Dual Mass Fkywheel failure LT TDCI

[fbvisitor]

For those unlucky enough to have this happen, heres a money saving venture for you.

SWMBO's car developed a rattle at idle in the clutch area and after much googling and a chat with my mechanic, we decided the flywheel had failed.

After ringing every available supplier in my area of the state (TAS), I took the advice of of a fellow FF bloke (I think, read too many posts on the subject to remember) and purchased from the UK, in fact I ended up buying from auction on ebay UK.

The cheapest I could find here was from Repco at $1500.00 (yikes) for DMF and complete clutch kit, LUK brand.

I won the same kit for $716.00 including postage, to my PO Box. It took exactly 7 days to arrive which I was amazed with considering its such a heavy set up. The boxes were in a poor state of repair as I'm sure every country it passed through had a look inside but it was all there and intact.

$816.00 later, including a new rear main seal while things were all apart ($40 I think) and she's back on the road running better than ever.

Taking the gamble on purchasing this item from overseas as good as covered my labour costs.

I hope this helps someone as lucky as me.

[marg99]

Thanks for the tip. what Klms did the car have on it when this happened?

[Franco Cozzo]

I'm not sure on price but when mine goes I'm converting to single mass flywheel:

http://www.clutch-specialists.co.uk/..._p23368959.htm

Then we can give our cars some extra abuse

[dirty hands]

I have been doing heaps of research on these Dual mass units
sure they have benifits
but you do realise the dual mass clutches have been known to fail by 100,000 km
on different cars that have them (source multipule forums )

google "dual mass flywheel problems" -- not all driver fault

the middle parts of the dual mass spins out or cracks causing these failures
yet clutch material is great

after a failures most owners (if they can) go back to the single clutch set up

[Franco Cozzo]

If you get the torque limiter removed on a TDCI Focus on the lower gears, it will destroy the DMF fairly quickly.

[mik]

Originally Posted by fbvisitor

For those unlucky enough to have this happen, heres a money saving venture for you.

SWMBO's car developed a rattle at idle in the clutch area and after much googling and a chat with my mechanic, we decided the flywheel had failed.

After ringing every available supplier in my area of the state (TAS), I took the advice of of a fellow FF bloke (I think, read too many posts on the subject to remember) and purchased from the UK, in fact I ended up buying from auction on ebay UK.

The cheapest I could find here was from Repco at $1500.00 (yikes) for DMF and complete clutch kit, LUK brand.

I won the same kit for $716.00 including postage, to my PO Box. It took exactly 7 days to arrive which I was amazed with considering its such a heavy set up. The boxes were in a poor state of repair as I'm sure every country it passed through had a look inside but it was all there and intact.

$816.00 later, including a new rear main seal while things were all apart ($40 I think) and she's back on the road running better than ever.

Taking the gamble on purchasing this item from overseas as good as covered my labour costs.

I hope this helps someone as lucky as me.

you saved a good couple of bucks there, if repco was 1500, i wonder what ford price would have been ?
when going to the ford spares for imported model clutch bits , does one take a hack saw to the counter so as to give an arm and leg ?

how long does it take to do the job on one of these ??

[mik]

i forgot to ask the last question how much with labor does it cost to have the clutch/dual mass flywheel done at a dealer? as most mr and mrs joe averages wont tackle a job like this.

[fbvisitor]

Marg99 - 112000 km's

Big Damo - Don't go the single mass path with this engine in this car. After hours and hours of googling it appears the torque of the 2.0 is too great and creates numerous issues from horrible sounding clunks on start up and shut down to wobbly/vibrating gearsticks to broken bell housings and destroyed gear boxes at its worst. The general NVH just takes a dive.
In other countries these cars also come with a 1.8 and 1.6 TDCI engines and single mass is the go in those cases due to the reduced torque.

Dirty hands - 95% of what I've read and watched shows that the springs fail creating the initial slop between the 2 moving parts of the flywheel and this in turn creates the axial failure causing these parts to rub against each other leading to starter motor failure and so on due to the metal particles being flung about.
FYI, I came across one bloke who had a failure at 28000 miles.

mik - First things first, in my experience, dealers are very expensive compared to a good honest mechanic, so if you can find one, stick with him.
My labour costs from my mechanic, including rear main seal replacement was $816. I definately didn't and wouldn't do this job in the driveway. Car hoist and engine support stand definately needed for convenience.
The job itself takes most of 1 day.

Cheers.

[oemdenied]

book time for flywheel and clutch is 5.5 hours
Book time for rear main is extra 0.1
That's the warranty book time. Dealers will bill you for a lot more on retail work and most workshops will add at least 1 hour extra to cover themselves for seized bolts etc.

Don't go single mass - you encourage gear chatter in the gearbox amongst other things. Rule of thumb - If it came with a dual mass stick with a dual mass.
Some people fit single mass for the performance gain. But really performance wise you wont gain much.....all non RS Focus models struggle with traction as it is. Gain wise an RS with a single mass flywheel conversion shaved 0.5 seconds off its winton lap time.....not worth it in our opinion for a road going vehicle as the day to day driveability does suffer when converting to single mass.

[NO2]

Ford want $1300 for a flywheel. Last month did the slave cylinder and that cost $816 and couldn't tell me the fly wheel was stuffed.
Dealers don't do a good job for what they charge.

[Franco Cozzo]

How did you know yours was rooted, did it start making knocking noises while driving?

[mik]

Originally Posted by NO2

Ford want $1300 for a flywheel. Last month did the slave cylinder and that cost $816 and couldn't tell me the fly wheel was stuffed.
Dealers don't do a good job for what they charge.

For me what i think is worse is that people go out and buy a nice shiny new economical car(they think ), and when they are at the dealers and said dealers are showing all nice shiny bits, they dont give the full picture of what owning vehicle X is really going to cost in servicing, ..... IE: .... timing belt, dual mass flywheel, clutch kit, dsg repairs, diesel particulate filter, special filters, ...... etc , etc.

all the wizz bang technology stuff is nice when the vehicle is new, down the track vehicle x doesn't look so economical, i think this common amongst the majority of cars these days , not many simple cars left.

[marg99]

But you get little choice these days most cars come with expensive repairs and service even the capped service seems to run out just before the big expensive service is required,
seems to explain why most cars are drop 50% of their value after 3 years

[mattapples96]

so my focus has just started the chattering. at first i thought it was thrust bearing as noise was only with clutch engadged or partially engadged, had it up on the hoist today and had it being extremely noisy. sounded like someone had thrown a 10mm nut into the gearbox, 75% convinced it was flywheel but nearly 100% convinced after reading this thread, should be pulling it apart either friday or monday at the workshop, will post some photos and prices once its sorted, ive been quoted 1300 for an aftermarket clutch kit with flywheel (dual mass) or 650 for clutch kit without so should be able to do it fairly cheaply!

cheers

[xgrig]

hi gents,
interesting read
we are currently looking at buying a 2008 LT Tdci with 109k on the clock
really nice car, very clean and well looked after
only concern i had during the test drive what that the clutch pedal have a little bit of free play at the top before you could actually free it engaging. never experienced this before in a manual :(
then when the clutch is pressed hard to the floor i felt a vibration coming through the clutch pedal!!

am really worried that the clutch is on it way out
but we both really like the car and other then that there is nothing wrong with it

anyone have any ideas as to what could be going on?

really appreciate you help guys as we really want this car but don't want to fork out a butt load if the clutch is rooted once we buy it

[kevino]

Tell the seller you will buy if he drops the price $1500 due to your concerns around the clutch.If he drops the price get it fixed and you know that item is okay.
If he wont drop the price just withdraw and keep look looking.

[marg99]

The TDCI engine sounds a bit different when the clutch is depressed. Mine has done this since new There is a little bit more chatter from the engine.
I would not have expected clutch problems on those Klms but I agree its best to replace the dual mass flywheel and the clutch slave cylinder ( which is in the bell house and not serviceable unless you remove the gearbox ) when doing the clutch