another DMF thread

 

VW engineering at its finest

 

11,000 Miles - it may as well be a sevice item

 

Its a poor showing when the brake pads outlast the DMF

I cannot believe that such a simple item cant be re engineered to last for years. The quality of the DMF is what you would expect if it was made in China or India,not Germany.

My split screen bus has a smoother take up of power and thats with 170 bhp going thru a stage 2 clutch !!!

Ill be replacing the dmf/clutch as a matter of course when I take my gearbox to be rebuilt (as that is as slack/loose as dutch lady of the night.)

 I wonder if the new t5 facelift transporters still have the same design of DMF as I think they have all new 4 pot engines ?

.......Probably

 

There are plenty of supporters for a SMF (conventional one-piece) instead, but also plenty of others who believe the DMF is needed to protect the gearbox.

 

All in all it is hard to dismiss crap DMFs as just a rare problem highlighted by ease of access to internet forums.

We reently got rid of the wifes 1 series BMW [17,000 miles] as it had terrible dmf judder problems, along with a few other minor issues. there's a forum with a huge thread about it on the 1 series. BMW have stopped  sanctioning new clutches and are doing a remap to "ease the effects"!!! what they did to ours was map the power down and enable somehow the revs to cause the clutch to slip a bit on gearchange.... mental.. it really noticed as well. so we got rid while there was a bit of warranty.

I think I've noticed a small judder when reversing on full lock at 22k miles - sound like it? I don't get to use my van much at the moment so would rather wait until they come up with a decent design - do away with dmf entirely like some have said.

Yes, and then some.  Sometimes they can even break the bell housing and/or gearbox casing.  Read some of the many threads here about DMFs (and be afraid, very afraid .....).

 

Someone posted on here that when it's buggered it will judder every time not intermittently.

 

I'm convinced that really* smooth driving, clutch action and power delivery (ie when pulling away or any time the clutch is engaged/disengaged) must surely help to make it last longer, so that's my strategy anyway.  Some of the failures reported here include vans with unknown history (ie they may have been thrashed).  Mine's on 50k miles now by the way.

 

Having said that I acknowledge that some will have been driven carefully since new, so in those cases maybe it's just bad luck not bad driving.

 

* as in, paranoid-carefully, as if the clutch is made of eggshell, so to speak. 

 

And your driveshafts will certainly last longer under that regime :)

 

I'd add to that being very gentle on the throttle anytime the revs are below 1,800 on the 5 cyl TDI and 2,000 revs for the 4 cyls (the 1.9 is known for being a coarse engine with lots of low rev vibrations and surges, which give the DMF a hard time).  Just because our TDIs will pull hard at low revs doesn't mean it is very good for them.

 

 

BBB - I don't recall reading about anyone having flywheel problems with the 6sp auto fitted to T5s, but I think I've read about their own particular "foibles", I'm sure a search on "auto" with any date specified will retrieve them.

 

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