T4 Needs New Clutch....Reccomendations!

If I was to replace mine it would be a DMF. There are legitimate engineering reasons for the manufacturers using them, & carmakers are all for making their products cheaper & not installing components that aren't necessary particularly when the new buyer can't see it. The original designer LUK started supplying the DMF in the mid 90s & have so ever since. It's not just VW that use them. I know Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat, Lancia, Mercedes, Volvo & Subaru use them in their diesels & probably many others.

Having had the van for two years after the clutch upgrade (sold it now) i had no issues at all but i could have been lucky, personally didn't notice any difference once i changed it but doesn't mean its meant to be right thing to do, personally i had no idea what side affects could be i just went off the advice of the mechanic and in the future would be getting the dual fly wheel clutch like the manufacturer states...

Good luck with it maybe post what you chose and how much it all was in the end for future reading. Peace.

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Originally Posted by jets

If I was to replace mine it would be a DMF. There are legitimate engineering reasons for the manufacturers using them, & carmakers are all for making their products cheaper & not installing components that aren't necessary particularly when the new buyer can't see it. The original designer LUK started supplying the DMF in the mid 90s & have so ever since. It's not just VW that use them. I know Renault, Volvo & Subaru use them in their diesels & probably many others.

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i agree most of the industrie works on a cost cutting basses but having said that, if i put it real simple:
what a dmf does is pretty much the same as what a normal clutch plate does, they both have some sort of shock absorber ( springs in a conventional clutch plate ) to for come shock loading of the rest off the drive line.
would it be fair to say that if a company like exedy sells conversion kits it would have to be a descent solution ?
thanks all so far for your imput, i let you know what i'll fitt in the end (-:
thanks again

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Originally Posted by jets

If I was to replace mine it would be a DMF. There are legitimate engineering reasons for the manufacturers using them, & carmakers are all for making their products cheaper & not installing components that aren't necessary particularly when the new buyer can't see it. The original designer LUK started supplying the DMF in the mid 90s & have so ever since. It's not just VW that use them. I know Renault, Volvo & Subaru use them in their diesels & probably many others.

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I don't really agree with your sentiments on this one , a solid flywheel has been successful for the last nearly hundred years so I don't see an advantage in putting one in a petrol engine vehicle . The price is not cheaper for the DMF in comparison to the solid so that one does not wash , but it seems that for a diesel it is a better option .This item is worth a read Should I convert my DMF to a Solid flywheel? Pros and cons. . And last input it seems we are also falling victim into technology design apparently car makers are building engines and transmissions with the DMF as the main interface between the two components so it would seem legitimate to think that the DMF is here to stay like it or hate it .

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Originally Posted by Sunny43.5

The price is not cheaper for the DMF in comparison to the solid so that one does not wash

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The SMF IS cheaper than the DMF, that is why owners fit them, to save money. The point I was making is that it cost the manufacturer to install the DMF which increases the price on the showroom floor & wouldn't be done if there wasn't a clear advantage.
I haven't time to look up the article by LUK in a trade magazine but will try & find it & post back.

No problem jets , it would be an interesting read . I did some research last night and the positives seem to be smoother gear changes as the DMF will absorb the shock from the clutch release and also absorb the load from the engine , apparently car makers now build with the DMF as an integral part of the drive train so they obviously see an advantage in a smooth drive . Like I said I don't believe they are necessary in a petrol engine but I have to accept like some other technology DMF DSG DPF EGR there is not much we can do about it . I'll go back to my time machine and hope I can avoid the future Ha Ha .

That link was a bitt more of an insepide sunny43.5, thanks for that.
i do see the benefit but i cant help bit that the faillure rate of the dmf in t4 are a bit high, to high for my liking.
jets, im dead keen to read up about what luk hs to say and will go from there (;

Also i imagani that the dmf of today might be an improvement over the the one fitted in 99 or would they still be the same design ?
thanks everyone

I think the reason the 2.0 litre petrol engines have the DMF is because VW dropped the 2.5 5 pot and the 4 pot would have problems pulling away with the heavy weight of the van fully loaded so they needed a way of getting the smooth transition from stop to go . Problem is that I personally believe the 4 pot was way too underpowered for a van of the T5 weight . I have found several times over the last ten years where the 4 pot was hard pressed to pull its fat arse up some steep driveways . One particular one in the hinterland of the Gold Coast took me about five attempts to get the van back onto the road !! I tried reversing failed miserably and then I tried forwards took many attempts but the final method was to back the van into the owners garden bed of flowers lots of throttle and make a running go at it front wheels scrabbling for grip in the dirt and then when it hit the concrete lots of smoking clutch and then only just made it out . In my mind it was a VW failure because if the van was loaded with the allowable weight it would still be there today !! I would hate to think how much the springs inside the DMF were compressed with those attempts , not saying that a solid one would have done it any better but at least the springs would not have been damaged .

After much searching I found the article in The Automotive Engineer, Oct.'11. I said previously in the thread that manufacturers started using the DMF in the mid nineties. It was in fact 1985, that's nearly thirty years ago. The article states [Oct '11] that a total of 5 million flywheels are supplied to manufacturers & aftermarket every year.
Function of the LuK DMF.
"Physical study of drive trains has revealed that the resonance speed range can be shifted by changing the allocation of angular moments.
As the transmission angular momentum increases, the resonance speed, which generates loud noise, drops below the idle speed & thus falls outside the engine's rev. range.
Using the DMF, LuK was able to develop a large-scale product that embodies this principle & thereby keeps resonance amplitude extremely low."
The article shows a cutaway of the DMF.
"As shown in the function diagram, using the DMF the angular moment is decreased in front of the torsion damper & increased behind it. The angular moment of the engine is now assigned to the primary mass of the DMF, while that of the transmission is assigned to the secondary mass including the clutch drive plate & the clutch pressure plate. In this way, the resonance speed is shifted from approx. 1300 rpm to about 300 rpm & can no longer interfere with driving comfort, as the engine is not operated in this speed range.
An added positive effect is provided by the reduced angular momentum on the engine side. Gear changing is improved thanks to the lower mass to be synchronised, & the synchromesh units are subject to less wear.
With previous conventional flywheels & torsion-damped clutch plates, the torsional vibrations in the idle speed range were transmitted to the transmission with the least possible filtering, causing the teeth of the transmission gears to strike against one another [transmission rattle]. The use of a DMF however, filters out the torsional vibrations of the engine by the complex construction of the torsion damper, preventing vibration from affecting the transmission components-rattling does not occur & driver comfort is fully ensured."

I know personally of this happening to a neighbour. His Nissan ute was at the dealers having a second clutch replaced at around from memory around 80,000km. He asked about having a SMF installed because it was cheaper. He was told that they wouldn't warrant the job because he would get gearbox noises. He thought they were trying to rip him off & chose to go ahead with the SMF. Straight away he had gearbox rattle at idle. He had had a no. of issues with the vehicle & decided to sell it & didn't want to sell privately because of the noise. He finished up trading it on a new Isuzu ute at a very low trade in figure.
Back to the article.
"The advantages of the LuK duel-mass flywheel at a glance
first-class driving comfort
absorption of vibrations
noise insulation
fuel saving due to lower engine speeds
increased gear changing comfort
less synchronisation wear
overload protection for the drive train"
There was much more in the article on failure diagnosis etc. but what I have typed is the general guts of the article.

right, (-: i bit the bullet yesterday and ordered a dmf clutch kit,
my reasoning, for every bad conversion story i can find a good so that didn't help me one way or another, initial price is not that much difference. i think the current clutch is the first one, well i hope, i ordered a luk unit and if that last for another 200.000 than ill be happy (-:
there is very little proper documented about these clutches and made me go the safe way although i doubt that it would harm gearboxes and or crancks..
my manual is still finding its way to me by aus post but can someone tell me if i need any special tools for this job ?does a t4 2.5 tdi acv run those special headed bolts on the flywheel ?
thanks again, mick