I have been nursing my poorly coop around for the last 3 months as it has a slipping clutch. I really wanted to book it into Motormech as they charge £339, but they are down in Birmingham (my car is in Darlington ATM), and could not do the job on a Saturday.

So i rang garages closer to home (F.A.S.T and FIAT) but they are a total rip-off, wanting £515 and £600 to do the job!!

Therefore I rang Mr. Clutch and they can replace my clutch this Saturday for £305.

However I've done a bit of looking around and it looks like they won't use FIAT parts but their own?! Is this true even for the coupe, and if so have people had any recent experience with them?!

Gonna ring them and ask if i can supply the clutch......

I think someone on here had problems with Mr Clutch. Do a search (?)

Ross

Mr clutch rings a bell, I seem to remember reading about some bad experiences - best to do a search I think!

Ahhh balls, just done a search! I thought i remembered them being mentioned on here!

I might just ring him up and say "Can you please be honest with me, are you going to pull my pants down?!"

Just phone them up and tell them u like your car and wont subject it to them

See what they say.

Ross

p.s. in reality just phone and cancel and pay the money for a specialist.

Yeah but it's not like they're going to admit it if they're intending to rip you off.

I bought my coupe off a chap in Leeds who had the clutch replaced by a garage local to him. He rated them very highly - I can't remember the name, but if you want I can check through my receipts when I get home and let you know?

I have heard bad things about them

Make the time and go to Paul at Motormech. If they [censored] it up, it will cost soooo much more than just going to Paul.

You could try Turin Motors in Leeds.

I had my clutch replaced at a Mr clutch about 5 months ago, and its been fine. Although i took it to my local garage for a few minor jobs doing and he said they forgot to do up a few brackets and stuff, but nowt major really. The other thing is that they said they'd do it in a day and it actually took 3 days.
Also the clutches they use are re-conditioned ones-i didnt realise this until after it was done, i was reading through all the guff and they get these clutches and replace 21 of the 24 parts on a clutch, or something like that.
Overall it wasnt half as bad as people have made out, id probably use them again

I had a friend take a car to Mr Clutch and it came back with a big scratch on it which they denied doing.

Avoid, Avoid, Avoid!!

Woodstock in Hull?

Buy a clutch from AA and ask Mr Clutch to fit it? If the above is so, make a big show of inspecting the car before you leave it with them

I should think that skill level and quality varies widely from branch to branch with chains/franchises like that

Surely Walkers in Northallerton would do it? I doubt they would be as cheap as Mr Clutch, but I would have thought they would do a good job.

I agree that its down to the individual you get doing the job.

I hear theres one individual, Paul they call him, id sort a date that you can both make for him to do it!

it is down to the person fitting admittedly, but the reviews aren't too promising (38% positive) some scary stuff there too (subframe bolts falling out, not being done up etc)

mr clutch reviews

personally i'd take a day off (sick? did i say that? hmmm! ), go to motormech and do a bit of shopping or just wander round the bullring shopping centre

I hear the cinema opposite has good reviews!

Honest.....

Genraly they are Total and utter ****
Recent issues i know of

Rover 220 Turbo.... They forgot to fill it up with oil Doh

Pug 306 Xsi, They snaped the bolts on the back of the block that holds on the Driveshaft intermidiat bearing (they should not have even toutched them!

They always seam to come up with the same old **** to put your bill up normaly any of the following you will 99% of the time get atleast one added on even if there is nothing wrong

Crank shaft oil seal leaking £20-£50 (if it had gone there would be oil driping out between the box and engine

Cv Boots all the time @ a shocking £30-£40

Gear selector bushes @£20-£50

And the mechanics are shit and forget to do things up!

I would never, NEVER, use Mr. Clutch.

Years ago, they replaced the clutch on my Uno Turbo, I used to own. On the drive back home, I lost all drive in the Uno. Called the vehicle recovery chaps, and got the car towed to my home. (It was not fixable).

On closer inspection, they hadn't tightened up the 6 bolts that held the internal CV joint to the gear-box. A couple of the bolts had come lose, and the rest had snapped or bent. I was lucky. In that after removing the old sheared bolts, and bent ones, I bought a new set, and the car was fine (to a point). I was also lucky that I was merely pulling away, rather than travelling at speed. If I'd lost drive on one side, or the same incident had happened at speed, I don't think the car would have been controllable, and would have resulted in a serious incident.

Putting that aside, the clutch lasted 7k miles! And caused the cable to snap as it was so heavy.

It's up to you of course, but my recomendation would be to steer well clear.

I used Mr. clutch in Leigh a couple of years back (well looking through my posts, it seems it was the old forum) because PowerFiat was fully booked for the following few weeks. After hearing all the horror stories on here it went through fine. Ok it took a little longer than normal because it needed a different clutch to that indicated in their book but they didn't add any miles to it (I was told they'll be ragging it overnight).

It cost me £250 and with between 260-280bhp it has now covered around 35,000 miles. Absolutely no trouble at all.

Like any garage or shop chain, it depends on the guys that do the work on your car.

So are you still willing to take your chances or are you going to take your car to a proper specialist? You never know - you might get a Mr. clutch chap that does a good job....

FO me if powerfiat charge £399 then this is pretty much as cheap as you should spend. anyone costing less will be worse! The parts are £250 ish I think?? AVOID. USe specialist or another garage.

Guys, just be aware that this is a public forum. Any personal experiences are ok to be posted, backed by factual comments, but libellous slurs and generalisations are not. Please keep it clean.

havent read all the posts...but from experience, i took my old mitsi galant there for a clutch change and they told me it was too difficult a job for them as it was a 'rare' car...did it myself in the end and it was in no way any more difficult than anything else ive worked on!

i guess it varies from site to site, this was in manchester...but personally id avoid them!

Roger once told me that the cheapest new Clutch for the coop is a Valeo. Apparently there aren't any cheap and nasty ones they can fit. He did point out that they probably didn't realise it was this expensive but couldn't change their minds when they had quoted me. The above quoted price of £305 certainly adds up in this case. They'll possibly pay less for the part also?

They can probably afford to do it cheaper because
a) that's all they do all day and they have plenty of room to do lots at once.
b) As a chain company, they're paying youngsters to do the work and with the constant turnaround, they can afford to be cheaper.

Specialists may only have one ramp and it simply doesn't pay them to do these jobs at these prices. Any of these 'menial' tasks will therefore be dearer. Going to a specialist to fit exactly the same part will cost more because you are paying for all of his knowledge and expertise, and rightly so. His 2 hours is worth a lot more than some 17 year old in Mr clutch.

Ask Mr Clutch to change a coop's cambelt though, and you likely won't see your car again.

The Valeo standard clutch kit is only £125, i opted for new standard clutch over an uprated one for the time being....

Well i rang the guy up and he said the clutch would either be a L-UK (I think?!) or valeo clutch. I'm gonna give them ago........ i'll keep you all posted!!

LUK clutch's are used in the VAG group... not too bad by all accounts.

With regards to the reconditioned clutch's ... 90% of clutch's on the market are exchange, like starter motors, alternators etc. This purley means they have two types of materials on one unit. Reusable and non-reusable.

Hope this clears that up.

I have never used Mr crutch so can't comment

Well tomorrow is the day of reckoning!! I so very nearly cancelled my booking, and took the coop to Motormech, but I resisted!

I thought i was nervous last weekend, when i had to give a best man speech, but that was nothing compared to the days leading to a Mr. Clutch appointment!!!

nick, keep us updated. be interested to know the quality of the work and the total cost

............ ........... well my coupe hasn't quite made it home yet .......... in fact it is still in pieces on a Mr. Clutch ramp in Durham!!

I've been told that it is down to a faulty release bearing, and so another has been ordered today. I have no idea what this means, as the workings of a clutch is a black art to me. However i think Mr. Clutch is being honest with me. We had a good chat about the reputation of Mr. Clutch garages when I dropped the car off on saturday, and he seems just as annoyed as me that this problem has cropped up!

Luckily I now have a company car to abuse, so I have told him to take his time and make sure it's 100%, ready for me to test at the weekend!

They use Valeo (sp?!) clutches by the way!

Any decent garage wouldnt NOT replace the release bearing.

Ross