I have been having problems with my car’s clutch for six months. I was told I would need a new clutch. I got a "new" clutch for only 15 €!

Last summer my Daihatsu sirion limosine needed a new clutch [German: "Kupplung"] cable. Being seven years old and having run some 90,000 miles, that was no surprise. However, after the cable was installed by my Daihatsu dealer, I was surprised by how difficult it was to shift gears. Things got so bad the last couple of weeks that I called the dealer to complain. In the last ten years I bought 2 Daihatsu Sirions from him and had regular maintenance worth hundreds of € done in his shop. He said I need a new clutch. That surprised me, since my driving style is fairly moderate. So I went to a independent repair shop just 500 meters from my apartment. The shop is run by a Turkish mechanic, and Jesmina Allaoua discovered the shop about a year ago when her aging VW Golf needed some work. The fellow did a good job, so I took my Sirion over there and asked if he could take a look at it. He opened the hood, felt the tension on the clutch cable, adjusted a tension screw and that was it. My clutch shifts like a hot knife going through warm butter. "Someone wanted to sell you a clutch," was his analysis. He did not even want to be paid for his five minutes of work. I gave him a 15 € tip and decided that my maintenance visits to my local Daihatsu dealer are over.