Clutch on Ford S-Max

schneckster

Hi,

I took my S-Max in for a bad smell coming through the air-con that was making people in the car sick and drowsy (including my 3 little'uns). With the car only being 12 months old, bought from new, and 6000 miles on the clock, needless to say, it went in to get sorted. The smell was like burnt pickled onions.

Having flushed the air con system, dismantled it and found nothing, they now say the smell is from the burnt out clutch and will cost £800 to fix. They've had it a week, and they collected it, but no mention was made of a worn clutch at the start of that week.

Incidentally, it was serviced by the same dealer two days before all this happened.

The dealer obviously would want paying to replace it. Ford have said they are unwilling to pay anything saying the dealer tells them the clutch has been ridden, hence the wear which voids the warranty. But having never had a clutch go on me on anything under 50,000 miles in over 20 years of driving, I know I haven't been riding the clutch and it all seems back street garage to me, rather than a main dealer.

Anyone had any similar experiences, or does anyone have any advice? I don't have that sort of money (who does?) and I really don't feel I should be paying for it anyway.

Thanks for any help or advice,

Schneckster

atrixblue.-MFR-.

clutch being ridden! ARE they qualified to make a detailed report on the clutch plate and friction plate, thrust bearing to come to the conclusion that it has been ridden? and not ill fitted at factory? have they shown you the clutch and point out to you that in their opinion wear is caused by driver error and would they put that in writing? on a new car i would expect the clutch to last allot longer.

harveybobbles

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

on a new car i would expect the clutch to last allot longer.

You should be able to make a clutch last the life time of a car. However as cars these days havea DMF which are very fragile, they do wear out quicky and thats down to driver abuse.

Kilty_2

6000 miles?

Even with driver abuse I doubt it could fail within that time unless it's a manufacturing fault - look at daily hire wrecks that do around 13,500 miles under the "care" of a hire company and probably see some of the most horrendous abuse imaginable to all component parts.

aqueoushumour01

from experience, I'd get a second opinion on cost. I paid almost £650 for my clutch and it turned out it should have cost me around £300. My fault at the time for assuming their price was 'honest' and not shopping around but I know now to question every price a garage gives.

ukjoel

This is a nice little earner for Ford.

The problem seems to his CMAX and SMAX more than Focus and Mondeo.

Ford will always look at the clutch, see its burnt, and say wear and tear.
I noticed a case on another forum where they tried this with a car that had done 600 miles before eventually backing down.

I used to drive a lot of C-MAX and found clutch burn a lot worse on that car than anything else I drove. I used to give mine back every 6 weeks so never a problem for me but felt a bit sorry for whoever bought them next.

I am not a boy racer and never had problem with same engine focus or Mondeo.
SMAX I had similar problems with but not quite as bad as the CMAX.

A friends CMAX clutch went last week at 20k (37 months old) and Ford chucked in some goodwill but only to bring it down to independent level prices.

Replacement clutches are only warrantied for 12 months 30k so my mate has lost faith with the car and the company.

If it been inside warranty he would have gone down small claims route if it hadnt been repaired under warranty.

Agree with previous poster about clutches going in less than 60k is very unusual and Ford CMAX and SMAX seem to burn a lot harder.

Agree it won car of the year (SMAX) but none of those drivers tested them for the long term.

Harveys right about DMF but having driven large volumes of all Ford models for 5k a time there is definately an issue with the CMAX and SMAX wearing out clutches faster than they should.

Milko

I got pointed to this topic by a mate who is fully aware of my current feud with Ford regarding this very same matter.

My mother-in-laws June 07 Smax (30k miles) developed the same burning smell back in early November, a local inde mechanic recommended getting back to the dealer asap rather than drive it any further as he suspected more than just a worn clutch. So later that day, the dealer took the car & said they'd examine it & report back. Cue the next morning when they phone to say it'll be £800 minimum to £1300 max as they think the flywheel & slave cylinder are knackered also. A few days later they phone to say the car is ready & that'll be £1351 as they'd found the rear brakes to be worn & fixed them at cost as a goodwill gesture & by the way you've a cracked intercooler hose that we'll fix under warranty but don't have the parts yet ... !!!!!! !!!
So low & behold it was left to me to speak to ford & find out how the flywheel (dual mass or not) and slave cylinder can go after 30k on a 2 year old car. Customer service refused to comment as their dealer had carried out the work & if I wanted, I should have the parts tested independantly for undue wear or fault ... that idea would've been fine if the dealer had returned the parts but they refused ... customer service said that they had to return the parts to the customer if asked and i should go in and explain this to the dealer ... i did & they still refused unless i paid the £30 release fee. I phoned another dealer to query thier policy and they said they'd release them once the bill was paid, which it had been and that the dealer in question was maybe going to claim them on warranty ... exactly what we thought.
However, over this 3 or 4 day period of wrangling my mother-in-law had went to visit a friend who lives on a fairly steep hill (I'd say 1 in 8 maybe) and parked outside the house as she has done once a week every week for the last 5 years (social work visit). About 10 mins after entering the house a neighbour called to let her know her car was parked in his garden wall halfway down the street and for what it's worth he says "your hand brake is still on". Cue an immediate trip to the dealer by my mother-in-law with me in toe. Now I'm not going to go through the complete "discussion" that took place but when the dealer manager tried to tell me how to put a hand brake on, I had to bite more than my tounge and decided it best to make a retreat before going and removing said hand brake & sticking it up his a***.
As of today (21/12/09) the car is currently still in with the insurance approved body worker after 2 weeks and we've just been told they've found another 58 hours worth of work to be done after stripping the car down but they are fully aware that the car must go under a full independant brake test before being release as if it turns out that Ford are at fault I personally on my mother-in-laws behalf will be returning to them to collect the compensation cheque from the manager.

I'll keep you posted ... as for the warranty work in the clutch, we're still figting it.

harveybobbles

A lot of the C Max and S Max's are driven by mothers dropping their kiddies off at school.

Call me cynical, but does this tie in with clutches burning out...?

I think cars should be fitted with a warning buzzer that goes off if you hold your car on the clutch. The number of people you see doing this really is quite alarming!

schneckster

Harveybobbles,
Call me cynical but since the C-Max and S-Max are both aimed squarely at families, surely Ford would realise that the school run would be a main use. Shouldn't they build cars to cope with the target market? That's what our's is, a family car, and since we haven't changed our driving habits, and our previous car had the same usage and went 3 years and 40k miles without any clutch problems, I am convinced it is a quality issue. More so since both of us have 20+ years driving experience and have had no burnt out clutches in the past.

An update, however:
One of the managers at the dealership is an ex-mechanic of the old style... if it can be fixed, why replace it? He had a look at the dismantled clutch and said it didn't need to be replaced. It had worn around 50%, which even he agreed was excessive considering the age and mileage. It was covered in dust from that wear which was heating up causing the smell. He said they could clean it the dust off, lightly abrade the surface of the plates, fit it all back together and off we go. Cost in the end was £300 instead of £800 for replacement. Not happy as I think 6k is far to short a distance but it's a battle I won't win.

Needless to say, a call to Ford Customer Care got "We sympathise but we can't (won't) help." They weren't impressed with me describing Ford's quality control as being run by the Swedish Chef from the Muppets.

The service dept also suggested that because they no longer use asbestos in clutches, they are softer than they used to be and that this is a common problem with most new cars. She told me they now see far many more clutches in for replacement after asbestos was retired than before. Nice little earner at £800 a pop.

The basic thread of everything the dealer has told me is to treat the clutch with kid gloves and we might get another 5k out of it. Not good for a family car they know will be subjected to the school run, is it?

It's a shame, but our next car won't be a Ford. And clutch longevity will be an additional point of research in to the next car we buy.

Cheers for your responses,

Schneckster