Project Nissan Qashqai 1.2 DMF & clutch

This could almost be titled ‘the clutch that didn’t need replacing’ because as it turns out, the flywheel and clutch on our 65,000-mile Qashqai still had a lot of life left in them. But when we collected the car earlier in the year it had a very definite clutch judder on pulling away that had all the hallmarks of a tired dual mass flywheel. That would have been unusual on such a low mileage car but of course you don’t know how a used car has been driven.

Rather than dive straight in and replace it all, we elected to leave the job until much later in the series just to see if it improved and gradually it did just that. However, we had already ordered the LuK dual mass flywheel and clutch kit and we figured that you’d like to see what’s involved in replacing these parts. Of course, it wasn’t easy but a clutch swap on these modern front wheel drive cars never is – a combination of a heavy gearbox and a never-ending list of things to remove and disconnect. It was easier on a lift, of course – and would be backbreaking work on the drive with trolley jacks.

We found the popular workshop manual to be wildly inaccurate – you do NOT have to remove the front subframe, just the nearside corner bar. Neither do saves you a load of aggro for under a fiver!