The SVT's clutch is pretty robust, so no matter how much you think your wife will abuse it trying to learn, she really can't cause that much damage. She'll probably slip it quite a bit and maybe dump it at 3 or 4,000 RPMs, but nothing to terrible as to destroy the transmission, I would reckon. I would recommend trying to teach her with the Contour. She'll feel that she won't be ruining your brand new Subie, and will possibly be more relaxed about it. I'll also point out that Subaru does not warranty the clutch for what they term "abuse". Workmanship or parts failure, yes. But a burned-out clutch will be greeted very skeptically, especially in this class of cars. Check out the forums for the WRX and you'll see many tales of woe about burned-out clutches that aren't fixed under warranty.
I'll also mention that getting top dollar for the SVT is kind of an oxymoron. These cars depreciate at horrendously steep rates. If you are going to trade the car in, they will barely look it at, just making sure it is fundamentally sound by driving it around the block and going by the lowest wholesale price in the Blue Book. Go to
www.kbb.com and get a feel for how miserable an SVT's trade-in value is.
Finally, it appears that your wife is not all that interested in learning, and might even be fearful about it. Having myself been married a long time, I can say that when your wife doesn't want to do it, then for heaven's sake, don't try to force her to. You might try the angle that she needs to learn in case there is some kind of emergency where she has to drive your manual transmission car. In that case, make sure she can get it in gear and understands the basic concept. I know that when I first tried to drive a manual car, it was terrifying. I obviously got over it and now relish it, but I can understand that some people find it difficult and uncomfortale.
Good luck!
Lee K
98 SVT, silver
03 Evo, red
