Most often clutches give a LOT of notice they are failing, slippage, chattering...etc. On rare occasions they suffer a sudden catastrophic failure, but those types of failures can also happen immediately after doing a clutch job (through out bearing failure for example). Most of the time, it'll slowly let you know....hey buddy, I'm not going to go forever on this thing.

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1983 W123 300TD US spec Turbo engine, with Euro bumpers and manual climate control, and manual transmission.