National clutches fail within 4000 miles
 

Hi all,

Andy Willi is apparently up and running again although I am struggling to reach him.
He did both my ZTT and my ZT in prep for Philt4s map.
Unfortunately both clutches failed within 4000 miles, in fact my ZT barely covered 2000 I think.
I came across a post from late 2018 naming and shaming a customer of his for having work done and never paying.
In the same vein I can’t help but feel if he’s working again that he should honour the work carried out that was clearly sub standard.
I’m not saying it was his fault, National clutches may have had a bad batch for example.
I had already taken a trip from Plymouth to Doncaster and back to have the ZTTs clutch re looked at and sold it a couple of months later as I felt it wasn’t right but thought it might just be in my head. I later had a message from the chap calling me a tw*t for selling him a car with a dodgy clutch. Not long after, despite having the wheels and body resprayed and a host of mods done I found it scrapped.
I still have my ZT on the driveway begging for the clutch to be redone. I got hold of Andy ages ago but suddenly he stopped communicating with me.
Do I have any recourse? Does anyone know how to get hold of him?
I left him to it, sympathising with his situation but apparently he’s back fitting and repairing so I absolutely believe he should honour the work that has failed so quickly. Between the two cars and the drive to Doncaster I spent over £1100

What do you think?

Apologies in advance if this is not the correct area to seek advice.

I feel for you.

Had you been a customer of mine, I would have rectified this asap but then, I would never have fitted a National brand of clutch!
I'll only fit LUK, Sachs, AP/Borg & Beck clutches.

As for any recourse now, it may be a little too late & I can only speak for myself regarding honouring warranties.

I do hope you get this sorted though.

What kind of timescale are we talking? I might have mis-read the post, though!

Do the right thing.
 

Zach another £200 and you could of had both the clutches & master And slaves done at the place i had both my MGZT, and my Freelander done 2yrs warranty or 18,000 miles which ever comes first no questions asked replacement, i think i told you this at the time while you were at the Nano.


I also feel a little bad as at the same time i suggested contacting Andy, we all know in life we live and learn, also looking back if i remember at the time it was about cost, as you were on a budget then, therefore my suggestion and also at the time it was not known what clutches he was using, but we do now :em: i think you know me well enough if it had been known i would never have suggested to try him, hopefully he will step up to the plate and sort something out with you.

What has failed, is it the clutch itself or the hydraulic side? I ask this because you will find a large number of posts regarding this issue on this site.

I had an LUK clutch go on my ZT-T, the master failed after 13 months and 3000 miles, and again on the slave a further 11 months later. Not covered by warranty, over 12 months, and not fitted by Andy Willy but Trikey who I do not blame at all. Replacement clutches are notorious now for failures like this and it doesn't seem to matter whose you buy. Even the Tazu have failed prematurely. Big Russ has told me that customers of his have had this happen and in some cases repeatedly, so he advisors anyone wanting a 75/ZT to always go for an auto and avoid the manuals.

Both clutches started having issues within the first year. The estate almost straight away.
The ZT initially suffered a failed Tazu slave but slippage was always an issue from the National clutch.

Goodness!! Isn’t hind sight a fine thing. God of clutches, at that time had a really good portfolio. He did say that it was known, there was a bad batch of Tazu slaves when I called with the first obvious complete failure (the Tazu slave had eaten into its own body due to failed bearings) unfortunately that’s where our communications came to an end. I just stopped being able to reach him.
Andy seemed a stellar chap, fingers crossed he’ll get in touch.

Cheers

Not good service.
 

A few years ago when I found out what was being charged for a clutch swap I posted that it seemed expensive, I then had a load of members telling me how wrong I was but, he later admitted that he was using National clutches and Marina Brian did some digging on costs, if you ordered a set amount the price was as low as £35. It then became obvious that over £100 per hour was being made in labour charges for fitting cheap parts. I wouldn't fit one to my cars and spent £200 on an LUK one with a genuine Rover slave, it's not about anything other than making a maximum amount of money. Do you think you'll get the job redone at his expense with a better quality clutch? I'll take a wild guess at no and that's enough of a lesson for any member to learn, you don't always get what you pay for. The best thing you can do is buy your own clutch and pay for a proper job with one of the traders found on here.

Andy has yet to confirm to any of the club officials that he's working on clutch replacements again, and indeed is still just a regional secretary on here not a trader as before.

I would suggest you contact actros who it was that announced andy's return to ask Andy Willi to get in touch with you again regarding this outstanding issue you have. Clearly there is a good line of communication between the two of them.

For what it's worth (and it might not be much) the National Clutch and LUK slave cylinder Andy fitted to my ZT-T on 11th of January 2015 is still working perfectly on my car with it having covered an additional 27,783 miles so far. I can only speak as I find.

Hmmm. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to condemn all manual ZTs/75s, better perhaps to take the manufacturers to task and resolve the issue.
DMGRS are still making a portion of their living supplying parts for and fitting manual clutches are they not? They must still be confident in the process.
As I mentioned in my post, I’m not blaming as such, he could have been unlucky with a range of bad parts.
However, as the point of advise, purchase and fitment, there’s a responsibility to be reachable, to offer a degree of after sales service, to liaise with the companies that won’t liaise with you, as you were not the buyer of the product.