driver abuse?

[a34me]

hi everybody,
driving a 2006 A3 turbo (2.0 6 speed manual)
i recently was on the highway and my clutch died, i could not get it in any gear and i had to drift off the highway in neutral. I had initially thought that the clutch linkage had failed and there would be no major damage. However after an audi Technician looked at it he determined that the cause was driver abuse. apparently the gears melted..... however, i only drive the car 2-3 times a month (maybe a 100 miles a mont). I do drive fast but i never go past 5.5 RPMs and i keep it below 90.
when i pulled over i found the battery cover in the engine fans (located behind the grill) they were clearly jammed and not working. Is it possible the jammed fan is the cause of the meltage? Any other reasons this could have happened, is audis driver abuse claim valid.
This is not my car and its 3K of damage so any kind of insight would be much appreciated.
Thanks, Jon

[Moodshadow]

I'm no expert but have you taken the car in on a warranty job? Perhaps they are quoting driver abuse because they don't like having to allocate £3k of their targets on warranty work!
I would try and get a second opinion if possible.

[a34me]

Thanks a lot for your insight
I'll let you know how everything goes

-Jon

[TheEggShell]

I don't know about Audis, but the engine management system on my old VW used to put the car into limp mode if it thoght there was going to be any damage done to the engine. I can't see why Audi engines wouldn't have something similar (if not identical) to prevent any kind of damage caused by an abusive driver :P

But I am merely guessing at that mate!