Yes, I should have been clearer: the clutch lost all pressure, but the gearbox itself was fine. But the mystery of why the fluid disappeared then but not since remains, as no-one found a leak to treat. It may be that the level had fallen over recent months - I didn't check regularly, I admit - and possibly wasn't checked at the last service either. But again, it's supposed to be a closed system, isn't it?
dickCD
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You may well find that your car has the latest 'sealed for life' master cylinder. And they have started tucking these up under the dash with no real facility for refilling or repair. In fact some require substantial disassembly of the dash to even get to it. Therefore, if it's failed, £420 may not be unreasonable.
It's the price you may have to pay for modern motoring. No garage is going to start stripping and replacing seals, as there could be some comeback if it doesn't all work correctly, and they probably don't have instructions on how to do it anyway, that's if spare seals etc are even available.
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DaveN
Its a sad reflection on todays mechanics if they dont have the nous to repair something as simple as the seal in a hydraulic cylinder.
I somehow think that this is a main dealer attitude where the majority deal with company cars,the cost of repairs being born by the "Company".
I bet there's many an old motor engineer somewhere in the backstreets who could fix this before breakfast.
Seals for these applications are usually readily available from motor factors .
I think that automotively,you have led a sheltered easy life!
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Bernie
Just telling you how it is my friend. I don't know if it has a sealed master cylinder, just surmising, as a lot of new french cars do, and parts aren't available for them. Sadly, there aren't many 'old motor engineers' anymore, and not many people in business will take the risk of trying to repair things anymore in case it all goes pear shaped. If you were in the trade, as I am, you would realise the insurance and liability issues involved. Not to mention the fact that things are now press fits, riveted, welded, and so on, and don't lend themselves to being taken apart and repaired. I have learnt this the hard way, and to be honest, a great majority of customers don't want to pay you for trying and failing, and don't appreciate the fact that you have done so. Everything has a cost attached to it, sourcing parts, stripping things down, trying stuff out, and all has to be paid for by someone. Many a time I've been asked to do bits and pieces as customers want to save a couple of quid. Even though I point out all the possible pitfalls, and explain in words of one sylabal or less that I still want paying if it doesn't succeed, when it all goes wrong I'm cast as the big bad wolf, reputations get lost, and it all gets messy. It is therefore quite often easier to do it properly, and only do it once, with new guaranteed parts that will do the job as the manufacturer intended, reduced labour time, and safe from liability claims and accusations.
As an example, if you had a problem with your clutch master cylinder, that was a sealed unit and not designed for repair, but you managed to find someone that somehow managed to find a new seal that he reckoned would do the job, so you ask him to do it. Then a week later you go from 5th to 4th to overtake on the motorway and it won't go into 4th 'cos the master cylinder has failed, and someone shunts you up the a***, your insurance company will be on to the repairer straight away asking questions like: Did you use the proper repair procedure? (when there isn't one), did you use the proper seal as recommended by the manufacturer? (there isn't one), what specific training have you had on this particular type of master cylinder (none), and so it goes on. At this point, everyone concerned, including you, would probably wished they had just gone the (initially more) expensive route.
That's not to say that manufacturers shouldn't make this type of thing, and many others, more serviceable, but they don't. Take electronics, they use a 50p chip, that can only be read with a £3000 scanner that contains another 50p chip, and charge £400 for an ecu, and you can't get it diagnosed any place else. The motto is, don't buy their vehicles, keep your old ones, find out what some of the potential costs are up front etc. etc.
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>>Many a time I've been asked to do bits and pieces as customers want to save a couple of quid.
hehe - my first car (68 Cortina) ended up with more bits of wire, old ballpoint pen cases, household flex, tin cans, cigarette packet foil, jubilee clips etc than original parts!
Oh, foolishness of youth!
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Totally agree with you Dave N - my loal mechanic is finding this an increasingly worrying problem - expensive, overcomplicated and unreliable parts which can't be reaired and need expesnive diagnostics. Are the big boys doing this to put the smaller garages out of business I wonder !
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Volvoman, it's a well known fact that dealers don't make any money from selling cars, so it has to come from somewhere else, and servicing is the main area. Plus manufacturers aren't in the business if making cars, they're in the business if making money. The best way to do it is to sell the lowest quality product for the highest price, and to tie customers in for as long as possible. Not to mentioon the fact that most everything is designed for ease of manufacturing by machine, not ease of servicing by humans. Can't really blame them I suppose. The other benefit to the manufacturers is that 2nd hand values get depressed by expensive servicing and replacement parts costs, thereby forcing many to replace uneconomical to repair vehicles into new ones. And of course, the more people that say 'the repair costs more than the cars worth', the better it is for them. What we should really do is compare what an existing vehicle is worth to us, and not what it's worth on the open market, and make a repair decision based on that. You only have to look to Japan to see how cars are almost throw away items, and the mindset is simply to keep replacing them just as you would a mobile phone.
The block exemption rules are supposed to be coming soon, which in theory will give everyone access to technical data etc. But no-one really knows how this will work in practice, if indeed it ever will work.
As I said before though, we happily go and buy the fanciest thing we can lay our hands on, with the most gadgets we can get, and it all costs money somewhere along the way. It will be interesting to see how things change as the number of company cars reduces, as I'm sure this has an effect.
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