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My 12 year old hatchback needs a 1400 clutch at 190k km, repair or replace Repair or Replace
Clutch is slipping badly on hills. Quote is 1400 including a dual mass flywheel. The car is otherwise sound: no rust, tyres are six months old, timing belt done at 150k, brakes fine, passed its last inspection with no advisories. A comparable replacement is 7000 to 9000 in my market and I would have to borrow for it. Everyone keeps telling me not to throw good money after bad, which I understand as a phrase but not as a calculation.
@otis_haverford · 3mo ago · 3 replies
Repair, and it is not a close call.
The calculation that replaces the good money after bad phrase: compare the repair to the cost of owning the replacement for the same period. 7000 borrowed over four years is somewhere around 165 a month before insurance and before the depreciation. Your 1400 is about eight or nine months of that payment, and the car it buys you has a fresh clutch, new tyres and a belt done 40000km ago.
The rule I use is this. Replace when the failures start stacking, meaning two significant unrelated bills within six months, or when something structural goes, meaning rust in the shell or a failed automatic gearbox. One large but ordinary wear item on a sound body is not that.
One thing to ask while it is apart. The gearbox has to come out for a clutch, so ask what else is normally done at the same time on this engine, rear main seal, clutch slave cylinder, sometimes the release bearing is already in the kit. Doing them now costs parts. Doing them later costs the whole labour again.
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@obsolete_by_now · 3mo ago
Asked. Rear main seal is 40 in parts while it is out and they quoted 380 to do it as its own job later. Adding it.
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@shopvac_ghost · 3mo ago
Ask about the slave cylinder too if it is the concentric type inside the bell housing. Those fail at around this age and replacing one later means the gearbox comes out again for a 60 part.
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