I'm not very good at cars! Help me understand this

[KatyMac]

My car gears went funny so I took it to the garage

They did; diagnostics, spark plugs, ignition leads & coil pack and mechatronics

Today they say a clutch pack is required

The company has paid for the mechanic at £1200 but that will leave me to pay £2300

The car is only worth about £4000

I am confused

They should have asked you before they did anything!!!
Are they expecting you to pay that without checking first ??

What's the company paying for the mechanic? Having the clutch replaced is a big job, they need to take the engine out. The cost of parts varies dramatically between cars. Whether it's worth doing depends on the age of the car and the amount of other stuff you're likely to have to pay out for.

I would be phoning around to get quotes, if you average a mechanic costs about £50 per hour, that's a shed load of hours.

It's the dealer

They checked as far at the metatrolic (that they are paying for) so £800

Now the clutch is another 1400

So is it still under warranty?

When I took it in, it was about 6 weeks out of warranty

A clutch job at a main dealer is an expensive job because they will charge a high labour rate and will source the parts from the most expensive place.
They should not have started the job before checking with you that you understand the potential bill size.
Other people can probably do the job for less... My DH often does jobs like this and will hunt around for alternative suppliers to get a good price on the parts and he charges an all in price rather than racking up the hours.
Mentioned this thread and he's said that the other thing that unscrupulous dealers might do is rather than investigate if the issue is a fixable problem, or just a small section that is worn/broken they will say that the only way to fix it is a full replacement because that's easier and a more profitable job...

Apparently it's a programming issue (they can't program the keys into the emchatronic?)

I can't see how the keys will affect the clutch? My clutch gave out recently and it was expensive, but it went because I had got water in the oil, not serviced it, so not identified that the oil was poor and the parts had worn out. It's not a fault you'd expect in a well maintained car with relatively low mileage. Costs of mine were further increased because it's a Mazda and had to have Mazda parts, other stuff had worn too.

Can you say thanks, but I'm going for a second opinion and take it to a local mechanic?