Knowing that I have an EVO, a buddy of mine called me about his cousin's clutch issue. He just bought a new EVO and the clutch went at 405 miles .

The car is stock (Didn't have time to mod it, lol), and has only been driven for less than 400 miles (There were a few test miles on it when he bought it obviously). Never been to a drag strip or circuit track.

Anyways, Santa Monica Mitsubishi is telling him that before they open it up, they must inform him that it won't be covered under warantee .

Now, I mod my cars and to an extent, I expect to not recieve warantee work, but this is amazing!

Anyways, I just thought it may be a record for earliest blown clutch. He is protesting it with them right now and if they don't help, I am going to get started filing a complaint against them. I am shocked that others have not gone this route, especially if you know someone in the legal business. It would cost way more to defend against you then it would cost them to replace the clutch. You could even file for cheap if you don't have any legal hookups by taking it to small claims court. You could sue for damages and lost work time and all sorts of stuff with a maximum $5000. judgement limit. It costs way less than 5K for them to just replace the clutch.

Just some thoughts...

 

Man that's BS.

How can they not warranty that?

405 miles is NOT normal wear and tear, I don't care what the stealership says.

I'm getting turned off big time on Mitsubishi and Subaru customer service.

I don't think I'll ever purchase any of their new cars anymore because of it, except for the Evo and the STi, which won't go to those assclowns for service

 

Speechless....

I really don't konw what to say to that. Apparently there was something defective about the clutch and this is not a normal wear and tear issue. I have 4k on my car and clutch seems to be holding (knock on wood). I have heard a lot of horror sotries in the past about the clutch but this has got to be the wrost of them all...

 

My car had 12,800 miles and it held up fine, yet his Evo held up for only 405 miles and they won't warranty that?

Dude fight it until they give him a new clutch, free oil changes, free tires, and free maintenance for life.

It's definitely a defect for sure. Pay $30K for a car and spend another $2K replacing the clutch? Hell no.

 

At 400mi they shouldn't be warning him that it will not be covered. They should be apologizing. At 4,000 it's conceivable that it's been seriously abused, but at 400 it's far more likely that there was a manufacturer's defect. They could at least warn "We will inspect it, but if we see foul play then we will bill you for any futher labor", but the onus to inspect and the burden of proof should be on them. At the same time I understand that clutches generally are not covered by warranties except in the case of defective parts...so it seems pretty clear to me they would just rather bilk your friend for the cash than explain to MMC that they got a dud clutch in the car. ...Of course this is assuming it is in fact a defect, but they could at least spend a couple hours to take her apart any find out.

 

Maybe he couldn't drive? There was a kid in my area who got one and blew it in 300 miles...he couldn't drive for ****! But not really sure if that was the reason the clutch went.

 

i guess i will be the exception here and say that i am not suprised by this. i have many friends that can fry any clutch in less than 100miles and i promise you that it is possiable. although i do see your point about the dealership, you have to understand their view and keep in mind that a lot of people bought the car and abused the crap out of it and than came back for clutch warrenty. since your friend bought a demo car he shouldn't be suprised that the clutch died so fast...

 

True but with the way parts should be made even a new or lousy driver should be able to get at least a 1k miles or more on a clutch? My good friend got his evo without ever driving a stick and he just passed 10k miles. I would think that anything under 1k miles should be considered manufacture defect.

 

i don't think so. let's take for example a guy that just bought a brand new car. it has 5 miles on the odo and he takes it on the highway. coming to shift to 3rd, he accidently slams it in reverse. who is at fault??

any part can break if you abuse it enough. how many clutch drops can you do in 100miles (at least 1000 if you want)?

 

I had a clutch pedal vibe (still do) and went to the dealer with 24 miles on it. They said if they had to replace it I'd have to pay. I "literally" told them to **** themselves. I hate mitsu so much, it gets me mad just thinking about it. Damn it, I have to go punch something, be back in a minute...

 

I would protest it, saying that the abuse was done at the dealership before you bought it. Not like you were going to pull the tranny and inspect the flywheel for hot spots before you buy it. Of coarse those first 50 miles the dealership had it were not driven gently.

 

I would also check your area's lemon law. It may protect you in this situation.

I'm waiting for stock STIs to start blowing themselves apart from all the detonation the factory ECU has on a stock car. At least they aren't billing to reflash it...but who knows how much damage that's already done.

I know when I was given a test drive of an Evo, I was told to "punch it" and "take it up to 120". I told the guy I'd be happy to do that if he covered any tickets or points I got. He said I probably shouldn't do that then. I sure as hell wouldn't have bought that poor red Evo, though...it had 77 miles on it...all total abuse, I'm sure.

 

Definitely a ****ty situation, and no one here should be tossing around that PRO corporate "he doesnt know how to drive" bs. Unless he slipped it out to 4k for every start I highly doubt a non defective clutch goes in 400 miles. Keep fighting it and especially if he truly did not do any drag style launches and it can be visually confirmed show them that page in your manual that states that there is a 12k mile warranty on wear items for manufacturers defects, including the clutch. If they wont listen bring it to another dealership and worst case talk to Mitsu corporate direct, I highly doubt they are even ready to admit theyre clutch setups are ****ty enough to go in 300 miles.

 

sure but by the same token, the dealership's immediate reaction shouldn't be "it's not going covered by warranty" ... unless his friend got some kind of crazy cheap deal on the car because it was a demo.

 

Yeah, my personal EVO has 5K miles on it and a Perrin TBE. I don't launch the car or drag race it, but the clutch is holding up as strong as the day I bought the car. Of course it may go out, and with just a TBE I would ask them to warantee it, then force them to if they said no. The thing is that it most likely won't get that far for me since I will upgrade the clutch myself and not worry about it. Oh well, I play, so I pay. My buddy shouldn't have to though.