I had my first major scare with the Jetta last weekend. I was on a family trip to Tarkarli and on the way back to Pune, I was stuck in a traffic jam in a small village. After about 15 minutes of inching forward in the traffic jam, I smelt something burning. I thought the smell was coming from outside, but then I realized that the ventilation was off and so were all the windows. Exactly at the same time, someone from the street pointed to smoke coming from the bonnet which I had not noticed earlier. I stopped my car, turned off the engine and asked everyone to get out immediately. I opened the bonnet and there was some smoke coming from somewhere below the engine assembly. I was scared as hell
(who wouldn't! there are so many car burning stories, including many VWs). It smelt like burning rubber, I checked the car's MFD, the engine temperature was ok, no errrors displayed, so I suspected the clutch. By this time many people had gathered around the car. The smoke was still coming, however soon the traffic jam in front of me cleared so I decided to get the car further down where the road was wider.
I dialled VWs roadside assistance number, provided all the necessary information to the person on phone and before he could give me the reference number the call got disconnected. While waiting for him to call back, from another phone I called up the service adviser at BU Bhandari as my car had undergone its first ever servicing just a couple of days earlier. The person from BUB wasn't able to offer much help, and he advised me to call VW roadside assistance. All this while the VW call center guys had not even bothered to call back. So I called them up again and after going through the IVR menu, I asked the lady to find out who was talking with me earlier and requested a call back. This time I did get a call back and the person asked me how far I was from Mumbai, so I told him about 450-500km so he said stay there till the flatbed arrives from Mumbai
. I explained the person to see if they can arrange for a pickup from Goa he said he will check and let me know. By this time, the smoke had stopped, though the stench of the clutch could still be felt. The VW guy called back after a while and said that he will be able to send a flatbed from Goa but the car will be looked at only on Monday as Sunday is a holiday. This was not acceptable to me, so I requested to talk to a technical person. I was told that the technical persons at the call center were not available because it was Sunday (again frustration! Lesson learned: VW roadside assistance is not that reliable). So I called up the guy at BUB to see if it's ok to drive the car to the nearest garage, but he was not willing to provide a definitive answer. Fortunately a local guy came over seeing the open bonnet, he said he worked at Toyota and he said the smell is definitely of clutch and if there is no issue with the engine or the car's pickup he advised me to drive to Kankavali (about 30kms, on the Mumbai Goa highway). I stared the car, except the smell everything was normal the clutch seemed normal, the speed, pick up nothing seemed to have changed so I decided to drive further, at slower speed and using as little clutch as possible. I stopped every 10 kms till I reached Kankavali to see if there was still smoke but there was none. When I arrived at Kankavali, all the repair shops were closed as it was a Sunday and we couldn't find any mechanic who could take a look at the car. At this time, the temperature was about 43 deg C, the heat was unbearable, so we decided to leave Kankavali and reach Kolhapur, where we hoped someone would definitely be available. Also my brother was also with us in his Honda City so we decided to leave, as we had another car in case of a complete break down. I called up VW call center again and asked them to not send any flatbed truck.
The car gave no further trouble, so I didn't stop at Kolhapur and came straight to Pune driving as carefully as I could.
On the next day, sent the car to BU Bhandari, they kept the car for two days and after some testing they confirmed that the smell was indeed from the clutch but the clutch itself is not damaged. It's been four days since that, and there is no smell and I am not seeing any issues so far. However I am a bit worried about taking the car on a long drive, at least immediately.
My questions are:
- Would a clutch lead to burning smell and smoke? What could be the contributing factors? Please note that I do NOT ride clutch (except may be when I am on an steep slope, such as a ghat in a traffic jam).
- Could it be because of the heat? The temperature was 40+ degrees when this happened.
- Is it possible that my clutch is on the way out? If so, should I look for any symptoms?
- Is this a known problem with Jetta or similar VW group cars?
- Should I carry a fire extinguisher in my car? Could a smoky clutch lead to fire?
Thanks in advance.