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Faulty Gear Change

My daughter kept complaining about driving along a dual carriageway, approaching a roundabout and not being able to select any gears at all, works fine around town and short trips on Motorway / Dual carriageway.

I eventually managed to get it to go wrong for me, as you approach the roundabout, you brake and then try to go down through the gears there is no pressure on the clutch peddle to enable gear selection, I managed to tease it into third gear whilst still rolling along and it was fine after that, my daughter cannot do this and has to come to a complete stop, to off the engine and re-start it and the clutch works fine.

She has been told its the DMF but I am not convinced as it also has this awful dual brake & Clutch Master cylinder (is there a biased system on the pedals to always defer to the brake working rather than the clutch if there is a potential problem)

The fact that the gear-change is fine round town, clutch doesn't drag at all leads me to believe that it is more of an electrical / sensor fault to do with this awful dual system!

Asked on 15 May 2011 by Ogri

Answered by Alan Ross
Well not being able to drive and see the car, makes it difficult to assess.
A worn DMF (dual mass flywheel) will cause difficulty in selecting gears with the engine running. Also you may hear a rattling sound when starting/stopping the engine(this is worn springs in the DMF). Also you may experience shuddering under full load at low revs (1500 to 2000).

Who was it who diagnosed the DMF? Was it a dealership? It might be adviasble to go for a second opinion.
If your car is not losing brake/clutch fluid then it is unlikely to be the clutch cylinder.
As for identifying a electrical /sensor fault, unless you can have the car undergo a diagnostic check or call on the use of a Auto electician it is very difficult to isolate that area.
Other than that you may want to try posting it in the Technical Matters section of the Backroom forum where someone may have experienced a similar problem and can shed some light on a possible fix: honestjohn.co.uk/forum/threads.htm?f=4
Regards
Alan
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