[cameron66]

Since the Insignia's release in January, I know that quite a few owners have had issues with clutches prematurely failing, including my own car before it was sold back to vx.

A few users on here have suffered failures, and on other forums, some have even had as many 3 or 4 DMF failures within several thousand miles from new.
My first 160 diesel Insigna which is used in the family business by one of our employee's and has been fairly trouble free from new and now has over 20k on the clock. Its been of the road for a month now awaiting a replacement DMF, I think its being fixed this week.

I'm sure I read somewhere that VX/Opel have changed the supplier of these components, and assumed that more recent models may be more immune from these problems.
However, I had a phone call from a cousin of mine yesterday who has one of the 1.6 petrol turbo models which I might add he's been delighted with until now anyway (little more than a month old), that he too had his clutch go down on Friday, he is not a happy bunny at all. They have told him it will be fixed within a few days... (Which I think doubtful)
There just seems to be too many owners having clutch issues for it to be a coincidence I would have thought.

I know a few owners pull caravans with the Insignia, one would have thought if there had been a weakness in the Insigni'a clutch design it would have shown fairly quickly when towing caravans.

Before mine failed, I did on a couple of occasions smell clutch burn when pulling away while in traffic if I happened to be stuck on a hill at the time. After the first time I smelled it, I would always try and engage the clutch as soon as possible and avoid slipping it as much as I reasonably could, but it seemed to have been in vain anyway, as the DMF failed in the end.

[Vectra-Arctic]

Seems to be a favourite weak point with the Insignia.

[Melbury]

Seems to be a favourite weak point with the Insignia.
there seems to be a problem with clutches for some owners but I have experienced this smell and thought it was the cutch, however a friend told me it was more likely the exhaust thing ( which I cant remember its name now ) Anyway it will produce this smell sometimes when driving in slow traffic queues on a hot day.
I had it some 3k miles ago and never since, nor did the clutch give any sign of slip.
Might be just that in some cases !

[lewisburglin]

however a friend told me it was more likely the exhaust thing ( which I cant remember its name now ) !

Diesel Partical Filter? Yes i've had that too but its a very differend smell than the Clutch!.....which incedently touch wood mines ok.

[Victorbox]

Welcome to the same problem as 2005/6 model year Astra and Zafira owners had with clutch judder and needing a new clutch. Vauxhall/Opel must try harder with their component supplier's quality control.

[cameron66]

Well my son rang me this afternoon to say the 160 Insignia which has been waiting for a replacement DMF has now been fixed and the engineer has the use of the car again... so good news. :) Almost 5 weeks off the road.:(

Hopefully it will last a little longer, though it did last over 20k unlike some owners who have had failures at under 5k. Its the only Insignia in the company fleet of 15 vehicles, but the engineer in question was adament at the time earlier in the year that was what he wanted. Most of the other cars are mostly Ford Mondeo estates and a couple of older basic model Astra estates, which seem to go on forever, with one well over 100k on the clock.

[Melbury]

Diesel Partical Filter? Yes i've had that too but its a very differend smell than the Clutch!.....which incedently touch wood mines ok.
No! mines a 1.8 petrol, the smell was very much like clutch and as I mentioned earlier there was no slip and it never occurred again so may have been the catalytic converter. (touch wood)