[karansm4u]

I purchased my Vento back in 2011 and till now its been running great. As we all know that clutch of TDI Vento are in general harder and if you have driven your car majorly in city like Delhi where traffic conditions require constant up/down shifting than clutch is definitely going to take relatively more damage. My car has clocked 76K till now and yesterday finally i have gone and done the clutch replacement at FNG. However story of clutch replacement started long back :-)

4th Service Feb 2015
I went for my 4th service and told SA that clutch is little tight. Car completed 37K so running was relatively low. My extended warranty was going to finish and the reason for me to probe this is to make sure there is nothing I am leaving behind which could be covered in extended warranty.
Now SA was good friend of mine to whom i was getting my service done and he asked technician to check this out. Once technician checked this out he called me
Technician: Sir this is too tight.
Me: Yes i know thats why i am complaining.
Technician: Sir you will have to get it checked ASAP else your clutch will eat FlyWheel
Me: What is Flywheel? Hehe
(He gave me knowledge of clutch plate, pressure plate, flywheel etc etc)
Technician: Its better to get it changed now else your cost of replacement will double since flywheel cost much more.
Me: What is the cost with and without Flywheel and how come i need to replace this quick?
Technician: Normal replacement somewhere 25-30K. With flywheel it will cost 45-50K (That was back in 2015 cost if i remember correctly). In Delhi clutch wearing out in 3-4 year is normal.
I was shocked hearing these prices. Never thought clutch replacement will cost this much. Anyway i asked SA for honest openion
Me: Can it last till next service
SA: <Technician Name> Can this last till next service. <My Name> is like my good buddy so i do not want him to pay un necessary
Technician: Nope, Till next year chances that it will eat flywheel is much higher.

That time i did not have enough money and i also wanted to do my own investigation so asked them to do normal service and came back


April 2015 or something
I visited workshop with a friend for his car and clutch replacement discussion again started. By this time i was well educated in this area.
I asked SA why the hell cost of some plates are this high. He mentioned VW parts etc and Labour since significant parts need to be opened up for clutch replacement etc etc.

Meanwhile that technician also knew that i was in service station and might be planning clutch replacement.

May 2015 or something
Technician called :-)
Sir since you are very good friend of SA and I trust you so why don't i come to your house and do clutch replacement. I understood the intension so started asking lots of questions.
Me: Whats the benefit for me in this?
Technician: VW charge a lot for labour and on top of that there are taxes so if I come to your house you will save a lot on labour and taxes.
Me: Fair enough. From where will you get the clutch kit?
Technician: Sir, I have my sources and we can get the genuine kit for replacement
Me: How would i know its not already used? For all i care you might be adding this kit from any other damaged car etc which has run less KM and putting in my car.
Technician: No, sir it will be brand new.
Me: Hmm, How can VW let you guys take parts out and do not know? I am sure their spare part supervisor will be responsible for getting the parts out against each car which comes to service.
Technician: Sir, I cannot tell more but we have our ways.
Me: So what is the cost now?
Technician: Around 20K
Me: What is the part warranty you will give me. I know if i get it done from VW they will give me some months of warranty and piece of mind?
Technician: Sir you are very good friend of SA. Warranty will be ours, If you face any problem we will resolve it.
Me: So i am just saving 7-8K and i am the one taking all the risk and you are taking all 20K in pocket :-)
Technician: No sir we are also taking Risk. This price is negotiable, do not worry we can always do +/- 2K etc.

I was having doubt on what he was trying to convince me and as soon as he said "we are also taking risk", I knew he is doing some stealing either from VW or from some other customer. So decided to drop this option. On other hand car was running fine and clutch was not slipping.

5th Service Feb 2016 or something
Car completed around 47K and this time i went to another service station since earlier known SA left the job there.
I asked at this new service station about clutch and he said its fine, Its little hard but not something which you need to change right away :-)
I was little surprised, earlier that technician was like it will not complete a year and now this guy is saying its fine. In any case i was sure now that earlier technician just wanted to earn some money.

Meanwhile i went to Metro spares at Malviya Nagar to know the cost of clutch assembly.
He mentioned 11K. He was very honest guy and mentioned that printed price is something like 7K but current running black market price for Vento OEM clutch is 11K.
Nearby FNG asked 1500 for replacing. This seems very reasonable cost only worry was
- Is the part genuine
- How good is this FNG and can he undertake this task?

6th service Dec 2016
Good running this year and i completed 15K in 10 months so car was currently at 62K.
This time i went for service at Ajmer and SA checked their and said clutch is fine
Since its not slipping and you are not loosing acceleration so nothing to worry. If your leg is really hurting than changing is your decision but you can run it more.

June 2017
Now GST was coming into picture so i was in neighbourhood of Metro spares. I knew that GST will increase the prices of all spares so decided to go and pay him visit.
Me: Cost of Vento TDI clutch assembly? I want "LUK" one
Metro: 6500/- for LUK
Me: <Surprised> Is it genuine? and will price drop after GST?
Metro: Yes its genuine. Price will not drop i was selling this at 10-11K till few months ago. Now due to GST i need to clear my stock etc etc

Did not understood the whole logic he gave but seems like i went at right time and he had few in stock which he wanted to sold and he was right now selling at MRP. I had pictures with me of LUK kit and part numbers. I verified both and purchased it for 6500.

Sept 2017
Another 15K came pretty early and car is at 77K. I am going to go for service in next few days. Nearby i knew a good FNG to whom i have shown my car for suspension work and he was pretty honest. I asked him all sort of questions about how confident he is doing this task and he mentioned he has done this in Laure, Superb, Raid, Vento etc.

So finally on 10th Sept Sunday i took the car to him for replacement.

Clutch Replacement Process
Bearing


Clutch Plate


Pressure Plate


Hood open with Engine Air intake pipe disconnected


He removed Battery first and after that air filter. Disconnected sensor.


Air filter and Battery on side


After removing battery I was able to see gear shifting mechanism.


Meanwhile another person was removing things from down


From Bottom he removed some clipping. I am not sure what this is


Removing Turbo pipe from below first


Opening bolts of self starter motor


Dust accumulated on turbo pipe. Seems some minor leak is there. FNG person said not to worry if there is no drop in pick up.


Turbo bottom pipe after removing


Removing upper part of Turbo pipe


Upper pipe after removing


Removing starter motor


After Starter Motor getting removed.

[karansm4u]

Mods please delete above post. Was not able to edit due to 30 min rule. Should have used Assembly line

Continue...

Starter motor after getting removed


Trying to remove axle of left side.


Axle getting disconnected from one side. He mentioned that from car to car this might change. There are some cars where he totally need to remove axle. In Vento its fine as long as you remove internal side of it.


Image of other side after axle getting removed


Right side axle after being removed. This was more deep and longer so pic is not very clear


Axle of Right after removed from one side. This pic is taken from bottom.


He put another jack under engine. As per him this is needed because now he was going to unmount the engine so if this is not done than engine might fall. So after engine mount is opened engine will rest on this jack.


Loosing engine mount. There were total 3 engine mount. 2 Main one out of which he is just removing left side engine mount and there is no need to remove right engine mount. There is one more small engine mount he mentioned down below which he has already removed.


After engine mount has been removed engine got tilted. Now its resting on jack. After that he lifted jack up to bring engine to same level again.


Engine mount clipping removed just now


Removing main cover over clutch plate. This took sometime to come out


Pic of cover (I do not exactly know what its called)



Finally existing clutch assembly is visible


Old clutch plate and new clutch plate together. Please note that both of them are from LUK.


Flywheel. As per FNG flywheel was totally OK. There was no damage to it.


Sanding off flywheel little bit.


FNG showed me left over threads of clutch plate and pressure plate. As per him it was about time i got the replacement done. Now it would definitely not last another 15K.



After putting up new plates rest process was reverse of above one so did not bother taking pics of it.

Overall Experience
Finally overall experience of replacement was quite good. After replacement clutch was amazing light. It might be normal but maybe earlier one was hard enough so relatively i feel that it has become too light. I have drove the car for 20-30 KM after that and do not find any issue at all. I will update once i take it around traffic jams

FNG was honest and good person. He answered all my questions. I reached little late to his workshop so along with boys he also started working. In whole process i did not see him confused or trying to put more pressure to remove any part. It felt like things were coming off easily. It took him total 4 hours to complete the full Job.

His workshop is pretty neat and clean. Yes its small but all good FNG are working from small shops in NCR. He is in Faridabad and contact number is below in case you folks need it.
Sanjay: 09810996247

Cost:
Clutch Kit: 6,500
Labour: 1,800 (I paid 2,000 since he completed the job on my request pretty fast and had all the folks working on it. He himself worked 4-5 hours on my car)
Total: 8,500

If i compare it with VW than its significantly less amount and satisfaction of watching and learning whole process was added benefit.

[chintu_91]

And still they say VW maintenance cost is higher.
Thank you for sharing this. I also own a vento 1.5 tdi which is currently at 60K mark. This will certainly be helpful.
Please try to update us after driving for 500-1000 Kms.
Drive safe!

[saurabh041086]

Originally Posted by karansm4u

Cost:
Clutch Kit: 6,500
Labour: 1,800 (I paid 2,000 since he completed the job on my request pretty fast and had all the folks working on it. He himself worked 4-5 hours on my car)
Total: 8,500

If i compare it with VW than its significantly less amount and satisfaction of watching and learning whole process was added benefit.

Karan, you seem to have discovered a very good FNG. That expense is definitely less than even half of what VW must have charged.
Does he work on Fiats as well. I am planning multiple suspension parts and timing chain for my Punto. Details about location will be very helpful.

[karansm4u]

Originally Posted by chintu_91

And still they say VW maintenance cost is higher.
Please try to update us after driving for 500-1000 Kms.

Sure, Till now I have just driven 100KM and experience is good. Challenge right now is getting comfortable with light clutch since leg and hand coordination is thrown off a bit.

Originally Posted by saurabh041086

Karan, you seem to have discovered a very good FNG. That expense is definitely less than even half of what VW must have charged.
Does he work on Fiats as well. I am planning multiple suspension parts and timing chain for my Punto. Details about location will be very helpful.

Thanks, Yes its 1/3rd of what i might have paid at VW. I am sure that this guy can easily do suspension change however i am not sure about timing belt since i have not asked about it.

For more information feel free to call him.

Location

[halfbytecode]

This is great. Thank you for posting the immensely useful information.

I would have to get this done for my car, when the need arises.

[Ramsagar]

I'm still running on stock clutch after 116K kms. To my knowledge, they say its always good practice to replace both Clutch & flywheel at once. Not sure how true that is. Experts can comment on the same.

[maheshsm12]

Originally Posted by karansm4u

Thanks, Yes its 1/3rd of what i might have paid at VW. I am sure that this guy can easily do suspension change however i am not sure about timing belt since i have not asked about it.

Location

Do you have any reference in BLR for good FNG? Need the clutch to be replaced on my 2014 Vento TDi