I was heading home the night before last and I hurd a very strange noise. I was a hissing, squirting,clicking sound and It was smoking like crazy. So I pulled over, not completely off of the road so that I could crawl on the pavement to look under my car. There was a large puddle of oil under my car. The first thing that I thought of was holly crap it spun a bearing and threw a rod. I called AAA for towing back to the dealership. Today they called me and told me that they had the powertrain out of the car and it was the tranny. The clutch had come completely apart and had beat a hole in the tranny housing. They ordered a whole new tranny, clutch assy., flywheel, and starter. It will be the middle of next week before they get it done. They give me a loaner car to drive for the time being, which was a 2005 ford taurus, but o well.

Did the OEM dual mass fly apart? Man, they are ticking time bombs....mine is out and I feel MUCH better!!

thats pretty pathetic for a car thats like 1 year old..are you ruff on it r somethin?

must have been that shorty antenna that did it.

Its these BS clutches they put in these cars. I have noticed my pedal is feeling mushy and is catching at different points which is indicitive of the slave cylinder. Every manual transmissinon car and truck I have had from Ford has had this problem.

Ive been driving my 5 speed for a couple years, and i drive it hard. So far, no problams with the clutch. And I noticed that have a few mods on your car, did the dealership give you any crap about voiding the warrenty ??


[unsure]

Originally posted by fokuzx3
thats pretty pathetic for a car thats like 1 year old..are you ruff on it r somethin?

There has been trouble with the clutches in the SVT's since 2002, Ford knows about this and thats why there is a TSB for it. The stock clutch is too small for the power rangeof the SVT..... it would problely work good in a ZX3[rolleyes]

The problem is not in the clutch, its that 24.5lbs flywheel that is causing all kinds of problems in this car.Why there is no real engine brake in this car,why the engine is not rev happy(takes time to build rpm),why you have to ride the clutch to move the car(its takes about 1500 to 2000 rpm for a clean take off).I will answer you why NVH period.BMW M division and some trucks use dual mass flywheels to kill some of the drivetrain noise and to lower the frequency from the power pulsation from the engine,but these engines are big(six cylinders and up) not starving for power like a four cylinder engine.[8D]

i got lucky, the last kid who owned my car put a brand new sport clutch in it. glad i havent run into many problems yet. only one is the freakin hatch opens sometimes, and Ford wont fix it, so im going to complain to the actual company instead of the local Ford Dealer/shop.

The original poster has yet to clarify if it was actually the flywheel that shattered, it could have been the clutch, too. I know I've heard of this before, but can't remember which part shattered - I do remember the pictures, which showed a neat hole in the side of the transaxle.

svt#1960, I don't know how fast you were going at the time, but you're lucky a piece of that didn't rip through the firewall and into your leg (or worse!).

yikes!!! this has me kinda worried cause im still runnin on my factory clutch and flywheel. And i have the infamous tranny rattle. Just waitin for some extra $$$ to replace both of them.....anyone know if the TSB is covered under the factory powertrain warranty??

No, I am not ruff on my car. The dealership told me that it was the clutch that came apart, they did not say anything about the flywheel but who knows. I thnk tomarrow when the dealership opens back up I will go look at the tranny and messed up parts. As someone said earlier they saw pictures of a transaxle with a hole in it from the flywheel, clutch, etc. That is supposed to be the same thing that happened to mine. The bad thing is I had not rattles before and everythings was working properly. I had no slippage or anything, it was working just like it did the day I drove it off of the lot. Then it just came out of no where. Thank you guys for reading my thread and your feedbacks.

coolsvt,
if the clutch is not the problem, why does Ford install a larger and thicker clutch along with the redesigned flywheel?

Its the clutches that are exploding, chattering, and completely slipping, not the flywheels.

New clutch is needed because the updated flywheel is bigger as well. It may be that the updated clutch was redesigned as well, but it isn't the sole cause of the problem. It can be any of those parts that is the problem.

Dang that sounds like quite the bust!!!

A few months ago I noticed the clutch rattle or whatever it is that means the clutch is going, and I got it in and had it replaced under the TSB. I'm sure glad nothing like this happened to me. They did have my car for quite awhile tho.

Originally posted by fokuzx3
thats pretty pathetic for a car thats like 1 year old..are you ruff on it r somethin?

Read a couple more threads about the SVT's crappy clutch and flywheel set up and really I got mine replaced within 6 months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Car is in local dealer to have the clutch TSB performed.Wife was driving car few nights ago & came into house saying the tranmission has a loud rattle.Sure enough so off to the Dealer for warranty clutch.Dealer was very nice about it but helps that we bought the car new there & I know people that work in the service dept.

I was just told at my service department that the clutch is a non warranted item and they will not do the TSB. I dont see how this is possible seeing that it is a known problem addressed by Ford and the car is still under warranty. Time to find a different service department.

I have the same problem, but I am going to try a different dealership. I like my salesman, but not the service dept.

sounds like ford doesn't pay the dealerships $hit for labor time on the tsb's and recalls.
i'd call ford directly with the tsb # an the issue with your car, let the arguement be between ford and the dealership. always remember, $hit runs down hill[eek]

The service department guy said he called Ford and Ford told the him that it wasnt covered and not to fix it. I have an appointment tomorrow with another dealership. Those jaffo's better give me my rental too.

I took my car in this morning and they have ordered to parts! I thought for sure this was going to be a battle of wills. Having the print out of the TSB was all the ammo I needed. The parts should be in by the middle of this week and I should be good to hook. I hope this fix is as good as everyone says.

It would seem as though ford and the dealership would want to replace the problem parts instead of waiting until it screws completely up, like it did in my car and they have to replace a lot more. Boy I bet that was expensive.

True. But Ford is losing a lot of money one each clutch they fix under warranty. Imagine if every one of the 14,000+ SVTs had their clutches fixed free of charge that would normally cost the customer $1,300. Thats a loss of over 18 million dollars. Seems to me like they should have gotten it right the first friggin time.

i remember the gm quad4's in the grand am's(i was a ast. parts dept. manager @ a pontiac dealership at the time), i believe gm was sued many thousand times over on those motors! gm never released a re-call however, it was just a service bulletion! gm gave dealers a very detailed of the only parts they're were going to get paid for, charge anything extra on the repair order and gm rejected the entire claim!

list(i left that out on my post, lol)!

Alright, got my car back today. Only had it in the shop for a day and a half. The TSB clutch definately has a much different feel over the factory clutch. Its not as firm, and as everyone else says, it catches about and inch off the floor. It will take some time to get used to that, but as long as the parts hold up I can deal with it.

I just got mine back from Ford for the TSB repair.

The amount billed was $722 (under warranty, I didn't pay that, I guess that's what they bill Ford)

My car feels even slower now. And I hate the new feel of the clutch, the pedal effort is too little and the contact to friction is still too high up. I have to let the pedal almost all the way out to get going.

The tech that installed it left all sorts of things loose, did not replace a few fastners, etc... (You'd think since I told the service writer I was also an auto tech, he might of thought to tell his tech to be extra careful, cause they had to know I was gonna check their work... grrr)

I think as soon as I have the money I'm gonna take out thius 'updated' clutch and go with an aftermarket clutch/aluminum flywheel combo.

Originally posted by Scott_SVT
I just got mine back from Ford for the TSB repair.

The amount billed was $722 (under warranty, I didn't pay that, I guess that's what they bill Ford)

My car feels even slower now. And I hate the new feel of the clutch, the pedal effort is too little and the contact to friction is still too high up. I have to let the pedal almost all the way out to get going.

The tech that installed it left all sorts of things loose, did not replace a few fastners, etc... (You'd think since I told the service writer I was also an auto tech, he might of thought to tell his tech to be extra careful, cause they had to know I was gonna check their work... grrr)

I think as soon as I have the money I'm gonna take out thius 'updated' clutch and go with an aftermarket clutch/aluminum flywheel combo.


my car doesn't have any kind of warenty (rebuilt from a salvage) so would i have to pay all that for a TSB to be performed. for that price, it looks like I'll go aftermarket.

Thats your best bet honestly. After putting about 50 miles on the new clutch, I do not like the feel of it. Looks like Ill be doing the aftermarket set up later too. =\

Originally posted by xparkingblockx
my car doesn't have any kind of warenty (rebuilt from a salvage) so would i have to pay all that for a TSB to be performed. for that price, it looks like I'll go aftermarket.

If I had paid for that repair, I'd be awfully pissed. Actually I DIDN'T pay for it and I'm pissed. That's the last time I let another mechanic touch my car, though. My warranty expires next month anyway, so fortunately I won't have the temptation of free parts anymore.

Yeah the clutch in the svtf is a piece, that's one of the first things that i will replace in my car when i get some cash

greaaat, just got this thing and now I am reading this BS. First the sticky throttle body, surging, now funky clutches....I knew I should have stayed on the Mazda side of things. oh well, at least it's good reason to upgrade.

no one gave him any crap about his mods making his engine to strong for his stock clutch? I would think that would be the dealers first argument....at least the Ford dealers in CO Springs (Phil Long)...they are schiesters.

I hope you guys getting the new clutch/flywheel are breaking it in properly!

How do you 'properly' break them in?

I was told I didn't have to break in the OEM clutch, but I took it easy for the first 500 miles on it.