Clutch burned out in 19K is quite possible for some people, hate to say it but in that respect I understand the dealer.
And of course if they can blame you then they can charge and not use warrantee...which they still get paid for but have to justify to Renault.

What I cannot work out is the pedal sticking and other bits of the tale.... and that makes me think more car then driver issue.
For the pedal to stick down it would seem as though enough heat had been generated with slipping to seize the friction plate on the splines.... which leads me to wonder if the plate was moving freely on the splines in the first place..... loads of time sitting doing nothing during lockdown?
Which puts a different slant on it, the car failed to cope with lockdown, clutch mechanism not moving freely caused slip and that escalated into total burn out.. warrantee please mr dealer.

Not sure how you prove but state of splines may tell the story...if rusted, I'm sticking with my take on it, if not, driver.

 

That’s one of the things we are wondering with lockdown. We’ve never had an issue like this before and both are pretty careful drivers. I’ve never ever had a clutch or gearbox related issue, even on older cars that I’ve done big mileages in.
There was absolutely no warning of a problem whatsoever until the last journey. I’d have expected some kind of indication with a worn out clutch…?

 

I doubt this is going to be the first case where long periods of cars sitting doing nothing, parts start seizing up. If the clutch splines have rusted and the friction plate is sticking, £2,800 to wire brush and apply grease to free up the friction plate is unreal. Of course it would be false economy to remove a gearbox and not install a new clutch and possibly slave cylinder. With the amount of vehicles sat doing nothing on a driveway through a major pandemic is a scapegoat for warranties in my opinion!

 

£2,800 for a clutch replacement?!
Even at a main dealers that is a joke.
I would expect them to charge £1000 which is still bloody expensive.. but £2,800 is actually shocking.

 

That’s for:
Fly wheel £687
Clutch plate £550
Clutch pressure plate £150
Plus misc - unconfirmed cost
Release bearing £100
Labour is £700
Plus VAT
I thought that it was ridiculous too

 

Yep totally agree hence my comment wire brushing the splines and applying a bit of grease to free up the friction plate. Clutch is always a difficult one when it comes to warranty claim, being a friction part a dealer will do their best to push blame onto driving style and difficult to prove otherwise!

 

I would definitely be getting an independent quote....😱 friend on here [ Bagpuss ] is having his clutch renewed today on his Nissan by click mechanic.. saving nearly £300 on dealer price.. hope its gone well for him today .. maybe you can also get a quote to compare..

 

Definitely a problem with clutch not being released fully. Then on a longer journey, when heated, clutch started to slip and eventually destroyed the whole unit.
Why? That's something else.

Changing only clutch plate is worthless. Flywheel is destroyed too and everything has to be changed.
Considering other prices in Britain, think this is normal. But that has to be covered by Renault. No driver could have done that in only one day unless on purpose.

 

My advice? Contact Renault Customer Services and explain the situation. In my experience (admittedly not with suspected clutch-abuse problems), Ren Customer Service are very good. Stuff gets paid for that you wouldn't expect. Obviously, I can't guarantee that that will happen in your situation, but - what have you got to lose...?
A new clutch on an 2018 vehicle with 19k?... nah. I don't buy it and you shouldn't either.

 

Thanks everyone, all really helpful. Has given us enough confirmation that we shouldn’t give up on this one. We just know that this is more sinister than the way we are driving the vehicle. Will definitely continue to pursue.

 

Renault will help you out. Call then and they'll ask for an inspection to be carried out. But they will advise you that it could come at a cost to yourself if the liability is found to be on you guys.

The likelihood is, Renault could and probably will do some sort of goodwill gesture. But with your car standing for such a long period of time. It's very likely that the thrust bearing seized, thus holding the clutch plate and stopping it from spinning. Renault use a LUK thrust bearing and clutch plate. The plate isn't the problem. The thrust bearing is what tends to seize. I've seen it happen to a few Renaults.

Can I ask, did your car feel like it was jumping slightly when pulling off in 1st?

 

Thank you for this. The garage were contacting Renault re goodwill gesture but I am going to call Renault myself when they open tomorrow.
We didn’t notice anything different about it however if there had been anything then we probably attributed it to the fact that the car was fully laden with a roof box on too for the first time in about two years…

 

Roof box, 70 mph on highway and full load just helped to overheat the clutch. But it must not happen that clutch pedal got stuck to the floor. Even if you somehow overheated it by your driving.
Wether the problem is in master clutch cylinder, slave cylinder or the clutch itself, it is not drivers fault.

Say your husband was driving and resting his left foot on the clutch pedal. Clutch would be overheated, the whole assembly burnt to replacement, but clutch pedal would still be working. And from what you wrote, that clutch pedal is still problematic in operation.

 

I'm guessing the thrust bearing kept getting stuck to the clutch disc - hence the clutch pedal staying to the floor.

I think Renault will help with some sort of goodwill gesture. Especially on a car with that low mileage.

@Gillybeany, who ever you speak to. Shy away from telling them that your car has been stud throughout the pandemic.

 

Should I feel ashamed that it took me about 10 hours yesterday to replace a gearbox on a Zafira B? That included being hungover, removal of exhaust from cat down, dropping of subrame, swapping the gear selector from old box to replacement before bench pressing new gearbox into place in ridiculous stupid heat. I can usually strip a Zafira down ready to replace clutch in 2 hours. I blame the hangover 🤣

 

Lol nope.. I took the p.iss with my captur. A few days left on the drive, up in the air. I just took my time because we went into the initial lockdown. I thought sod it since I had nothing better to do.

 

I just thought that I’d come back and update you all as I was really grateful for the feedback.

to cut a long story short - they were sticking their heels in. We got offered 20% goodwill, then 40%, then 50% and finally 60%. I felt so frustrated as I just KNEW that something wasn’t right. I told Renault UK complaints this over and over again but eventually I said we would just pay our share and arranged to go in yesterday when it was finally ready. Then got a call from Renault to say that the clutch was spongy when they tested it. This rang alarm bells with me and I was like “it wasn’t before!!”. The garage decided to give it a bit more testing this morning and during the test drive the clutch failed! All brand new clutch, flywheel etc and the clutch stuck to the floor! Again!!
So the good news is that they’ve finally found the fault, nearly one month on! It turns out that it’s to do with a non-return valve failing linking into the clutch?

Either way, our nightmare is nearly ended with this and I finally have some confidence that the car that we eventually get back has actually had the problem fixed! It’s just a shame that I even had to go through nearly four weeks of hell, daily phone calls and threats of £3k bills to get Renault to just rightfully deal with a manufacturer’s fault!

 

A good result... I assume your part of the bill is now zero.

Very frustrating but well done for sticking with it.

 

Yes our bill is now zero and it’s fully covered by the warranty. Ultimately I’m just relieved that they found the fault as I don’t want that happening again as it was terrifying how it failed in a dangerous place etc.
I do feel extremely disappointed though that it took the battle that it did to get to the bottom of it!

 

It's great that as a community everyone knew from the problems described it was never about how the vehicle was driven and even better you got the fault paid under a warranty claim. I am interested to know is this return valve part of the clutch damper? Anyway go you!!! Great result! 👍

 

Was this question ever answered. I too think I am having the same issue but I cant find any help on this valve, i cant find a new valve anywhere, i cant find schematics to try to name it but I can find it in my car.
The garages are saying its the clutch sticking but the only way to tell for sure is to strip the engine out.
Im loathed to do that only to find its either the master cylinder or this mysterious anti flutter / return valve.

any help will be graciously received.

 

I’m still trying to find out. All I know is that it was a failed non-return valve. I have asked for them to let me know exactly what it was though.
The whole thing has been really disappointing and it just shouldn’t be that way. It was the fact that my young children were in the car that made me keep fighting it more than anything. The outcome could have been much worse…

 

We have a Renault Kadjar 18 plate, petrol and manual. Less than 19k miles on the clock. Fully serviced by Renault. Just coming up to 3rd service and 1st MOT. One month left on manufacturers warranty.
We’ve had a few sensor issues since we had it and it’s been looked at in the past by Renault but nothing really found. Active braking would be disconnected.
Anyway, over the past year it’s literally done about 2000 miles since service due to Covid. Been away for a few days with the family. Was fine on the 115mile journey there. Was fine whilst on holiday. About 40 miles into the journey back the display starts telling my husband to shift up a gear (it was already in 6th). I said was he in 4th but definitely not. As we drove along at 70mph the car would make a Rev sound like if you’re driving an automatic and it’s shifting gear. (And I could see how he had his leg - he wasn’t riding the clutch).
anyway, we got most of the way home and then as we went to come off the motorway and he depressed the clutch to change gear the clutch stuck to the floor. We were stuck in neutral on the motorway, was not nice! Managed to stop and start again a few times and eventually managed to get the clutch to release. Got it in gear and continued on as we weren’t far from home.
4 miles from home on a major road and it makes the rev sound again whilst in 6th gear. And no we still definitely weren’t riding the clutch. Slow down a little and go to shift down and clutch sticks on again. It’s flat to the floor and we are in neutral.
everything going super fast around us so I say to my husband if he can keep it running to get over the hill and there’s a lay-by (we had our newborn in the car and a car full of stuff). Managed to coax it with the clutch stuck down and in neutral about 1 mile to lay-by. Strong smell of clutch burning!!
Car was recovered and RAC guy said clutch evidently burned out and he had to force it back up. I’m not surprised considering the 1 mile with it stuck down to get to the lay-by.
Anyway, car has gone into Renault and they’ve looked at the clutch which is indeed burned out. Only they say it’s the way we’ve been driving it and no manufacturer fault and cost of £2800 to us. Both my husband and I have been driving for over 20 years and never had this issue so I don’t believe it’s the way we are driving it, we’ve had many a car for longer and for much higher mileages.
has anyone else had experience of this or similar as there’s no way that this is just caused by us and more than anything if we are having to fork out all of this money to repair it we want to understand what the problem really is in order to make sure it doesn’t happen again!
(And obviously if we can get it investigated further then we would like to do so as we believe this should be covered under warranty!)

I sympathise with you totally Renault uk completely useless , 4 1/2 year old 2017 plate kadjar 27000 miles fir me dualmass flywheel completely knackered , for Renault to replace complete clutch £1700, car out of warranty , but the same parts that are fitted as standard Luk parts are available from eBay for less than Renault quote far less, in the end I had my local garage fix it , cost to me £ 298 not oem but of oem quality Sachs, for a four piece clutch and just under £400 for a days labour saving £1000 ,

 

Luk are not as good as they once were. I've had a clutch gone out within less than 50k miles on our captur. Sachc or Valeo are of better quality these days. I personally went valeo for the clutch and Sach for release bearing. Suffice to say, the throw on the clutch pedal is much more softer and all around smoother. Renault take the absolute p.ss with their pricing on parts for fit and finish.

 

Just have to play devil's advocate for a moment on dealer's labour charges. The overheads in running a main dealer site are horrendous. I know someone who has a garage in a modern industrial unit in loughton, essex. It can accomadate a maximum of 4 cars. He tells me his overheads work out at £200 per DAY. For a single industrial unit. The real stitch-up comes on parts. Renault dealers have to buy parts from Renault GB, they can't get them of a bloke on Ebay. Of course they earn 30% on everything fitted. On the original post, this was always clearly a master cylinder fault, probably caused by inactivity.

 

I agreed for the likes of the smaller dealerships. But Renault dealerships such as WR Davies, have been around for decades. At this point, they turned over a profit margin of 780 thousand in the year 2018. It may not seem a lot for a company as big as them. But that's a profit margin, not to be confused with outgoings. They have 9 mortgages unsettled out of 30 odd buildings owned. They do over charge for labour and parts as they pay a minor percentage for those parts as they are practically selling cars for Renault, while making a turnover profit from labour and parts.

But like I previously mentioned. Smaller dealerships I agree with your statement. Their over heads a considerable, since they are mostly small family run buisnesses.

Companies like WR Davies also make a huge profit out of used car sales. Then cheap out on any parts that have either clearly aged or completly degraded to the point of failure. They then try their very best to wiggle out of any warranty work. If I have to go to a garage/dealership. I will always prefer to give my money to those that deserve it and deserve the recognition for the work they've carried out on my vehicle.

 

At least Renault admitted to a part being faulty! As they could have just renewed it, said nowt and charged for the full repair, so fair do's to Renault in this case👍

 

Just to add, the non return valve on these is supposed to prevent flutter or a pressure bleed off. It's located on the right handside of the
engine if you're looking from the front, near the bulkhead, next to the abs gubbins. Taking the battery out helps. Valve has two lines, one in and one out. Mine was leaking slightly and over 5 months let all the fluid out, until I couldn't engage the gears. Pedal to the floor, wouldn't come back up. Renault replaced the master first, then the slave and now they have to replace this valve too. All under warranty, its a Dec 2019 car so has 5 yr warranty...pita taking it back in though, renault refused to recover it.

 

Just to add, the non return valve on these is supposed to prevent flutter or a pressure bleed off. It's located on the right handside of the
engine if you're looking from the front, near the bulkhead, next to the abs gubbins. Taking the battery out helps. Valve has two lines, one in and one out. Mine was leaking slightly and over 5 months let all the fluid out, until I couldn't engage the gears. Pedal to the floor, wouldn't come back up. Renault replaced the master first, then the slave and now they have to replace this valve too. All under warranty, its a Dec 2019 car so has 5 yr warranty...pita taking it back in though, renault refused to recover it.

these valves are more trouble than they're worth. They're fitted on many makes of vehicles and often leak slowly

 

try resonator or damper valve