Clutch Pressure Plate failure

[nfgusedautopart]

(this is a resolved issue in that the clutch assembly has been replaced.)
The clutch in my recently acquired 2003 A4 Avant started behaving badly a few weeks after i bought it. it was a bizarre mix of symptoms, some of it reminding me of bad hydraulics, but also there was slippage and shudder and general difficulty all around.
this is what was found when my mechanic opened it up:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nfgused...384905/detail/

which certainly explains the random grab bag of symptoms. my theory is that the part probably had a manufacturing defect from day one, but it took 10s of thousands of miles before the pressure plate broke (about 121k miles when the failure occurred, no maintenence history available so no idea if the clutch assembly was original or a replacement.)
anyone else have any theories?

[dirtybrd]

Wow, I've been an auto tech for 15yrs. and have never seen a PP broken in half.

[nfgusedautopart]

everybody who has seen it has been suitably impressed. the owner of the dealership where i got the car also races SCCA (i'm a tech inspector, i sometimes inspect his race cars), and neither of us has ever seen anything like it racing either, and the abuse level is much higher on the track.

[Jeff]

Wow. And what condition was the clutch disc itself? I've destroyed clutches down to the bare rivets, and as Chris mentioned...have NEVER seen this before.

[nfgusedautopart]

i didn't get a look at the clutch disk. i do see wear on the pressure plate suggesting the disk was down to the rivets. heat from the slippage might have provoked failure in the pressure plate, but the fatigue fracture looks like something that had been working for a while.

[mike-2ptzero]

Wow, I've been an auto tech for 15yrs. and have never seen a PP broken in half.

I have seen a few posted on the A4 forums, I even had one break into 5 pieces after a trip to LACR a few years ago. I even had to drive it home 2 hrs without being able to shift gears with the car running.


The pressure plate tends to break like this when the clutch slips too much causing too much heat in the pressure plate.