[sylvester]

I had the clutch on my 2003 CDTi Tourer replaced as a precaution nearly 18 months ago by a chap near Burton on Trent who was doing them as a special deal for £350. All that was the matter with the existing clutch was a sometime reluctance to snick cleanly into 1st gear. The car had 140,000 on the clock and as I'm the only owner I know it was the original.
Anyway, this has proved to be a disaster - the 'new' clutch has been nothing but trouble from day one. Even as I drove it away it was worse than when I delivered it and when I tried to change down on leaving the M1 it would not go into any gear. I stopped at the lights on the slip road and after a lot of trying it eventually got it into some gear and limped a mile or so to my daughters place in Kimberley.
The following morning I found that it was working ok so i took it back to Burton where the mechanic opened the bleed pipe and let out some air and said that should do it. I then drove home to Kent and all was well including a period of several miles of stop start on the M1.
It worked ok for a week or two but then one evening I had a repeat of my experience as above.
Several events since including changing the master cylinder but eventually I decided to take it back to Burton to get it fixed. The car was with the chap for three weeks and eventually told me he had traced the problem to a faulty slave cylinder so I travelled up to collect.
Must stop here pro tem but will complete this sorry tale later!