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I have a car with the VAG 7-speed dry clutch DSG gearbox, which is a preselect automatic gearbox with two drive shafts and two clutches.

The clutches started to squeal on taking up the drive, and to some extent when shifting intermediate gears, getting progressively more noisy. I took the vehicle to the main agent and they replaced the clutch pack under warranty at 49K miles.

The chief technician told me that this gearbox has been discontinued. I previously ran another model with the 6-speed wet clutch DSG gearbox to high mileage with no clutch problems.

Now, the squealing has begun again, after less than 20K miles, and the car is out of warranty. Can I expect to have to keep replacing the clutch pack on this gearbox at frequent intervals?

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  • It's kind of hard to say exactly what the life expectancy is because driving styles are very different. You may drive completely different from me. If you drive harder, you'd expect it to last a shorter period. To me, considering this type of gear box arrangement pre-selects the next gear for you and controls the clutch in doing so, you should see very little wear in the clutch, if any at all. That you're getting noise again after 20k really surprises me.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Sep 27, 2019 at 16:57
  • @Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 my mileage is mostly urban, so clutch use is going to be heavy – although I select neutral when stationary so the clutch doesn't drag. Wear on the selection mechanism must be considerable too, as it preselects the next gear more often than the gear is actually shifted. For example in 3rd gear it might keep switching the next gear selection between 2nd and 4th as the speed goes down and up in traffic. I don't do drag starts: the clutch is actually quite snatchy so I let it engage before I give it any gas. My driving style is "sympathetic": no more of anything than necessary.
    – Weather Vane
    Sep 27, 2019 at 17:23
  • Wear incurs most during engagement/disengagement, as you stated, but it's far worse on a regular clutch than with your style of clutch. The reason why is, your clutch is never under load (or very, very, minimal load) when it changes from one gear to another. You are probably causing it more wear than you'd expect by shifting it into neutral while sitting still. Engineers have thought of all of this stuff prior to ever putting it into a vehicle. All I'm saying is, even in around town driving, you aren't putting that much wear on your clutches because of how they operate.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Sep 27, 2019 at 19:35

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