A Mini adventure, at maximum cost

I see drivers holding the car stationary whilst they wait at traffic lights on hills ever day, there is a long hill outside my house and I can often smell clutch melting due to abuse, I personally have had two cars do 250k without a clutch change, and have not changed a clutch now for 20 years. I don’t think you can blame the manufacturer.

Dual clutch cars are failing as being driven as automatics with torque converters, I friend who owns a garage has had several in now with 10k on the clock and the cluches are gone, the price and equipment required to change them is scarey.

I was expecting LED lighting technology to overcome the headlight replacement difficulty by separating the light source from the lens enclosure. Obviously this is not the manufacturers’ priority as everything has to be sacrificed to the desire for an ugly, but streamlined, lighting array.

Some makes and models of car have higher MOT failure rates than others but MOT failures are more of a reflection on their owners’ failure to ensure that their vehicles are fit to be on the road every day of the year.

Check your car regularly:
whatcar.com/car-news/five-daft-reasons-why-cars-fail-mot/1285768

If you look at the MoT failure reports and analyse the failures, you can definitely see trends. For example, clutches in modern cars should rarely fail below 100,000+ miles. (Developments in modern glues allow clutch material to be glued to the plates, thus there are no rivets and the clutch can wear down to the plate and not the rivets.)

So if a brand has a high incidence of failures due to exhaust, fluid leaks, steering rack, gaters, etc., then it is most likely from poor materials than driver negligence. If the MoT failure is through tyre wear, then it becomes obvious that the vehicle is neglected and can be ignore from being a trend.

Terfar – As you said earlier, high mileage vehicles can have high failure rates. That is usually because of lack of adequate servicing. Good servicing should account for variation in the quality of components between models, so if a car is known to have to have a weakness with its exhaust or drive shaft gaiters, these deserve special attention.

Many spares used in servicing can be obtained at very reasonable prices from motor factors. There are specialist companies that will repair starter motors and alternators at very reasonable prices too, or offer exchange units off the shelf.

Here’s an example of how helpful specialist companies can be.

I recently took an elderly alternator to a specialist company recommended by a friend. I knew nothing about it, other than it was for a 24V system. They identified the make model and which variant I had, and established that it was in good working order. They would not take a penny for their time.

That does not seem right, Scott. It’s worth trying to find out if others are having similar problems with the same model of car.

Cleaning of the dpf should be automatic provided that you are not doing a lot of town driving without periodically doing longer runs that allow a cleaning cycle to be completed. If you are following the advice provided with the car, you have a case for complaint. None of the diesel car owners I know has had a problem with their dpf, though a friend with a Land Rover that has covered 150k miles has recently had a problem with their erg valve.

I was slightly concerned when I bought a diesel car with a dpf since I cover only 8k miles per year but it will be 3 years old this summer and I have never seen a warning light to let me know to take it on a longer run.

Agreed. My Fabia 1.9 tdi is 9 years old and averaged 8000 mile per annum. It’s not had any problems with the dpf or gate. I’ve not bothered with replacing the ohc belt either. The German manufacturer of the belt states it’s guaranteed for the life of the engine. It’s only VAG that insist it must be changed. Does anyone know of anyone with a belt failure?

Except with ‘non-interference’ engines, a broken timing belt will result in major engine damage when the pistons hit the valves coming in the other direction. VAG are good at quoting a lifetime for timing belts and then issuing instructions that this should be done sooner.

Failure of a water pump driven by the timing belt can also cause catastrophic failure.

If you can inspect the condition of the belt and look for signs of deterioration, including cracking at the base of the teeth it may be safe to carry on using it.

I don’t know how many belts do break. With my last car the lifetime had been quoted as 80k and the figure was revised to 40k. I kept an eye on it and eventually had it replaced at 60k.

I know of 2 people owning Vauxhall cars whose timing belt broke and yes totalled the engine . My previous car a Ford Mondeo 2.5 had a chain driven timing belt ,the car I own now is one I like its an old Ford Focus ST 170 great road holding /speedy although I try to drive in 6th gear most of the time to save petrol . I had the cam belt checked at 65000 miles and it needed replaced a worn cam belt can also spoil the tuning as it stretches before it blows your engine . Vauxhalls previously had a very bad record for that. The cracks inside the teeth of the belt show its “drying up ” meaning its losing its elasticity I have changed 1000s but in industrial equipment of all sorts. Better safe than sorry.

Conversely, my Fiesta 1.0 ecoboost has in board cam belt that it guaranteed for the life of the engine. So it’s possible to do.

Your cam belt is lubricated with oil, like a timing chain. Presumably this combines the durability of a chain with the lack of noise and vibration of a belt. I’ve read that it should be inspected after 150k miles.

My experience with diesel cars (of only one make and model) with a dpf is that I cannot drive too gently (as one might to deliberately save fuel) or a warning light comes on after a few weeks and one has to regenerate the filter by immediately driving at high revs for ten minutes or so. Drive briskly on dual carriageways and motorways and the problem does not seem to arise.

I drive gently for various reasons and the warning light has not come on since I bought my car in July 2012. The instructions that came with the car say that I need to periodically drive at or above 40 mph for ten or fifteen minutes (I cannot remember which it is). I usually do this once a week anyway.

My experience of DPFs corresponds exactly to that of wavechange, but I’m intrigued by tales of owners who apparently drive in a ‘DPF-approved’ manner but still have problems – it makes me wonder if some cars are proving much more problematic than others. I also wonder if the new euro-6 compliant diesels will be more or less tolerant of ‘gentle driving’.

All new diesel-engined cars are fitted with a DPF. It is clear that they are unsuitable for those whose driving is mainly in built-up areas, unless periodic longer journeys are made.

My car dealer asked about my proposed use when I said I had a diesel car (without a DPF) and was interested in buying another diesel. He gave me a leaflet and another copy was provided as an insert in the manual.

What disappoints me is that I have no knowledge about the state of my DPF or when it is being regenerated. There are times when the fuel economy is about 10 mpg below normal, which I assume correspond to the use of extra fuel to burn off accumulated soot. Since DPF blockage is measured from the pressure differential across the filter, it would be easy to provide the driver with an indication of the percentage blockage. Understanding the process would be helpful to drivers and could help them avoid a blocked DPF.

I suspect you are right that some cars are more problematic than others. Furthermore, older engines that are starting to use oil could also have problems.

It’s wrong to think that everything made in China is poor quality. Just have a look at what you consider to be good quality and it is likely to be made in China too.

Counterfeit goods are a big problem. It is usually popular consumer goods that are counterfeited. Anyone counterfeiting soldering stations has a small market of people who are likely to be better informed than the general public. If you do find a dangerous product, report it to Trading Standards.

If you re-read my post you will find I said the Chinese build to a PRICE ! logic dictates that means they build BOTH good and bad products. If you think that China doesnt build cheap products well you haven’t seen as many commercial AND public products as I have in my engineering career. As regards counterfeit products then Maplin electronics and a whole host of electrical suppliers have sold sub-standard items in the past . They woudnt dare sell counterfeit products as they would lose business so I repeat China sells the same type ,even in the same case of products that range from bad to good. Seen it.done it,got the tea shirt.

I don’t think we are disagreeing, Duncan. I take your point about Maplin avoiding selling counterfeit items, and I’ve used them since they were as small mail order company advertising in the electronics magazines in the 70s. Some of what they sell is top quality and much of it could be charitably described as good value for money. Thankfully it’s possible to inspect a lot of their goods before purchase in their shops and I don’t remember having any serious safety concerns about their products.

I’m typing this on an Apple laptop that was designed in California and assembled in China. These have proved good in the past and I am very glad that I have not had to pay for assembly in the US or Europe.

It does concern me that using substandard car parts could be dangerous.

As I see it, CAB provides a means of logging calls and routing them to Trading Standards or elsewhere, as appropriate. I have found CAB very helpful. Unfortunately, Trading Standards seems to do little in response to calls, based on my own experience and that of others. In one case I was told that there would be no action against a company unless there were similar complaints, and mine was the first.

Neither the CAB or Trading Standards is going to be interested in the fact that some cars have excessive maintenance costs. Which? and car magazines/websites can help here. I recall that in the 70s, Ford made replacement camshafts available at low price because of a design fault with one of their engines.

Your right I owned a MK3 Cortina the OH camshaft(single) was badly hardened as were the distance plates between it and the valve .Just about every car spares shop had a new camshaft kit for sale .I think at the time the price was £35 not much today but a lot more then, Your memory is as good as mine.

Thanks for the details Duncan. Do you know of any other examples of car manufacturers treating customers fairly because of design faults? Most of the examples I know are recalls due to safety issues.

Not offhand wavechange in the same manner as Ford did . As you say most are recalls to the main dealer for replacement rather than DIY. depending on how you look at it one of the worst for recalls is Toyota.

I had the same beast, a Mk3 Cortina. It did over 100,000 miles before I sold it. No hitch with the engine at all.

At that time I live in Belgium and had access to an amateur mechanic shop with about 20 bays. Several times I caught users of the Cortina/Taurus setting up their cam/push rod gaps in the wrong place. I have a strong suspicion that as this was one of the first widely available family cars with the OHC engine, that the cam shaft problem was due to the inexperienced setting us the gaps incorrectly.

Your right the bodywork rusted first while the engine still ran on. Your also right about the cam followers getting the gaps right was tricky. Not everybody re-tightened the camshaft holding brackets in the right order . It could be worse ,you could have owned a Rover 3.5 with Hydraulic tappets when new they were quiet and that helped sell them(including to the police ) but just try and adjust them ,now that was another World.

IIRC, they were setting the gap between the cam followers (rockers) and valve stems similar to adjusting the old push-rod gaps that they were all familiar with. They all had the same mystical look when I showed them to adjust the gap at the other end, i.e. between the cam and the cam follower (rocker). So I’m not at all surprised that new cams were flying off the shelves.

William You had a Mazda 6 2-litre diesel car? They are fiotted with Dual-mass Flywheels and they are seriously bad. The DMF is fitted to many cars, not just the Citroen/Peugot/Mazda group. I know that VAG, Jaguar, Ford and others also use them. They all have the same problem with early failure of the DMF.

The dealers try to blame the drivers for ‘riding the clutch’ causing the clutch plate glue to overheat, but expert examination usually finds that the bolts holding the two halves of the DMF together are weak and start to stretch. Eventually they become so stretched that they start to touch the bell housing making a racket and the starter motor has difficulty engaging the flywheel making starting difficult. Often this starts to show as early as 30,000 miles.

This is probably too late, but you should have had an expert independent engineer inspect the components to prove that the failure was the DMF, not the clutch. You were robbed by crooks of the motor trade.

I should have mentioned that you should search Google for ‘dual-mass flywheel failure’ for more enlightening information.

I wonder if some of the failures reflect the aggressive driving style of many motorists. In London in particular most drivers seem to alternate between brake and accelerator. It seems obvious to me that this is will be detrimental to the clutch, DMF and other components of the drive train. I doubt that it helps to get anyone to their destination any faster.

I found an interesting article on the HonestJohn website discussing the problems with Dual Mass Flywheels that includes a list of vehicles with reported known problems. There’s also a link to a LandRover owner who had the failure and tried to elicit some information (without success) from the German manufacturer of the DMF. It definitely looks like it is the DMF and has nothing to do with driving style.

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/dual-mass-flywheels/

I’m not so sure. Near the start of the article: “What seems to happen is excess temperature from drivers riding their clutches affects the compound.”

Yes, but it is a case of ‘seems’ rather than did ride the clutch.

There are plenty of other reports on the Internet. One interesting one because the guy had a failure on one car at 36,000 miles and he had a second car (his primary car) from new sitting on the drive with 130,000 miles on the clock. That suggests that he wasn’t guilty of riding his clutch.

It still suggests a poorly designed or poorly manufactured component.

An independent inspection would probably establish the reason for the failure. If a design fault can be established, that could help other owners.

My father taught me not to ride the clutch and gave me other useful advice on how to minimise wear and stress on the mechanical components. For most of his driving career he had no clutch problems.
In the last couple of years that he drove, he started to abuse the clutch, despite my warnings. It was no surprise that clutch had to be replaced after a much lower mileage than his previous cars had covered without problem.

So far I have followed my father’s teaching and have not had clutch or DMF problems. Only yesterday did I discover that my present car has a DMF and so did its predecessor, which I had for ten years. If I start to abuse the clutch, that will be the time to get an automatic or give up driving.

I have watched drivers slipping the clutch when crawling up hills in traffic. Sometimes you can smell the clutch overheating.

It would be very easy for a manufacturer to include a tell-tale to show the extent to which a clutch has been overheated, perhaps by incorporating pellets of alloys that melt at different temperatures. Alternatively, an over-temperature warning light could warn the driver that they are abusing the clutch.

Likewise in over 50 years of driving, I’ve never had a clutch (or flywheel) failure. If it really is a clutch abuse problem, the manufacturers could easily give a warning light. VAG provide warning lights for overheating of the DSG gearboxes (I’ve never seen that come on either), so these things are obviously possible.