Citroen Internal Clutches for Sale in South Africa

The engine revs rise but the car does not accelerate with them, and it shows up first in the higher gears under load — third or fourth on an incline is where you will notice it before anywhere else. There is usually a hot friction smell after traffic. The reason not to live with it: a slipping clutch generates enormous heat at the flywheel face, so a job that would have been a R3,000 kit becomes a R10,000 repair once the flywheel is scored.

Kits through our network are competitively priced — around R2,086 for the C2, Xsara and C5 applications, with Valeo kits for the C5 at R3,400 to R5,000. Labour at an accredited independent runs R3,950 to R7,200, because the gearbox has to come out. If the car has a dual-mass flywheel, have it measured while everything is apart and budget for the possibility before you start. Send the engine code for a quote.

120,000 to 180,000 km on a well-driven C2, C3 or Xsara manual. Short city trips, carrying loads and resting a foot on the pedal cut that hard, and we regularly see clutches out under 70,000 km on cars that do nothing but traffic. Towing shortens it further again. The variable is almost entirely how often the disc is asked to slip, which is why two identical cars with identical mileage can be at opposite ends of that range.

On the automatic gearboxes, a transmission specialist can split the unit and renew the internal clutch packs rather than fitting a complete exchange gearbox. It is genuinely skilled work — the packs have to be shimmed to the correct clearance and the box reassembled to specification — and not every transmission shop takes it on. Price varies considerably with the specialist, so get two quotes and ask each how many they have done.

Pro Citroen Spares and our supplier network carry Sachs, Valeo, LUK and Motopart kits for the C2, C3, Xsara, C3 Aircross and C5. Those first three are the companies that supplied the original clutches, so buying their kit through the aftermarket gets you the same engineering for less. Send the VIN — clutch diameter varies with engine even within a single model, and the kits look alike in a photograph.