Hi everyone

I recently found my clutch pedal pressed all the way and took it to the mechanic. There, I found that the clutch pump failed, and subsequently found that the flywheel also needed changing.

It is a 2011 Τ31 model and I bought it from Edinburgh with 60k kilometers on it. At the time of fault the car has 140k kilometers. The operation will cost me more than €2k and I began thinking what might have gone wrong. I recall that I stressed the car on hills a couple of times in the past and I had that burning smell coming from the gearbox. My mechanic at the time suggested I ignored.

All of the times I took the car on hills, I had the ESP on and rarely used the 4x4 Lock function. Now I wonder whether I am doing something terribly wrong to cause such a problem. Is there any manual or rules to follow when taking the car off road and on hills/slopes?

Please help. Any recommendations or questions welcome. Thank you

No, you did nothing wrong.
You can not know, how it was previously driven. Reversing with a trailer on soft ground is a clutch killer. Female drivers dent(not all) to use more gas pedal than nessesary on take offs.

Thats why i wanted an auto, because the clutch is the weakest link without low gear offroaders.

The clutch kit without the flywheel is like 300€ and included ca 700€. It is like 6h job. Subframe has to come off.

I would take a second opinion. It can be the clutch master cylinder. it is just under the bonnet, next to the brake master.
If it is the slave cylinder then the gearbox has to come off.

That's one of the reasons I always have autos too. I tow a caravan and reversing onto a pitch is so much easier with an auto and no risk of burning out a clutch. Much more relaxing driving in traffic with an automatic too. After many years of driving coaches with manual gear boxes, I really don't need all that clutch work with my car.

A couple of times I got stuck in gravel. I was pressing the fuel pedal excessively to give power and unstuck with the clutch half-pressed, but once I was releasing the clutch the car engine would stop. I tried that a few times on each incident and that was when I smelled the clutch. In both cases I had the ESP on.

Would it make any difference if the ESP was off? Would I get unstuck easier if the wheels span without the ESP on? Would the clutch not get damaged?

When stuck then it is recommended to turn the ESP off. Even written in the owners manual. ESP has also the wheel slip/traction control that cuts the engine power when one wheel starts to spin faster that the rest. ESP off disables that and the power will not reduced on the X-trails. What you did is (ESP off will be better) the right procedure to get unstuck, but is a clutch killer.

I thought so @Ahto42. Thank you also @Bus-Man for your reply

I prefer the ESP off in these situations as I find I can't deal with the cut in engine power with it on.

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Yes with the ESP on the car doesn't even try to unstuck