Jetta GLI - sudden clutch failure.

Yikes did you sign up for street outlaws and join the "404"? That looks ummm abused... :unsure:

LOL - I wish it were something that exciting, hell maybe it is because I'm only getting partial info from the one who drives the car. I'm kinda checking out on the whole thing because I had nothing to do with destroying a transmission with 76k miles on it so its not really my problem. The saying you pay to play is quite appropriate here.
 
Here are some pics for your viewing pleasure. Maybe an expert can tell me if the overheating was a result of the broken clutch or possibly the cause of the broken clutch.
So, failed clutch disc, chunk of friction material MIA. Looks similar to the picture I posted on page 2, although mine was much worse. Even so, my clutch was still fully operational even with 75% of the friction material missing on 1 side. It just had a bad vibration and some metal on metal creaks but I could still shift gears without grinding. No other components failed.

In your case, my guess is the system was either low on fluid or the slave cylinder was starting to fail. The driver ignored the symptoms and kept shifting hard which caused heavy stress on the syncro and clutch disc.

Of course I could be completely wrong, there's only so much I can observe from the photos. Any burnt smell or evidence of fluid contamination on the clutch disc?

One other observation.. the OEM clutch disc design seems weak for the torque from this engine, only 3 springs and so tiny, ugh.
 
... 2nd gear synchro apparently took a beating so 2nd shift is apparently very difficult and requires rev matching. Also side note I was off by 10k on the mileage - it has ~76k on the clock ...
Did he change the transaxle oil? GL-5 can cause that balky synchro. Proper MT gear oil in there may fix it.

And rubber chunks in the innner fenderwells?
 
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