New member - Clutch and Tyre Question!

[Jon B]

Hi all,

Joined yesterday. I’ve had my B8.5 Avant 2.0 TDI for about 9 months now. Bought it with 41k on the clocks and now approaching 60,000 miles and a service including cam belt change. So going to be an expensive month! Luckily my local Audi specialist will do the service and cam belt change including water pump etc for £630 inc vat!!

I’m also due 2 new tyres on 225/50/r17 94Y. I do about 25,000 miles a year, probably 60-70% motorway. I’m currently toying with Dunlop Sportmaxx RT2, Hancook Ventus, but also Goodyear Eagle F1 ASY3’s are quite reasonable, does anyone know what the wear is like? I appreciate top grip and low wear are mutually exclusive!

Finally, I get a judder in 1st gear when pulling away when the engine is hot or after a long drive. Reading around suggests it is clutch/DMF failure. Great. My Audi specialist has quoted £1,000 including parts and labour for both, so quite an expense - I don’t want to do this repair again anytime soon - are there any upgraded/more durable parts I could be specifying - even if a little more expensive in the short term?

Thanks in advance!

Jon

 

[jdp1962]

Welcome to Audisport.net, @Jon B, hope you like it here.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the Dunlop Sportmaxx RT2. I put a set onto my S4 at 14,000 miles to replace the factory-fit Contis. I immediately found it a nicer car to drive; smoother, quieter and more progressive. I rarely push the car to its grip limits but I've never found myself in a brown-trouser moment. The car's now at 22,000 miles, and the tread all round is at about 6mm. At that rate, I should get about 20,000 out of them before I decide they've done their tour of duty.

 

[EXSpartan36]

Welcome @Jon B.

For £1000 I would say they are only changing the clutch. For a clutch and flywheel you are normally looking at £900 in parts alone.

I use fallen tyres they are reasonably priced and excellent in the wet. And They have a great wear rate.

 

[jdp1962]

Welcome @Jon B.

For £1000 I would say they are only changing the clutch. For a clutch and flywheel you are normally looking at £900 in parts alone.

I use fallen tyres they are reasonably priced and excellent in the wet. And They have a great wear rate.

Falken? I've had them on previous A4s and agree they too are very good.

 

[EXSpartan36]

Falken? I've had them on previous A4s and agree they too are very good.

Haha yea Falken!! Damn auto correct!! I have used them on all my cars for years.

 

[Jon B]

Thanks for the replies thus far. Good to see this is a reasonably active forum.

I can pick up the Dunlop’s for £95 a corner on tyre leader which is good and my local tyre fitter only charges a tenner for fitting. What model Falkens have you guys used?

With regards to the clutch and dual mass. I have a written quote of £975 inc vat for clutch, dual mass flywheel and bearings.

Looking at Euro car parts, I could buy a LUK clutch, DMF and bolts for £650. Labour does sound cheap - how long a job would full replacement be?

 

[EXSpartan36]

I have the Falken 245/40zr18 fk510 fitted picked them up for £95 each on mytyre.com.

I believe the clutch and flywheel replacement has a 10 hour book time to replace so sound like you are getting a good deal. I got quoted £800 For fitment only from a local indi. Decided I'm going to do it myself at that price.

 

[jdp1962]

I used to use the ZE912, but I think that's now been superseded by the ZE914.

 

[RyanJonS4]

If your judder isn’t too bad and only does it when hot it’s not something that needs doing immediately if funds don’t allow it.

If things needed prioritising I’d put the service, cam belt and tyres higher up the list of jobs to do.

Obviously if you can afford to get it all done at once you can then get back to enjoying driving your car again!

 

[Jon B]

If your judder isn’t too bad and only does it when hot it’s not something that needs doing immediately if funds don’t allow it.

If things needed prioritising I’d put the service, cam belt and tyres higher up the list of jobs to do.

Obviously if you can afford to get it all done at once you can then get back to enjoying driving your car again!

Thanks for that.

In terms of further damage to the vehicle, will driving the car with a failing DMF (presumably) do any damage to any other parts in the drive chain? Is performance affected?

It’s an expense I’d rather not have, but clearly I have a habit of buying cars with common DMF issues. I once had a Civic 2.2cdti which had a clutch and DMF made of chocolate.

The guys at my local indie Audi garage are going to have a look at the clutch whilst they are doing the cam belt work anyway, so will hopefully be able to give me an idea of how bad it is.

 

[Andyman44]

My old A6 2.7 TDI had the clutch judder when it was hot, usually on long A road journeys. It had the problem for all my nine years ownership. Just presumed thats how it was. It never let me down though.

 

[RyanJonS4]

Thanks for that.

In terms of further damage to the vehicle, will driving the car with a failing DMF (presumably) do any damage to any other parts in the drive chain? Is performance affected?

It’s an expense I’d rather not have, but clearly I have a habit of buying cars with common DMF issues. I once had a Civic 2.2cdti which had a clutch and DMF made of chocolate.

The guys at my local indie Audi garage are going to have a look at the clutch whilst they are doing the cam belt work anyway, so will hopefully be able to give me an idea of how bad it is.

My personal experience of a juddering fly wheel was in a transit van, I wouldn’t like to think how many miles I put on it with it juddering. 1 of my mates has a Mk 5 golf with a worn fly wheel that has been juddering for years and approx 30k miles and my dads fiat van juddered for a number of years before he sold the van.

I’ve personally never heard of 1 failing although it probably has happened somewhere. If you do mainly motorway miles with less setting off from a standstill you should be able to put it off until it’s more convenient.

A clutch is something you can’t just have a look at, the gear box has to come out, by which point your into hours worth of labour anyway. They will probably just road test it and see how bad it feels.

Chances are you’ve subconsciously learnt how to drive round it so it doesn’t judder too much, if someone else has a drive it’ll probably judder quite badly

 

[777GE90]

Nice, I've had my B8.5 Saloon for about 7 months now. I'm surprised you are changing the cam belt so soon? If I remember correctly, Audi used to state to change the cam belt every 75k miles or 2 years but they later updated that to every 5 years or 140k miles and most recently I think they even removed the every 5 years part too, so it is no longer time dependent either. Thought it was pretty good but have always been skeptical. I too have the clutch judder in gear 1, I only noticed it in the past few months. I do a lot of local driving at the moment, but have had the clutch judder after long motorway journeys and also notice it when the engine is very cold too. I find it pretty annoying but have modified my habits for clutch control so see it less often, but was never really sure what it could be, but from my research it seemed to be quite a common problem in a lot of cars.

 

[Jon B]

I think the official guidance is to satisfy fleet managers more than the public! Just my opinion.

My local Indy reckons every 4/5 years or 60k miles.

I know when I had a Passat company car with the same engine, VW used to change the cam belt every 60k miles.

It’s nearly £400. Much cheaper than destroying the engine?

 

[777GE90]

I think the official guidance is to satisfy fleet managers more than the public! Just my opinion.

My local Indy reckons every 4/5 years or 60k miles.

I know when I had a Passat company car with the same engine, VW used to change the cam belt every 60k miles.

It’s nearly £400. Much cheaper than destroying the engine?

Ye I guess, but I don't think Audi would be putting those numbers unless they were confident they were accurate. After all, if the belts start snapping before 140k and the car has full Audi service history, then I'd expect Audi to pay for the new engine. I guess it's better to be safe than sorry but seems it's unnecessarily going to end up costing you double for changing it twice in the time Audi recommend to change it once.

But ye I can totally understand your concern, even the 19K flexible service intervals seem a little long for me, it makes me wonder if Audi want us to reduce the life of our vehicles or whether new technology means that the parts / components are actually that much better. I wonder if anyone has had issues with this in the past, maybe too soon to find out for the B8.5's.

 

[Mario]

After all, if the belts start snapping before 140k and the car has full Audi service history, then I'd expect Audi to pay for the new engine.

Pigs will fly before that happens on a car that is out of warranty!

 

[777GE90]

Pigs will fly before that happens on a car that is out of warranty!

Never tried to get something out of Audi so don't know, but if they had that stance I would take it to the small claims court as I think I have a decent argument.

 

[Mario]

Never tried to get something out of Audi so don't know, but if they had that stance I would take it to the small claims court as I think I have a decent argument.

Not really, it is no different than say a PC that gets full of dust after a few years, overheats and breaks. The PC manufacturers NEVER tell you to open them up and clean them out, but it is good practice. After the item is more then 6 months old then the onus is in YOU the prove there was fault with the item and that it failed prematurely, not simply due to wear and tear. This would require an independent engineers report. This applies in law, even to items in warranty. The manufacturers are only responsible to prove it is not their fault for the first 6 months, after that you are on your own.

Also, small claims has a claim limit of circa £5k, a brand new engine from Audi will be a fair bit more which means you would need to take them to a higher court and incur higher legal costs to fight them which you will honestly likely never see back.

The 140k mileage change for cam belts is aimed at fleet owners and people who do that kind of mileage within say 2-3 years. If you have been doing 10k a year and the belt fails at 130k after 13 years then you will not have a leg to stand on. Even the magistrates would laugh you out of court.

 

[Jon B]

I’ve decided to park the DMF issue. Not noticed it this week, probably because it’s cold!

Cam belt and service is booked. I just bought a pair of Hankook Ventus V12 for £150 off tyreleader, which on paper seems a good deal as the reviews seem pretty good.

 

[biscuit-a3]

The PD engine was 60K and 4 years, then the CR engine varies between 80K and 5 years to 112k and 5 years, B8.5 now has 113K no age limit, the belts are also made of different compounds, the old PD was mainly rubber and it never snapped the teeth ripped off, they are now heavily fibre base, almost look nitted together with rubber, hense they last longer, I certainly wouldn’t be getting a Cr engine done @ 4 years and use to work on these day and night

 

[Jon B]

Hi biscuit,

Thanks for that. It’s really frustrating that there is so much conflicting information out there.

My car is 5 years old in October, so I might just get it done now anyway, but then I won’t bother for another 80kish miles.