Ambrosia
Members
As some of you may have seen in the South West Dealers thread, my clutch was on the way & needed replacing so took it to Howards Honda in Weston Super Mare. The car went in last week & they confirmed that it needed a replacement clutch, so set about the task.
I then got a phonecall that I would guess most of us would dread. They took it for a test run after fitting the new clutch, and found that it was still slipping in 3rd & 4th gear.
After having a lengthy conversation with the service manager, he explained that when they removed the old clutch, the DMF had a degree of play in it that split the camp on whether that too would need replacing due to excess play. Knowing how expensive they are to replace, and that it wasn't 100% that it was on definitely on its way too, they fitted the new clutch. Then, when they took the car for a test run, the clutch slip was still present, so worst fears were confirmed.
The service manager (Dave) I have to say was pretty good on the whole. He explained that they do everything they can to avoid replacing the DMF unless absolutely necessary as not only was it hellishly expensie for me, but would take up a considerable chunk of their time again to remove the old clutch & fit the new DMF. He explained that he'd try to get some money off from Honda as a gesture of goodwilll, but did set the expectation that they may refuse.
After a paniced text to Faddy about this (cheers for the advice btw!), I asked them to keep the old clutch & DMF so I could photograph it for reference.
Here's the old friction plate (notice the darker colour towards the top)
And the pressure plate which had failed
Finally, the old DMF (again, notice the darker colour at the top from heat)
There was noticeable play in the DMF from just having a quick fiddle with it, and apparently this was more prevelant when actually on the car. As I half expected, Honda refused to discount the DMF due to the mileage being over 50k (done 77k), so Dave did a 5% discount on the Honda Happiness price for the clutch replacement as a gesture of goodwill. Also, Howards WSM do a 10% discount for the S2000 club, and Dave said he'd be happy to look at this for us if he's appraoached by the club (maybe an 'official' type e-mail from Admins/Mods?)
So, the upshot being the car now drives like an absolute dream - feels really tight & torquey, although my bank account has been absolutely slaughtered! I have to admit to not knowing much about the DMF function before this whole expereience, but found this video to be extremely useful:
DMF 3D animation
Al.
I then got a phonecall that I would guess most of us would dread. They took it for a test run after fitting the new clutch, and found that it was still slipping in 3rd & 4th gear.
After having a lengthy conversation with the service manager, he explained that when they removed the old clutch, the DMF had a degree of play in it that split the camp on whether that too would need replacing due to excess play. Knowing how expensive they are to replace, and that it wasn't 100% that it was on definitely on its way too, they fitted the new clutch. Then, when they took the car for a test run, the clutch slip was still present, so worst fears were confirmed.
The service manager (Dave) I have to say was pretty good on the whole. He explained that they do everything they can to avoid replacing the DMF unless absolutely necessary as not only was it hellishly expensie for me, but would take up a considerable chunk of their time again to remove the old clutch & fit the new DMF. He explained that he'd try to get some money off from Honda as a gesture of goodwilll, but did set the expectation that they may refuse.
After a paniced text to Faddy about this (cheers for the advice btw!), I asked them to keep the old clutch & DMF so I could photograph it for reference.
Here's the old friction plate (notice the darker colour towards the top)
And the pressure plate which had failed
Finally, the old DMF (again, notice the darker colour at the top from heat)
There was noticeable play in the DMF from just having a quick fiddle with it, and apparently this was more prevelant when actually on the car. As I half expected, Honda refused to discount the DMF due to the mileage being over 50k (done 77k), so Dave did a 5% discount on the Honda Happiness price for the clutch replacement as a gesture of goodwill. Also, Howards WSM do a 10% discount for the S2000 club, and Dave said he'd be happy to look at this for us if he's appraoached by the club (maybe an 'official' type e-mail from Admins/Mods?)
So, the upshot being the car now drives like an absolute dream - feels really tight & torquey, although my bank account has been absolutely slaughtered! I have to admit to not knowing much about the DMF function before this whole expereience, but found this video to be extremely useful:
DMF 3D animation
Al.