When we bought our auto here in the UK we were offered a service plan - monthly payment to cover all servicing cost up to 10K miles per year. Two rates, one included "friction consumables" - ie., clutch and brake pads. No discount for the auto without clutch and when the pads go, I will replace the with some after market to reduce the dust.

 

Unless you were really hard on your original clutch, it seems like there would have to be a defect for a clutch to be burned out in a year. A friend of mine had an SRT4 with a defective clutch (it "burned up" after about 1,000 miles). The dealer acknowledged that it was due to a defect, and fixed it for him under warranty. I'd suggest you have an independent shop check it out, and sue the dealer if it turns out to have been due to a defect if they refuse to repair it under warranty. I don't think anyone would keep a car that they had to change the clutch in every year - especially if it was $3,000 every time.

 

Anyway, my cross is back on the road, yes it was $1,400. Ouch!, you should see me driving now, I am so careful to not use the clutch that much. lol

 

well... all very interesting stuff, here's my story...
mine is an '05 crossfire that i only bought at the very end of November last year... I was driving it around town in early August (so, what, about seven months old???) with about 22,000 miles on it (yeah, i know... i hate the mileage... but still nowhere near enough miles to burn up a mercedes performance clutch)... I WAS NOT PUSHING THE CAR and went to round a corner going about 10 mph and had the clutch depressed coming down from thirty in third, went to put it into second going ten or so mph (creating such low rpm's i should have just put it in first, proving my point that I WAS NOT PUSHING IT) and it just wouldn't go into gear at all!!! The pedal then, I soon discovered, wouldn't come up off the floor... Well my friend in the passenger seat jumped out when I pulled over and pumped the pedal and got it off the floor... It was incredibly soft but hard right near the floor... when I went to put it into to gear it made a grinding sound... we could smell something burning but finally got it into gear at which point it would only rev but wouldn't go anywhere... Anyway, when I was shown the clutch plate at the dealer the next day it looked like someone had taken a shotgun to it point blank! one whole half of it was shredded and partially missing - the fly wheel was also warped beyond repair... The clutch is only under warranty up to 12,000 miles... However, the Chrysler warranty provides for a free rental for 3 days no matter the cause as I found out - whether it be warranty, wear, wreck, whatever! It was a five day repair so we called Chrysler and they extended the rental... Now here's the thing... I'm 18 and love my Crossfire (hey, I may be young but at least you can't criticize me for my taste) and LOVE taking it out - trust me, my modded Crossfire on a college campus gets attention... and girls... anyway, moving on and making my point about that - good old Chrysler looks at my beautiful Crossfire and tells me, "Thanks for buying our most high-end car, here's the keys to your hod-roddin Dodge Grand Caravan rental... Oh and no we won't allow Enterprise to put you in that Infinity even if you'll pay the extra cost because it's on our ticket therefore IT MUST BE A Chrysler product..." Oh yes, it was wonderful...
Anyway, total clutch and fly wheel bill came to...
$2,800.00!!!

That sucks... because let me remind you, I'm 18, and I bought my own Crossfire, pay my insurance, live on my own and well pay for everything else of mine and I'm a college student... I swear I need to start selling drugs to make some extra cash - lol, just kidding - I'm glad YOU got a good deal on your clutch - but listen to my story and maybe you won't feel so bad anymore haha.

 

Oh one more thing - the original clutch that was in the car when I bought it was VERY notchy, or clunky whichever word you want to use... the one thing I'm happy about out of this is the new clutch - though ordered through the dealer and I assume to be the same one - is smooth as hell and catches quicker than the older one - I love it! The number one complaint in every review I've read on the Crossfire is how uncomfortable the clunky manual makes this "smooth luxury car" - which it does and has always been an annoyance / embarrassment when showing the car off to friends riding in it - but this new clutch is great! Not $2,800 great, but still great...

 

oh by the way i made it in the minivan ok - i stowed that nice stow-n-go seating and inflated an air mattress, threw a few girls back there and went to the drive-inn - that's the way to rock a minivan LOL - anyway, so am I the youngest XFIRE owner in here??? I've only seen one other young one on cardomain and as for around here there's three owners (two male, one female) above sixty - I see them around regularly, Utah's not a HUGE place, and I'm pretty sure there's not many others... and one in his twenties supposedly in slc that I saw on this site but he hasn't logged on since april... So I believe I'm pretty lucky for my age to have such a car? But hey I deserve it because my previous two were: 1.) a '91 ford probe, and 2.) an '89 volvo 740GL... I'll post some pics of mine soon - it's black with tint and custom painted black side vents and along the outside of the windshield... along with special made blacked out headlights and foglights - you'd be shocked they give it a real exotic look... i have a long list of other mods also but i won't take the time here... oh and did I mention the T70 turbo I had custom built that's going in late December? Yes, I said T70 - one HUGE turbo... ONE HUGE BILL - once all my life savings goes into the other necessary parts and the building up of the engine trans and clutch - a T70 turbo is capable of a 600 hp increase - which I have witnessed first hand in other like cars... I already know none of you will agree or support me in this but the pricing was more than right (you won't believe that either) and it's worth the price I got it for to build the only turbocharged Crossfire... Hopefully I'll get lambo doors and the black inset rims with the silver lip to continue the all around black theme...

 

One last thing! I don't want any technical posts from Dan or Cyril or any of the "senior members" here either chewing me out telling me what a "catastrophic undertaking" the turbo is or why it can't be done or what I need to do with the Crossfire to do it or ANYTHING of that nature... I simply posted that info as a teaser lets keep this conversation to the clutch sorry for getting off track I'll post pics of the turbo when it is in and of dyno sheets and whatever else... anyway, I have spent almost a year figuring out how to turbo this so like I said, don't give me crap here, thank you...
---Josh...

 

NO "crap" Josh, I do have just one question though. Did you ever wonder why D/C only sells the SRT with an automatic? ... You figure it out.

 

well... i'm not sure about if you're being sarcastic with me - and if you are what you're intending by it - but anyway, i'm sure it's an auto because their clutch sux as* - flat out... anyway, it still sux that it's an auto no matter what they should have put a better clutch in... don't get me wrong i love my cross but there's just certain things that really should have been done better on it.

 

i mean honestly... why would i want to drive a 45 - 50 thousand dollar srt6 with incredible numbers behind it and then disappoint everyone and lose all respect when they see it's a 5-speed auto??? i told myself when the cross came out I couldn't buy this sort of a car as an auto... (probably part of the reason I burned up my clutch in a hurry - it was my first manual, and the one i learned in - with no instructions other than the owners manual, hah!).

 

Josh, what I was trying to say is, the 6 spd. wasn't built to handle any more H.P. than the non-supercharged engine puts out. I wasn't trying to be a smart-a-- or anything, because you said you didn't want any old guys preaching to ya. That's why I said you figure it out. If you mod your engine with a great deal more H.P. then I hope you have enough money in your life savings to take care of the future tranny problems that you will most assuredly encounter. (probably the very first time you dump the clutch) Good Luck!

 

Hey Josh,
I guess I got a great deal then (yeah feels better but shouldn't we still didn't get it under warranty), your clutch problem sounds a lot like mine. The only difference is I was going really fast! By the way, I just turned 24, I guess you are the youngest one here!

 

I understand there's no way my stock clutch could possibly handle a turbo - let alone a T70 - I fully plan on replacing it a won't use "my life savings" I was joking about that portion - I really am not stupid enough to invest everything I have at this age into one car and nothing else...

 

Oh and I'm sorry if you took it that I didn't want "old" guys preaching to me - I didn't mean it that way and in no way would term anyone as that nor disrespect based on age - there are several older gentleman (by older I mean one in his sixties, one in his later seventies) in my local area that have very impressive, customized Crossfires that I regularly go on canyon runs with so I didn't mean that at all - I just get alot of flack in other forums about the turbo - but I understand in those forums because people tend to claim they're going to do "such and such" and that they'll have a 1,300 hp Civic that runs low sixes... So I understand they're criticizm and just don't like dealing with it - I'd rather just state what I'm doing and then post the pics and results when I'm done - that's all, I'm sure you understand...

 

Nobody called you stupid. But you're still not getting what I'm saying. It's not just the clutch, it's the transmission. If it was beefed up enough to handle the H.P. the SRT puts out, then they would have offered it in that car. If you think replacing the clutch was expensive, wait until you have to buy a new tranny. If you mod your engine to any H.P. even close to what the SRT puts out, then you will have tranny problems. It simply wasn't built to take alot of H.P.

 

Josh, stop while you not as far behind as your potential seems to want to go.

 

i looked into the clutch replacement yeah stock clutch wont hold up for the hp, I was told earlyer that chrysler did not put the supercharger on the six speed because it would dog the gear box, well i have come to find out that they actually put the automatic on the supercharge srt6 because they wanted somthing everyone could enjoy( people who cant drive stick), so far theres no proof that the six speed cant handle the power of a turbo ect..... and if u look hard enought like i have been doing you'll find very impressive SLK's running on the same trans we have in the base and limit six speeds one company i know makes a upgrade for the slk clutch for stage one to five, our six speeds can more then handle the 100 or even 200 ex hp, i am a new owner and have a limited crossfire with a six speed not a srt6 and have found more people on this form go from hear say then real situations. http://www.specclutch.com/ i got this web site from Hddp who has been more than helpfull on these forms, he reall knows what hes talking about, but no one has ever put a turbo on the cars so infact you can not guess that the trans will not hold up, its only assumed from chrylser techs, i like the forms but for some reason when u ask a question like hey how can i up grade my clutch you have maybe two people that can respond and the rest are people that start fights or other crap please leave that to other forms maybe in the special sec, of the site, we will find out about the trans in less than a year and a half because like i posted before i will have a sts system for my car built by car view two and xoitice motor sports p.s im young (21) and old guys rock too ! lol

 

i looked into the clutch replacement yeah stock clutch wont hold up for the hp, I was told earlyer that chrysler did not put the supercharger on the six speed because it would dog the gear box, well i have come to find out that they actually put the automatic on the supercharge srt6 because they wanted somthing everyone could enjoy( people who cant drive stick), so far theres no proof that the six speed cant handle the power of a turbo ect..... and if u look hard enought like i have been doing you'll find very impressive SLK's running on the same trans we have in the base and limit six speeds one company i know makes a upgrade for the slk clutch for stage one to five, our six speeds can more then handle the 100 or even 200 ex hp, i am a new owner and have a limited crossfire with a six speed not a srt6 and have found more people on this form go from hear say then real situations. http://www.specclutch.com/ i got this web site from Hddp who has been more than helpfull on these forms, he reall knows what hes talking about, but no one has ever put a turbo on the cars so infact you can not guess that the trans will not hold up, its only assumed from chrylser techs, i like the forms but for some reason when u ask a question like hey how can i up grade my clutch you have maybe two people that can respond and the rest are people that start fights or other crap please leave that to other forms maybe in the special sec, of the site, we will find out about the trans in less than a year and a half because like i posted before i will have a sts system for my car built by car view two and xoitice motor sports p.s im young (21) and old guys rock too ! lol

 

i looked into the clutch replacement yeah stock clutch wont hold up for the hp, I was told earlyer that chrysler did not put the supercharger on the six speed because it would dog the gear box, well i have come to find out that they actually put the automatic on the supercharge srt6 because they wanted somthing everyone could enjoy( people who cant drive stick), so far theres no proof that the six speed cant handle the power of a turbo ect..... and if u look hard enought like i have been doing you'll find very impressive SLK's running on the same trans we have in the base and limit six speeds one company i know makes a upgrade for the slk clutch for stage one to five, our six speeds can more then handle the 100 or even 200 ex hp, i am a new owner and have a limited crossfire with a six speed not a srt6 and have found more people on this form go from hear say then real situations. http://www.specclutch.com/ i got this web site from Hddp who has been more than helpfull on these forms, he reall knows what hes talking about, but no one has ever put a turbo on the cars so infact you can not guess that the trans will not hold up, its only assumed from chrylser techs, i like the forms but for some reason when u ask a question like hey how can i up grade my clutch you have maybe two people that can respond and the rest are people that start fights or other crap please leave that to other forms maybe in the special sec, of the site, we will find out about the trans in less than a year and a half because like i posted before i will have a sts system for my car built by car view two and xoitice motor sports p.s im young (21) and old guys rock too ! lol

 

i looked into the clutch replacement yeah stock clutch wont hold up for the hp, I was told earlyer that chrysler did not put the supercharger on the six speed because it would dog the gear box, well i have come to find out that they actually put the automatic on the supercharge srt6 because they wanted somthing everyone could enjoy( people who cant drive stick), so far theres no proof that the six speed cant handle the power of a turbo ect..... and if u look hard enought like i have been doing you'll find very impressive SLK's running on the same trans we have in the base and limit six speeds one company i know makes a upgrade for the slk clutch for stage one to five, our six speeds can more then handle the 100 or even 200 ex hp, i am a new owner and have a limited crossfire with a six speed not a srt6 and have found more people on this form go from hear say then real situations. http://www.specclutch.com/ i got this web site from Hddp who has been more than helpfull on these forms, he reall knows what hes talking about, but no one has ever put a turbo on the cars so infact you can not guess that the trans will not hold up, its only assumed from chrylser techs, i like the forms but for some reason when u ask a question like hey how can i up grade my clutch you have maybe two people that can respond and the rest are people that start fights or other crap please leave that to other forms maybe in the special sec, of the site, we will find out about the trans in less than a year and a half because like i posted before i will have a sts system for my car built by car view two and xoitice motor sports p.s im young (21) and old guys rock too ! lol