• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

LUK clutch blew, stranded......

blu_fuz

New Member Classroom vulture
Joined
Sep 25, 2002
Messages
16,028
Location
Waupun, WI
EGPLNT's clutch just went out. Ford OEM LUK clutch kit, brand new when I put it in. Probably 30k miles on it. I'm on the road for work and 30 minutes from home. Bummer, gotta do it all over again.
 
Way to go Joe!! Tearing •••• up....damn I am proud of you....brings a tear to my eye. Get a SACHS clutch this time. And keep tromping on it!!
 
My boss picked me up and I just got back to work.


Ford Contour's suck - who wants to buy mine?


I'm 100% sure the spline ripped out of the clutch disc. I have a BRAND NEW FORD OEM clutch kit installed in this car. I was already driving in third gear with the clutch engaged, just pushed on the gas some more and the clutch let go, was grinding, and the RPMs shot up.


I'll try to upload video tonight.
 
I think that might have happened to FFE when he had to do some interesting foot work with the pedels to avoid an accident. There was only a couple thousand miles on that clutch too. Brand new OEM SVT clutch from Tously Ford
 
No fancy footwork for me. I was up to about 30-35mph in 3rd gear. Only pushed on the gas while already in 3rd to get up to traffic speed. Accelerated like normal for a few seconds, then WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE the RPMs shot up and I lost all clutch. Now all I get is a scraping noise with the clutch pedal let out. Pushed in it's quiet.
 
hey i just pulled out a luk disk and pp out of my beater. it still has pretty damn good life left in it. if ur interested i can give it to u at a good price
 
Ford Contour's suck - who wants to buy mine?

waving.gif
 
Just watched the video. That is exactly the sound the pudmobile had. The center just let go, granted mine happened 2 miles after an aggressive down shift, and acceleration.
 
So do we have any clutches that don't fail for our cars?? Is a solid disk the answer or what?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
So do we have any clutches that don't fail for our cars?? Is a solid disk the answer or what?

There shouldn't be a reason why the factory clutch shouldn't be fine, so there has to be an outside factor. Either the quality of the parts went down or the clutches are not being installed correctly, or some other reason that we don't know about.
 
I'm at a loss for a reason these fail at the center, but I would rather it fail like that then having the spring cages open up (Spec) and the springs fly around in the trans case chewing up the flywheel, pressure plate, TOB, etc....


Does the clutch honestly grab so hard that it bottoms out the clutch springs putting all the force on the center shaft?

I think that if it was installed incorrectly then I would have had a failure way before 30k miles.


I do "hot dog" in the streets with the car, drop the clutch, and tow that fat 1/2 car trailer. I put it through some work in this 30k miles.
 
material can be a funny thing sometimes. I would also think that if there was a defect that caused the failure that it would have turned up alot sooner then 30k miles. However, it all depends on the failure mode. It could take a number of cycles, as an example, before it will fail. Now there are many things that could effect how long the cycles take to add up.

with the number of reported failures I would think its material related. Maybe another example of sending production to China. Sure its cheaper but it fails alot sooner. So in the end the cost is the same because it will have to be replaced ....
 
True.


I'm just happy that it wasn't a motor or transmission failure and I was able to park it in a safe spot. It's more of a "weekend warrior" repair that won't cost me a ton of $$ to fix :cool:, just some time and BEER! :D
 
You betcha, but this time with 2 MIDDLE FINGERS UP instead of one!


6-8-2008
newpics131.jpg
 
Back
Top