and flywheel before fitting are nearly that in your currency. I had just a flywheel on a different make 4 years ago. Nearly 5000 lira fitted in your currency. Lasted 65000km. Similar model of my father's lasted 50,000km.

I doubt that the two issues are related.
The gearbox bolts firmly to the engine backplate, usually aligned with two dowels. If the dowels are damaged or misplaced, and the gearbox has never been removed before, that is a clear manufacturing fault. If the gearbox is not aligned with the engine properly, the clutch will have a very short life.

"Gearbox mounts" suggests the rubber mounting on the gearbox end that helps support the whole engine/gearbox assembly. Not sure how you'd misalign these, but if never previously disturbed, this is clearly Fiat's responsibility. As the engine and gearbox are bolted firmly together, and mounting problem will not affect the clutch, but may cause driveshaft issues. So not relevant to the clutch failure, but I'd argue that was Fiat's problem and should be covered under warranty.

The flywheel is almost certainly a 'dual-mass' flywheel. These can be weak, leading to the two parts becoming slack and not working as a team like they should. This would normally bring a jerky move away and jerks at each gearchange, with some rattling noises possible during driving. Such a problem may reduce clutch life, but not as you describe the failure.

Your description suggests that the clutch cover has failed. Can we get a picture of the failed clutch parts? If the diaphragm has failed, I'd argue that this is not normal wear & tear, unless all you miles are local journeys with lots of gearchanges but few kilometres.

So, as well as pics of the clutch, can you clarify what is meant by gearbox mounts misaligned.

So, an update to the situation:

First things first, the breakdown of the price comes to about 1200-1300 lira for the parts and the rest is for labour. While that's a lot for labour, there's also a lot of work to get the clutch assembly out of the 4x4, and they've already taken everything apart and will have it ready by tomorrow afternoon (and like a cheesy quote from The Fast and the Furious, parts are actually being overnight shipped from another city and will be here this evening).

As for the follow up, once they took everything out they've chalked it up to user error because there appears to be lots of premature wear on the clutch and the part that gave out causing the total failure was the diaphragm, which had been scored on both sides. Throughout the year, most of my driving is unfortunately city driving with about 10km of city driving every day, and even on days that I take the highway it's 4 intersections, 2 lights and only about 3km of actual highway between home and work. Inner city traffic compounded the issue in that I probably spend more time shifting than going when I have to do anything downtown, which also strained the diaphragm and throwout bearing. The end result being that the failure is basically a result of driving conditions. We go on a road trip about once a year, and they usually also involve a lot of 1st and 2nd gear off-roading with plenty of hill starts.

As for the misalignment reported, that was a miscommunication on their part between the guy who called me and the technician working on the cars inside.

And lastly for pictures, I managed to get pictures of the clutch and plate, but spent so much time looking at the throwout bearing and diaphragm I forgot to take pictures of them (though the innermost area of the diaphragm was clearly scored along with the outermost region of the bearing).

If I asked my mechanic I'd expect clutch and flywheel fitted to be 3500 lira. A main dealer would charge nearly double in labour. At least it's fixed for you soon, and you're back on the road.

Am I right in thinking that's a dual mass flywheel ? Because if it is it has the wrong driven plate.
A DMF has a driven plate without springs.

Not sure which flywheel mine has, it's a 2012 1.3 diesel so it should have a DMF, but the gearbox has never been opened before so this is the clutch it came with...

It does look like a dual mass, as the flywheel face appears to have a gap between it and the ring gear/cover mounting face. The springs in the centreplate are therefore a surprise, but should not cause any issues, only perhaps making the drive takeup even smoother.

Flywheel face appears offset, indicating failure of the dual-mass part.

Springs in centreplate are unworn, so no misalignment of the clutch.

Would be nice to see the diaphragm fingers where the release bearing meets.

From the description and wear, it suggests you might be holding the clutch down a lot of the time when stopped. If the stop is more than a few seconds, always better to select neutral and release the clutch. Reduces wear, a lot.

Hi.
I'd be leaning here on what Bill has said about "riding the clutch" or keeping it depressed in traffic.
Today's instructors always teach this or did but most have no idea of the workings of a clutch.
Use the handbrake unless you are only stopped for a few seconds.

I'd say the flywheel face isn't offset but although it looks like it, it is camera angles, an offset flywheel will give the worst ever clutch judder that no DMF or springs will stop!!

I try not to rest my foot on the clutch and definitely try not to depress it for long periods unnecessarily, but I probably spend way too much time in traffic moving under 3mph which makes the wear more plausible. That being said, I'll try to get photos of the diaphragm tomorrow. There's some scoring right where the fingers meet the throwout bearing, which makes me think it might have seized causing the heavy clutch and lack of disengagement.

Getting the car back tomorrow, I'll have a few updates then but basically the throwout bearing is the culprit. I'll be back with photos and a detailed rundown of the issue.

So, here's the culprit. The throwout bearing is on a hydraulic cylinder, and as can be seen in the photo the o-ring seals failed, leaking hydraulic fluid and binding the bearing to the diaphragm splines. While it's technically a separate part number in Eper, they only sell the clutch assembly as a whole kit so I had to get everything else just to get the bearing and integrated cylinder. 885 Lira went to man-hours since it's such a hassle to get the clutch out of the 4x4 and then back in.

Not covered under warranty because the issue stems from excessive clutch pedal use (aka city driving), which while they're technically not wrong about, it's also not much of a stretch to expect a city car to do well in the city (though Turkish traffic is much worse than what the poor little components were designed for).

Update on the situation:

Got the car back today, new clutch is... well it's a new clutch and assorted gubbins so it feels exactly like a new clutch. This was great, so I drove out of the service station and through traffic until I hit the highway on the way home...

Something in the front end is rubbing. It sounds like either a wheel bearing, or maybe an axle or joint. Something's also rubbing in the steering column because while steering is effortless, it's now noisy.

Back to the dealer it goes tomorrow.