Originally Posted by eightrac

A couple of things to keep in mind.

Your situation doesn't really point to a bad clutch. Clutches generally will slip when worn and give you some type of warning before they go totally bad. Even if it was shattered, the pieces wouldn't have fallen out until you stepped on the clutch. It would hae been followed by nasty noises.

Quattro transmissions rely on resistance to provide output force. It works similar to an open differential in a conventional axle. If you lift one tire completely off of the ground and let out the clutch, thats the only wheel that will get power to it. So, that being said. You could have one of several problems here. You could have a bad CV joint on a drive shaft. If it isn't locking the wheel to the trans or differential, it just spins independently of the wheel. Your center driveshaft could have a problem such as a bad joint or is just broken. The joint at the transmission where the center shaft fits into the "cup" is a weak point and if it wore out or is now broken, you ge tno movement from the car. You could also have a broken pinion gear in either the transmission or rear differential.

Best this to do in this situation is to get the car home, put it up on jackstands and make damn sure its stable and level. Start it and put the car in 5th gear (or D for autos), let out the clutch with just enough gas to not let the engine die. You should be able to let it idle, with the car in 5th gear, and see all 4 wheels spin at about 10mph. You will be able to slow down each wheel one at a time with a heavily gloved (leather welding gloves) couple of hands (this is how I find bad bearings and CV joints). If you get no wheels moving, crawl underneath and look for anything that is spinning. If there is only one shaft moving (outer driveshafts, center driveshaft), you've found your bad one. A bad outer CV joint will be indicated by a spinning driveshaft, but the wheel doesn't spin. If the inner CV joint is bad, the flange will spin but the driveshaft and wheel will not. If nothing is moving at all you have either a busted transmission, bad clutch(not likely IMHO) bad front differetial in the trans, a snapped pinion gear in the transmission, a stripped driveshaft flange, a damaged torsen or a bad front ring gear.

You can see the clutch through the inspection ports int he bottom of the trans. The clutch disk looks like a thin oreo cookie (black outers with a steel center) if you cant see it, the clutch is toast. The black area isn't very thick but if visible, it's pretty much good.