notchy gear change 2009 C5

[see5]

I would appreciate your views on notchy gear change with my 2009 HDI 2.0L C5 following replacement of clutch and flywheel. The story goes as follows. I have owned the car since Feb 2014. It has covered 71,000 miles everything was fine & I took it to the main dealer for it's annual MOT and a full service. On the service 'healthcheck' the agent noted that there was a "minor oil leak" around Rear Main seal" but assessed the issue as only "amber - keep an eye on it" . I said I was not particularly happy with this advice and the new General Manager called me back. He agreed that I should not have been told that as, in his long experience, mainly with Peugeot, such seepage normally indicated the clutch was on it's way out and recommended replacement (at a reduced cost in view of the bad advice). So the clutch was replaced but after about 500 miles, 2nd gear would engage but the gear stick continued to move about 3 inches further back! Car back to dealer who said gear linkage had failed and needed replacement (which I agreed to have done at a cost of about £200). 300 or so further miles and I got severe vibration in clutch pedal. Back to garage. They have now replaced clutch again and this time replaced flywheel as the manager says this should probably have been done on first clutch replacement. This work has been done at no cost to me.

Trouble is, , having been very smooth before all this began, the gear change is now quite notchy in all gears (but particularly 1st & 2nd). If I change gear slowly there is no problem but a normal quick change up or down the gears results in a slight crunch. After 40 years of driving a variety of vehicles (including an earlier model C5 which I drove for 170K miles) I have never required a clutch change and I don't know whether some 'tightness' and a notchy feel is normal after the work described? Do new clutches/flywheel assemblies require a degree of 'running-in' ?

Sorry about the long post. I really would appreciate your thoughts on whether this should be expected or whether I should go back to the garage again.

[Northern_Mike]

It sounds to me like they conned you into having a clutch replaced when it didn't need to be - you said yourself it was driving fine.

"Rear main seal"? Of what?.. engine? Gearbox?

I could see how a leaking crank oil seal could *eventually* after a long while, and only if it was really pissing oil out, cause clutch issues, but you'd know a long time before it actually failed, and in my experience of this, only with a Fiat Punto mind you, the clutch will start to slip a little first then stink of hot oil.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[daviemck2006]

I agree that the clutch being "on the way out" sounds like a bit of a con. I would have ignored their advice and kept an eye on oil levels. It could have done many more miles before needing replaced, and it sounds like they have made a poor job of doing it twice. Personally I would not go near that garage again. I was the main driver of a Fiat scudo 2.0 jtd taxi, which is the 110 hdi pug/cit engine and box. The clutch started feeling a wee bit slippy at 150000 miles, when I last drove it when I changed jobs it was at 177000 miles and the clutch was still just feeling a bit slippy, only if you really booted it in the gears. So as far as I am concerned you get many thousands of miles notice of clutch failure.

[see5]

Yep, it is possible that I was conned guys and I'm regretting having the initial work done. As I say, no previous experience of clutch problems in all my years (and over 1,000,000 miles) of driving so I bowed to Citroen Main Agent advice (would have thought they had a reputation to protect). If it was a con, it has cost them too as they have now had to supply & fit 2 clutches and 1 Flywheel for just one, reduced cost, clutch replacement job. Whether I was conned or not though, my main concern now is this 'notchiness' after the latest work on the car and am wondering what the cause of this could be? There is no vibration in the clutch pedal anymore and am wondering whether this could be a wearing-in issue following clutch/flywheel/gear linkage? I saw something (admittedly on a different make of vehicle) saying that the type of gearbox oil used can cause this symptom...anyone heard of that on Citroens? Baffled.