Im not trashing them I just wanted to let you guys know my expirience, yea I hope the customer service is great because Im going to call them on monday since they are closed for this whole week, and how can a throw out bearing be install error if its already inside the pressure plate, and yes it was torqued right? I think its just a defective clutch assembly and Im the lucky guy to get it, sorry to say bad things about precious spec but you would be mad too if you had to spend 6 hours under your car again or pay $ 350 to install another clutch, its my hard earned money and I shouldnt have to pay for other peoples mistakes and Im glad to hear that other people had success this wont make me feel so bad about putting another spec clutch in.

 

i dont think anyone is hugging SPEC's nutz. we are just saying there is always a bad apple, even with the mother of all 4th gen clutches, the Mcleod street twin
people have had problems with SPECs in the past....

**** happened, one way or another. now its a matter of dealing with it. i feel confident enuf to tell you they have good customer service, atleast when i spoke with them

$0.02

 

thx for understanding Im sure we all went through similar situations sooner or later, what really blows is the spec is closed this whole july 4th week meaning I wont have a freaking car till probably wednesday

 

They're probably out racing this week.

 

Oh really. Compare the number of times you see a bad post about mcleod to the number you see a one about a spec. No comparision there. A few bad apples would be acceptable for a company as long as they make good on it, but when you have failure after failure, good customer service dont mean ****. The product must hold it's own. If the product was outstanding, then know one would ever have to call them back to expirance their customer service. Sending customers new unproven designs is just down right fu(ked up. An thats exactly what they do. I've seen at least 3 different "Stage 4" designs in a year back in my days of messing with there clutches. None of them lasted more than 4000 miles. They dont pay you for your time of changing clutches or for tranny fulid. Some people cant work on their own cars so they have to pay other people to do it for them. Spec dont pay for a mechanic to take a clutch out of someones car. Just my 2 cents and $800 that i spent on a real clutch.

 

Got stock in Mcloed egh?

 

Nope, just a da mn good clutch, from a company with da mn good customer service.

 

Well.. Considering people are more readily able to spend $400 on a SPEC versus $1000 on the Mcloed kinda helps skew those numbers.

So of course the more "affordable" of the two - which just happens to be bought more - appears to have more problems. When I'd bet you their failure rate it just the same.

Kinda like comparing Chevy's to Ferrari's per se.. Do you see everyone whining about Ferrari's breaking down? Odds are.. No.

But I can take a drive down the street and snap a pic at the Ferrari dealership where their garage is full of Ferraris being worked on.

Oh.. And if ya take it like I'm saying the mcloed's are the "Ferrari's" of clutches... Maybe I am . But Chevy's are just as fast.. If not faster .. and the bellhousing hides that beaut of a clutch anyway.

 

Well first off mcleod makes more than 1 clutch. You can get a single disk mcleod that costs $400 and is worlds better than spec. How often do you hear about those failing. Not very often. They are very common clutches, so the chevy/ferrari comment holds no water there. Like i said a few bad apples is ok, but when you have 4 clutches in a row (rated at 650hp) that dont even hold to the power from a bolt on car, thats just a pure POS. The only spec clutch that is $400 is the stage 1&2's. Get into the stage 3,4 & 5 ranges and that price shoots up to $500-$600. Add a billet flywheel (which you need for serious racing) for $300 and your already at $800-$900, and you still only have half the clutch (at the same price) of the street twin with a clutch that functions like an on/off switch. And you still dont have the billet master cylinder. Plus when it's time to replace that clutch after a year (it wont last long than that from serious use), you have to buy a entire new clutch at the low price of $500-$600. After a few years of beating my street twin, i can send it back and get it rebuilt for $325, regardless of what needs to be replaced. A street twin with a steel flywheel is not $1000. Hell, i got mine on sale for $801 shipped. Sounds like some band wagoner is trying to skew numbers. Funny, i would expect that kind of behavior to come from the guy the joe o cam.

P.S. dont try to come back with a comment about a street twin band wagon. One doesnt exist. There are to many cheap people out there to keep the street twin from having one.

 

Heh.. I'm not a band wagonner ... They've never done me wrong.. And I do all my own work.

I bought my SPEC Stage 4 from Thunder Racing back in 2001 for around $385.. That where my price came from .

Furthermore, my Stage 4 has lasted me just fine over the last two years. And that's w/ a stock flywheel. Still cut mid 1.5 60's on a stock suspension ~ we'll see how well this "inferior, breaks a lot, wears out too quick and expensive clutch to replace" fares at the track next soon enough w/ a set of QA1's. My guess is ~ just fine ... <- 'Course, I really wouldn't expect anything less, considering I haven't been let down yet .

A Joe O. cam? Uhh.. okay - more like an off the shelf "cookie cutter" grind.. But.. whatever.

Have a good one.

 

2001, huh. Thats exactly the same year when my roomate was experiancing his spec clutch woes. But then again he drives his car the way it was meant to be driven and races quite frequnetly. Yea the clutch lasted 6 months with an old man driving it every now and then while we were on deployment. Then the first time he took it to the track when we got back, it was TOAST. Then another and another and another. Everytime they had a different excuse to why it failed and a "new design". So he sold the last new design and bought a stock clutch till he could get a street twin. It was so funny how that stock clutch lasted longer than any "inferior, breaks a lot, wears out too quick" spec clutch he ever had. While you might have a clutch that has lasted that long, to many people have bad experiances so your story doesnt matter because in the big picture they have a hugh amount of falures. It almost seems like out of every 10 clutches they make, 3 or more have problems. It's really sucks to be those 3 people. There are quite a few people that have a working spec clutch now, but have had a deffective one in the past. The bottom line is that thier quality control department must be sleeping on the job or non existant. There should not be that many deffective products leaving the factory. Good customer service also includes good quality control, not just being freindly on the phone and sending replacments. As for me I'm done with this thread. It's like talking to a fu(king wall. Have a nice life.

 

i think that was a rip on me :shrugs

like Shawn, i have had my clutch in for 3 years now 40,000+ miles and it still works like a champ!

next clutch for me will be a SPEC4!

explain my behavior please?

noone said anything about the single disk Mcleods....however they are problematic too just like all other clutches (search button works wonders, altho it doesnt go back in date far enuf) if the searches went back far enuf in date you would see all the problems people had with those before SPEC jumped into the scene

NOONE according to "texanmutt" has EVER had problems with the street twin, ever.....thats definately good to hear

thanks for the note on the 1 year death of SPEC clutches from "serious use"

 

As do I. Well, *frequently* at least... How many people at the local drag strip know your name? At the Motorplex everyone that's been working there a minimum of the last 4 years knows who I am. Not many people can say that... Especially those w/ "street" cars.

And how is it like talking to a wall? The fact that anything you say about my car holds absolutely NO value?

Well.. That's obvious.

but, we do agree on one thing .

 

Grabbing my popcorn...

 

I go to cheers, were everyone knows my name. Do i really care. NO. If it makes you feel special that everyone knows you there, well im happy for you. It still donesnt take away from the fact that...

Good customer service also includes good quality control.

As Bill Oreily says "your spining". Keep to the facts instead of reverting to a pissing contest of popularity at the local track. (by the way i know the owner of the localtrack, but who cares) Also i said nothing about your car. Never seen it heard or know anything about other than a spec clutch and really dont care about it. Again the point here is that spec still has issues with quality control. Most other clutch makers have better quality control, so you do not hear bad things about there clutches very often. When i joined this board 3 years ago, i did a search on clutches. I did not see the so called "problems people had with those clutches before SPEC jumped into the scene". What i did see was alot of spec clutch failures both on the board and in many freinds cars. I the past 3 years i have seen very few bad comments about the other clutch makers products, but it seems like every other week some one posts about a failed spec clutch. If you do a search, you see this to be true. So than we come back to the point, which is quality control issues. Other clutch brands dont seem to have these problems, so why is it the spec does. This is not a pissing contest of who's car is better or how many people know my name. This is a debate based on the history and current events of clutches, so lets keep it there on that point. Based on that history and current events, spec has alot of deffective clutches that make it to the customer. And that right there is bad cutomer service. I though i was done with this thread, but i guess it will go on forever. In the mean time lets stop the spin.