Bryce

Friend just had his clutch replaced. He bought the car with 13k miles and it has 15 now. He never did a clutch dump and never noticed it slipping, and never complained to the dealer. Yet he went in for a few things (leaking rear seal) along with an oil change and they come back saying they replaced the clutch and it will be his last under warranty. He is shocked.

First that it was bad so soon.(probably previous owner I told him) That they did it without asking/telling him beforehand. That they said it's his only one covered. How could they tell it was bad? I thought it was automatically adjusting and you could only tell it was bad by the slippage. What am I missing. TIA.

I told him to ask to see it and take pics.

J4SON

Took my car in for regular scheduled 20k service. When I picked the car up, they told me they replaced the clutch too. The clutch felt perfectly fine to me when I brought it in. They didn't say anything about that being the last one though.

frank

I tell them it's the last clutch, YOU A-holes are replacing for me!

time to find another dealer, and defonitely check out the used parts if possible

Bryce

You think they may have thought that oil got onto the clutch?

CupS4

At that time, I had never abused it or launched the car hard. I had told them about clutch "chatter", and they went and replaced it.

If someone can shed some light on this - it seems to me that the clutch IS self-adjusting, and when it's doing so, there's "chatter". Or is it just wearing back into place? I've experienced it recently. I'd been launching the car hard, and the next day the clutch was engaging differently. It freaked me out. But after a few days, it went back to normal. Though in end I wish I had picked up the RS4 kit for the dealer to install and give me some peace of mind.

frank

no, I meant they assumed abuse, without considering that a defective oil seal, ruined his clutch

Bryce

It looked bad (or possibly was) because of the oil from the rear seal leaking onto it.