Clutch failure

I just had my 3rd clutch failure in one year. I have a 2002 C2 that began making a tapping noise at about 36K miles. Took it to dealer and got the clutch and flywheel replaced due to "bad throwout bearing" at the tune of $3500. Well, noise came back within one week, and back to the dealer. Diagnosis: bad throwout bearing...again. Bearing replaced and back on my way. Noise starts again. This time dealer replaces everything, including clutch kit and flywheel, under warranty. Noise comes back again, and I'm told that the transmission needs to come out at the tune of $9000. Well, I had enough and had to get on with my life, so I lived with the tapping noise in the bell housing since the car was performing. My clutch finally gave out Saturday night and had to get it towed to a stockyard. I decided to get away from the Porsche dealer and went with an independent (Dutch Treat in South Bay). Turns out nothing's wrong with the transmission, but the splines on the clutch disc connecting to the main shaft were completely sheared off. My mechanic has never seen this in his 30+ years of fixing Porsches. He thinks it might be a defective batch of clutch kits from Porsche. The clutch was made by a company called AP (from France). Apparently, Sachs (German) is the other maker of Porsche clutch kits. By the way, my car now has 43K miles and has never been tracked or abused. Called dealership and told them of the findings, but they wanted everything repackaged and shipped over to them to dismantle and diagnose. Called PCNA and they said there's nothing to be done unless it's at an authorized Porsche shop. Fine... But 3 clutch failures in one year's time in a car that's got less than 45K miles????? 2 questions: 1) Has anyone else experienced this clutch failure? 2) Has anyone successfully argued for reimbursement of costs from dealer or PCNA? Please share...

By the way, anyone needing a mechanic in SoCal, DO NOT HESITATE to go with Robert at Dutch Treat Porsche. This guy knows his stuff and is reasonable on pricing. He got my car back to tip top shape after logically diagnosing the problem. I honestly thought I needed a new transmission...

All I can say is don't even rest a foot on the clutch before shifting or thinking about shifting. The slightest pressure of just having a toe on it isn't good. Some how a bad part could of been put in before you owned the car. No idea besides that for why your clutch keeps going.

Quotes source post: 7201993

Unlikely splines in clutch disc sheared off. Most likely they wore away due to well, I'd have to say a defective clutch or a botched clutch job. The clutch disc obviously moves in and out and does so on the input shaft splines. The shaft's splines are heat treated as is the input shaft and is very tough and wear resistant. The clutch disc splines material also wants to be very tough and wear resistent and the material furthermore wants to be compatible with the input shaft material so that in the event of metal to metal contact no wear takes place. Now since the clutch disc splines are worn away this suggests to me the clutch disc spline material was improperly heat treated, not really intended for this installation (though input shafts in transmissions are pretty much all the same regarding the type of steel and its heat treatment), or there was no heavy high temperature/pressure grease applied to the input shaft splines. This last item is important cause it provides for a very important lubrication of these two items: the clutch disc and its splines and the input shaft and its splines. One can't use very much grease just a very light coating of grease and it has to be very heavy to resist being slung away from the input shaft and able to withstand high temperature. I'd be tempted to box everything up and have the dealer look it over. No way barring abuse should the clutch disc splines wear away like that unless something wrong: wrong clutch disc for the car; defective clutch disc and its hub with the splines; or the installation was not done properly. Sincerely, Macster.

you paid $3500 to replace a clutch in SoCal? and then had to have it replace 2 more times AND be put thru the "you need a new tranny" diagnosis................ at a dealer?? Send me your address and I will mail you a bag of rocks to go throw at them!

I will take those bag of rocks! I actually ended up having to pay for 2 clutch repairs and a flywheel. The rest was under warranty. But I think Macster put it best...this sounds like a defective part. I have my defective clutch kit boxed up, and I will be heading to the dealer. I'll let you y'all know what happens.

I would box up the crap clutch and throw that at them..

I have to wonder how true the bell housing is. Any way of seeing if the dealer missed a bad alignment and was just throwing parts at it to end up in this situation? Normally if a dealer has a chance to throw the bill off on a manufacturer they will. Also whatever the case bent shaft or bell housing in the end for your sake I hope it's better. I figure it isn't a bent shaft because I'd figure vibrations would be part of your symptoms. Sure sucks. Any word from the Porsche doctor yet?

New clutch is going on 4 days and not a single rattle or drop in performance. The tranny and clutch are solid. This is nuts! There was no bent shaft reported by my mechanic, and I would've suspected a catastrophic and immediate consequence of something like that. Instead I was driving the car around with a rattling clutch whenever I was idling for about 1 year before it gave out. The mechanics at the Porsche dealer are scratching their heads and so is my mechanic. This has supposedly never been seen before. At any rate, if the car holds up for a few more weeks on this new clutch, then I'm going to push for reimbursement of my expenses with the original clutch repair. I will post a picture of what I'm talking about to see if anyone has seen this before.

These are photos of my defective clutch disc. Look at the central splines that are supposed to fit along the main shaft. They are completely sheared off.

wow....never seen this before. You should get your $$$ back from the stealer.

Good luck with that.

I had the splines shear off a brand new metallic race clutch on my car many many years ago (not a Porsche). I had it tested and the HRC was too low. The vendor replaced the clutch with the written report faxed to them by the machine shop. Mine gave out very quickly at the track and lots of stress (7 sec. 1/8 mile). Are you sure they changed the disk each time? They may have skipped this if the friction material looked real good and overlooked the fit on the shaft.

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While the splines are sheared off it is possible the shearing was the last stage of splnes simply wearing out to the point they had not the thickness to resist the final insult and sheared off. Or they sheared off immediately. I originally posted that it was unlikely this occured -- it is very rare -- but if it does happen it can only be due to a defective clutch disc. The fragments of the splines could be examined and from there condition: size mainly; what happened determined. If the spline fragements are thin then wear followed by shearing. If thicker then more likely the shearing took place sooner with little or even no wear preceeding the shearing. Sincerely, Macster.

Thanks for all the input. I think Stephen's suggestion is possible with respect to changing out the initial clutch disc...I think they probably looked at the outer friction material and unwarped shape of the disc and decided that the clutch was okay. That would explain why the clutch continued to rattle no matter what they did at the dealer. Could have been an innocent oversight but they need to know better. Macster, you bring up an interesting point. I will have to look at the fragments. My best guess is that there was an initial immediate partial shearing that occured to bring on the rattling noise, but the clutch continued to function. Over time, I think the remainder of the splines wore down and sheared off completely. At any rate, I can't imagine this is due to any other cause than a defective clutch disc.

Quotes source post: 7208966

In the case of a clutch disc splines I do not believe a partial shearing possible. Those splines transmit all the torque of the engine to the transmission input shaft. The splines either perform this function with no degradation over thousands and thousands of events or they don't. If they don't, when (if) they don't, they fail right away. It may not be first time the clutch is used, but the first time the clutch is used aggressively. But look at the fragments. Post pics if you can. I'd like to see what they look like. There condition might tell us a story. Sincerely, Macster.

I know this has been a while, So How is the clutch working? I have a similar issue with my BMW R 1150 GS and the splines are just about worn away this also required a replacement input shaft. I found a mismatch of the crank centerline to the trans input of .0095in and this was fixed by adding an offset collar to one of the alignment dowels they are hollow as a bolt passes through them. The other reason i was asking is that I want to also press the center portion of my new disc back towards the trans mission by 4 MM this will add full engagement of the clutch hub to splines. NOTE BMW didnt proof check the transmission and all of these bikes have an input shaft thats 4 MM too short so the disc hub isnt fully engaged. your disc center appears to be deformed in a manner that i am trying to have done. Also your hub splines are sheared off in a similar fashion as some of the BMW R series motorcycles experience.