My 2020 Jeep Compass diesel: Clutch failure after 15,000 km

We are not novice drivers that we will blow the clutch in 15,000 km. We've clocked 1.50 lakh km on our Honda City & have faced no issues with the clutch to date.

BHPian giribhai recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hi all,

Need your advice and support to raise this issue that I am facing with my almost new Jeep Compass.

I have a Jeep Compass Limited Plus 2.0 Diesel, bought in Feb'20 and I had a pretty normal experience till 15,000 Kms that the car has done so far.

Last week, my parents went for an outstation trip and while returning when they stopped at the toll plaza - they were alerted by the toll manager that fumes and smoke was coming from the car engine bay.

My parents immediately got off and called the RSA who took a lot of convincing and over 3 hours to reach the spot, the car was towed and sent to the nearest service center.

We thought we would get a call from Jeep and as the car is literally brand new whatever the issue is will be fixed, after two days we started calling people and finally got in touch with the service center that the car was sent to.

Now, the SA and supervisor there started saying that this is because the clutch has blown away and the clutch is not covered in warranty - without checking they were able to make this comment means this has happened with other cars too and is a known issue.

We are not novices in terms of driving that we will blow the clutch in 15,000 Kms. I mean, my last car - a Honda City - is still going good without any niggles regarding the clutch at 1,50,000 Kms even. We never let the clutch slip and this car has been driven with a lot of care, 95% of the time by myself.

Now, the other bit is that it's been a week and Jeep Service centers and dealers and even customer care has been extremely non-responsive and their attitude has been pretty bad for a brand that's trying to position itself as a luxury brand.

What are my options here? Has anyone else faced any such issues? Should I get the car repaired taking the hit and possibly sell the car? I have called Jeep customer care multiple times but they are not helping, dealership is out rightly misbehaving and they are not even providing contact numbers or emails of higher management in Jeep.

Any help is appreciated, also a lot of people are buying Jeep and it's a good product but there are niggles and the customer support is really pathetic.

Here's what BHPian sharan_si had to say about the matter:

I recently bought a Jeep Compass petrol AT, for sake of testing I did TD of compass Diesel MT, though the diesel has better power and mileage, the clutch of the TD car with 5k on ODO was very heavy (can't expect the TD car to be smooth) but cars from other manufacturers had a softer clutch in TD car.

First thing, the clutch is heavy and the sales manager himself agreed that clutch needs to be replaced more frequently than other cars, if you can run the car with a single clutch in compass for 50k without it becoming heavy or failing, you should consider yourself lucky.

You better demand them to replace under warranty as it's known for failure.

Here's what BHPian PaddleShifter had to say about the matter:

As a FIAT owner, let me share a few points:

• Fiat or FCA management is a highly committed group of professionals first of all. It's the dealers (many, not all) who are pathetic. Back in 2010, Fiat replaced plastic slave cylinders with metallic ones but the service advisor lied to me stating that the one in mine is metal. It broke on the road sometime later leaving me stranded and the dealership billed me the repair cost. I had to escalate to Fiat for resolution.
• Why would a dealership lead you to the management? Try to get email IDs of executives from FCA. I am sure some must be here at Team-BHP else try on Facebook/telegram groups, etc. You will surely find reliable email IDs there.
• There is no point wasting time with customer care or should I say all centres. They are the NOR there between management/dealership and customer.

We FIAT owners used to believe that wear and tear parts are covered under warranty for some distance for sure (most 35,000km was the norm).

Here's what BHPian Indian2003 had to say about the matter:

Warranty covers manufacturing defects and not user faults. This judgement is very easy to make. The car was smoking and lost drive. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that. This is standard procedure for all makes.

Your dad did not even notice the smoke, loss of drive and had to be told by someone else. An extremely worn clutch starts to heat up and smoke quite fast and he should have noticed it earlier on. He should also have noticed the very high engine revs.

Sorry to throw cold water on you but I say this is user-related and not a manufacturing defect. Give them the green light to repair and take the old clutch with you and go on from there.

Make note of the part number of the new clutch for comparison purposes so you know that you get the correct clutch back.

Take the old clutch to any workshop and ask what they think is the fault with your clutch. I doubt anyone will say it is a manufacturing defect if there are no leaks or broken pieces of metal.

The only manufacturing faults I can see is oil leaks from the gearbox and or engine causing the clutch to slip. Be there when they take out the old clutch and post pictures of the insides of the bell housing and clutch components. The clutch components and bell housing should be dry. If there is any oil inside, it is a warranty case.

I can imagine all the signs of overheating, deep groves and worn rivets and blueing of the friction surface of the flywheel.

He was on an outstation trip. Was he up on the mountains or on hilly territory?

Here's what BHPian Turbolove had to say about the matter:

Hey, something similar happened to our Compass Limited 2.0 manual in 2019. The car was less than a year old, was driving with no issues, had done just under 8k kms and one day, suddenly we see smoke from the engine bay and the service centre people in Mumbai told us the clutch is blown. They replaced it for free for us and said that this had been happening to multiple other cars too. That being said the replacement clutch has been running pretty well till 30k kms till now. Please push the service centre guys to replace it for free.

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