I hope someone can help me. Recently bought a high milage Ford Mondeo zetec 2.0 diesel TDCI (year: 2004, milage 78,000). I've only had it 2 weeks, did one long drive (70 miles) with no problems. Did the same drive the following week but in extremely heavy traffic and warm weather. About half an hour of sitting in traffic I noticed a burning smell coming from the car (no warning lights on dash). Pulled in, no fire, just horrible burning smell. Tried to move car out of traffic and felt weird changing the gears from 1st to 2nd and when i changed from 2nd to 3rd the car just died completely & engine warning light came on. Turned car off, looked under bonnet, no smoke, just smell. After an hour waiting for recover truck, the car started fine again and was driving fine with no warning lights or anything. Guy i bought it off said it was probably from me "riding the clutch" in traffic constantly. He said i was so used to driving petrol that i didn't realise you can't ride the clutch in a diesel and particularly the mondeo as it has a double clutch???? I'm so confused because he then tells me the clutch is fine even though he said it was the clutch that was causing the burning smell. Has anyone any ideas? Surely it'd take more than 40 mins sitting in traffic to have such an effect on a supposedly reliable car.
|
Diesel car's produce an incredible amount of tourque even at tick over & clutch burn-outs are common in diesel vehicles in traffic jams. I wouldn't recomend the use of any rev's untill the car is moving & foot is almost of the pedal & do not hold the car on the clutch at all! Literally use the clutch to pull away & change gear. I suspect that the clutch had overheated & the resins & binders used to make up the friction materal had melted & will make the clutch sticky causing difficult gear change.
Dont be put off buy what is basically a good sound economical vehicle as most diesels are inflicted with the same problem ( infact VW's are notorious ) & this problem does extend to petrol cars now but not too such an extent due to the fact that clutches are made from a non asbestos material & clutches are being made lighter to help with economey.
Your mondeo doesn't have a double clutch but it has a dual mass flywheel which does take some punishment when the clutch is overheated. You may have shortened the life of the clutch or even experience some judder, but time will tell.
If you have burn't the clutch it will possibly still smell in the gearbox area. Have you checked the water & could it have been antifreeze leaking that you could smell?
|
Thank you so much for your reply - i really appreciate it. The car was only serviced the week prevoius so water levels should have been fine. When it was eventually towed it was checked and there was water in it. Initially when i was trying to explain to the garage guy on the phone what was happening he thought it might be a cracked or burst pipe but when he had a look at the car he said everything seemed fine. I told him there was steam coming out from the coolant tank but he said it was normal for that to heat up. He took the car himself for the weekend to check it was fine and called me to say he couldn't find a problem with it but since it was still under warrenty he'd put a new clutch in anyway. If the other clutch is fine (which he says it is) why would he replace it? He had taken out the gearbox as soon as he received it off the recovery truck and said everything seemend in order and the burning smell was the clutch but the clutch was fine.
|
|
When I learned to drive heavy goods vehicles I was taught that the cluch pedal should be fully depressed or your foot should be off the pedal. I have applied this techniqe to diesel cars without problems for many years. I normally run my cars for about 100,000 miles and have never needed to replace a clutch. Hope this info is of help.
|
|
|