Between a rock and a hard place

[Hazell B]

Where's the least pleasant place to have your car break down?

I managed to let chunks of my clutch escape the Range Rover today (fourth time :mark: ) while turning round on an industrial estate in Sheffield. To my right a building claimed to house 'Security' but looked more like a gun warehouse and/or meth lab. To my left a sex shop.

Try explaining that to a recovery man :p :
In the end I called my partner and he collected me. We left the vehicle there in the hope it would vanish.

[MrJan]

A sad state of affairs indeed. I can't believe that you broke down in Sheffield of all places, my heart goes out to you Hazell ;) :p :

[driveace]

Sounds like you enjoy spending cash! 4 clutches in a Range Rover sounds expensive .Is that over a period of 10 years or do you love to set off in 3rd gear?
I look after my cars and have Never once broken down in 50 years of driving!
Its the guy who sits on my shoulder who looks after me!
Oh and I have C and G and NCC in motor vehicle engineering,so it does help

[Daniel]

:uhoh: I could but I shouldn't and I won't :mark:

[Dave B]

Left-rear puncture halfway through the Dartford Tunnel at ~50mph doesn't leave much room for error, that's probably my personal best :\

[Hazell B]

Sounds like you enjoy spending cash!


I can afford it.



do you love to set off in 3rd gear?


No, I can drive :rolleyes:

We recovered it at 3am, which on a friday night/saturday morning in Sheffield (near the Owl's football ground) is educational to say the least :p :
It could have been so much worse though. I was planning to bring a horse back from York originally, the trip to Sheffield was second choice. Breaking down with a young horse in a trailer on a busy yet single lane A road isn't fun at all.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Hazell, I cannot understand how you could go through 4 clutches though. I don't want to demean your driving but there is something wrong there. No vehicle should go through more than ONE clutch it its lifetime and I include heavy lorries in that statement. If you are eating clutches, either your transmission was built with a fatal flaw that is allowing way too much slippage or you are slipping the clutch in a fashion.

We all have vehicles break down, but four clutches??? I cant believe you are a bad driver, from the contrary I suspect you are probably very good so I am going to say someone was having a nap on the assembly line when your transmission was built.....

[Hazell B]

Yeah, it's not the whole clutch and it's based in a problem with design Mark.

P38 Range Rovers are prone to two tiny slips of metal and the fork thingies in the clutch mechanism failing - they push out through a rubber bung and dangle down visibly. LDV vans do the same, I'm told.

[Jag_Warrior]

Over what period of time has your Range Rover eaten 4 clutches?

[Eki]

I once drove to a ditch on a dark gravel road near a national park. There was no houses, no signs, no lights, just dark forest. Luckily I had a GPS navigator and a mobile phone so I could call a tow truck and tell it where I was, so it took less than two hours to get out of the ditch.

[ioan]

I managed to let chunks of my clutch escape the Range Rover today (fourth time :mark: )

If I would be you I'd read that car's Instructions Manual, it might say that you don't have an automatic transmission built in, no matter what you believed until now. :p :

[GridGirl]

I drive through Hilsborough all the time and its not that bad. I can think of loads of places that are much worse to break down than there. :s

[Hazell B]

Over what period of time has your Range Rover eaten 4 clutches?


Where did I say it had eaten four clutches? I didn't. I said a part of the clutch has tried to escape four times - it's never been replaced wholesale. Might be this time, though :(
It's over ten or eleven months.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Where did I say it had eaten four clutches? I didn't. I said a part of the clutch has tried to escape four times - it's never been replaced wholesale. Might be this time, though :(
It's over ten or eleven months.

Hazell, just burn it for the insurance. Say it happened in that bad neighbourhood....

Automatic transmissions are better for towing in any case.

[driveace]

SO your talking about the clutch operating lever (clutch forks) wearing through the pivot bolt then ?
This has been a common fault with Land Rover Disco,s for ages.The clutch forks were not hardened enough

[Hazell B]

Hazell, just burn it for the insurance. Say it happened in that bad neighbourhood....

Automatic transmissions are better for towing in any case.

Burn, yes I would if I had the nerve :p :
Actually, I love the old beastie too much to set him alight. He's considered a very expensive pet :rolleyes:

To be fair, we've tried one auto and hated it for our kind of towing (lots of off road stuff) and I prefere manual anyhow. You've got bigger engines than us, too :p :

Driveace - It's a P38 Range Rover problem (on the BMW engine, mainly) not a Discovery problem. The Discovery clutch does 250k no worries, or at least all of ours have ;)

[Jag_Warrior]

Where did I say it had eaten four clutches? I didn't. I said a part of the clutch has tried to escape four times - it's never been replaced wholesale. Might be this time, though :(
It's over ten or eleven months.

Pardon me. I made an assumption based on you saying that a mechanical bit "tried to escape". I was just curious if there might be a design flaw with the OEM parts that might be solved by going with an aftermarket source.

[Hazell B]

No worries Jag

The Land Rover man who fixes old Linus (the vehicle) for me fitted a new master cylinder and wrapped the two tiny pins that keep escaping with wire this time (he hopes that'll keep the loafers in place) then only charged me fifty quid. Result :up:

All the same, it'll all be in bits within six weeks I bet :s

[Mark in Oshawa]

Burn, yes I would if I had the nerve :p :
Actually, I love the old beastie too much to set him alight. He's considered a very expensive pet :rolleyes:

To be fair, we've tried one auto and hated it for our kind of towing (lots of off road stuff) and I prefere manual anyhow. You've got bigger engines than us, too :p :

Driveace - It's a P38 Range Rover problem (on the BMW engine, mainly) not a Discovery problem. The Discovery clutch does 250k no worries, or at least all of ours have ;)

The reason I recommend Auto's Hazell you can be the best person in the world with a clutch when the car/truck isn't under heavy load but modern manuals are syncromeshs and they don't take well to being shifted when there is a lot of torque being dialed up with that big weight behind them. A lorry/big rig such as the one I drive with a manual is a crash box. Much more rugged gears, much more used to abuse and you don't have as many problems with the clutches since once you are rolling, you can shift without it. An Auto for most light vehicle apps is a good compromise and in the US or Canada, Auto's are the norm in all light duty to medium duty trucks. Even in the big rigs we are seeing autoboxes now. My Freightliner (well my employer's) has a 10 speed auto. I can drive a crash box as easy as walking across the room but the writing is on the wall for the manual transmission for heavy applications trust me....

[Hazell B]

Ah Mark, but I like changing gear myself.
You're right though, big towing is better done without our intervention.