New here and I need some helpful advise.

[john4d]

Hi everyone,
My manual 1.9 tdi 2005 55 Passat has just let me down for the first time in the five years I've owned it (her). For a couple of months I've noticed, no, sensed something was not quite right. A noise that I refer to as a 'flutter' became an addition to the normal drive sound. This has progressively worsened over this period to a point that my 'paranoia' as stated by my wife, has been forgiven when even she recognises that something shouldn't sound like that. Abruptly on a motorway trip with clutch gave out, while in cruise the rev counter hit the ceiling while my speed dropped like a stone. Regaining control at low revs there was sufficient bite to enable me to get off the motorway and coast home, with crossed fingers at at every red light, on the B roads enroute. At each stop there was a smell of hot oil and on reaching home there was a stream of oil pooling on my drive way.
Prior to this event my initial thoughts were that any one of the four uv joints might be giving out. A MOT and service suggested it might be something less obvious. A holiday to Germany visiting relatives, a veteran diesel and Passat owner referred to my paranoia again 'it sounds like a diesel, what do you expect'. A visit to his local garage confirmed that the drive shafts were fine, to their satisfaction anyway. Not convinced I persuaded them to accompany me on a test drive, were they at last admitted that the was a sound, vibration, whatever. 'Thats your gears!' crap I thought, really? Gear changes are smooth up and down, but there was some unusual gear stick vibrations that appeared and was felt when accelerating or decelerating at different speed ranges. 'It might go tomorrow or last you a lifetime, see if it gets worse before you worry to much about it.' some advice. Still I made it down to the Austrian border and back at Autobahn speeds with no problems, although I gave my proposed lap of the Nurburgring a miss.
Since however I've scoured youtube and blogs and a common theme seems to have permeated to the surface, dual mass flywheel failure. It seems to match with the developing noise and vibration, which seemed to diminish with speed. But what about the clutch slip? I'm guessing that due to the oil leak contaminating the friction surfaces. What caused the oil leak that's the question that's frightening me the most. Till now I've never had a drop leaked anywhere. Could the fly wheel have failed? If it did does that mean something might have broken off and punctured an adjacent oil filled casing? Or in failing, over a period of time, created an imbalance that caused the gearbox shaft seal to wear excessively?
Bottom line is that in the very least I now have only a couple of options. The rest of the car is in to perfect condition to scrap, 1st option. And second, I can't, no won't, afford to pay a garage to carry out the repair. So I'll do it myself.
Has any one a blow by blow sequence of work to get to the clutch? Which it the preferred method, engine in or out?
Help!
John

[DSG4ME]

If you have oil pooling under the car and the clutch is performing poorly and smelling I'd imagine the hydraulics to the thrust bearing have failed, it's called a concentric bearing if it's in the clutch itself, otherwise the leak is outside of the box and if lucky a cheapish fix,

You are right it is ripe to scrap but only you can decide if that's the way to go, at 8 years old I wouldn't want to spend on it knowing how fault ridden the B6 can be.

[john4d]

Wish I'd joined this forum earlier, I didn't know how fault ridden these cars are, so much for German engineering! But I guess parts are made anywhere VW can get the best price so maybe the fault lays there.

I bit the bullet and proceeded to investigate myself. Gearbox out, I discovered a hole punctured through the diff wall into the clutch bell housing, hence oil loss. Result one ruined clutch. Further examination determined that the DMF had excessive end float where there shouldn't be although the rotational movement seemed fine.
New DMF and clutch assembly later and replacement 2nd hand gearbox, I'm back on the road good as new except for an annoying whine, on coasting or deceleration. from the 'overhauled gearbox'!

Out of interest I stripped my ruined gearbox to find bearing rollers and debris scattered throughout the box, even in the 5th gear chamber! The bearing that had failed was the out put shaft's housing mounted taper roller bearing. How or why it failed is a mystery, more so is how the rollers managed to vacate their assigned space!

John.

[vespa]

Qutote:-so much for German engineering!
No better than any other maker and no worse. For all the snide remarks about Rovers my 45 V6 was brilliant! So far my 2009 Passat has had more niggling faults.
( why do NASA use Rovers for there exploration of the planets and not VW's )