Learn from my repair mistake

Just wanted to share my experience in case it helps anyone.

(2017 Mk7 6sp GTI Autobahn in the supremely best Tornado Red, for reference)

A couple months ago, my clutch started feeling spongy and wouldn't always return quickly. Got a couple of amateur mechanic friends and they suggested first doing a bleed, refilling the clutch fluid, and changing the bleeder block to a metal one while I'm at it.

I get a metal bleeder block from ECS, swap it out, do a traditional bleed without a pump with one of my buds. It seems to work and my clutch feels fine again. A couple days later, however, it's back to how it was acting before, but worse. Feeling a bit more uneasy, I park it until I can figure it out.

A different friend comes over with a pump to bleed it more properly. We try this on two different days and it gets even worse. Clutch just drops straight to the floor and stays there. He concludes that it's likely the scary slave cylinder being cracked or otherwise failing. He said that's what it's gotta be and I order a slave cylinder and mentally prepare to work with him for the huge job that is. I could've taken it somewhere, but it was gonna save me a ton of money.

Anyway, while we're waiting for the weekend where we're both free to get some progress on the project, he calls me and says a VW mechanic friend of his mentioned that my GTI needs to be pressurized/pumped/whatever from the top, attached to the fluid reservoir instead of more traditional bleeding from the bleeder block. He borrows that tool, comes over, and it's fixed in a matter of minutes.

Moral of the story, know your car, make sure, ask the pros, etc., before you go full transmission disassembly. Luckily, I had a good friend who helped me get there and I'm only down $75 for a slave cylinder I will probably just replace when I inevitably do the clutch one day since this new one is all metal instead of mostly plastic.

I guess it's possible my slave cylinder is still messed up, but it seems working well for now. Fingers crossed!

Hope this helps someone out there potentially struggling with the same thing.

Edit: typo