DriftTrix

Autozone is now offering a clutch kit for the FD with a full lifetime guarantee!

It just came out about a week ago right after i bought a clutch for $300 with a 1 year guarantee.

You can buy this clutch at any autozone, its brand is Luk the warranty covers EVERYTHING. You dont need to keep your reciept and they can replace it at any autozone in the contry with just your phone number and name.

The warranty will cover anything you want it too, seriously, it should come with the full kit, pilot bearing, throwout bearing, clutch disk and pressure plate, the duralast i bought from them came with a new ring/hook thing so im assumming the luk will too. They cover wear and tear, abuse, even if you just want to replace it and say you dont like it they'll replace it for free!!!!

Im not trying to sell these to all of you, i could care less and i dont get commission but a clutch that will last your lifetime is now availible and i thought you might be interested.

Just helpin the community out = )

BMike

Thats alot like a lifetime waranty muffler, sure you can always get new mufflers, but they aren't going to replace the muffler without fixing all the other problems your exhaust will assuredly have by then at cost to you.

IE, do you really want to buy a "lifetime garuntee" clutch that has to be replaced every 2-3 years, if that. I wouldn't trust an autozone OE replacement to hold anything much above a stock 7s power and last any real ammount of time. My time is worth way more than saving 100 bucks on the "last clutch ill ever pay for, but certainly not install".

dgeesaman

iTrader: (7)

That is interesting for stock clutch users.

DriftTrix

It was an offer i put to people who DO care about spending 300 dollars every time they need a clutch and i don't believe any 600 hp car should put a clutch like this in either but if you do have an FD and its not pushing 400, 500 hp then why the hell not.

Its a part that naturally breaks down just like brake pads. If i could get hold of lifetime guaranteed apex seals, corner seals, housings... motor parts i would be all over it even if it DID JUST last 100,000 miles. It doesnt bother me to say even if the quality is a little bit lower then what you pay for aftermarket at least you wont have to continue to buy them.

Also all of autozones parts are OEM or better thats how they live by so you arnt getting parts made by child labor = )

I would think you were an idiot if you had a 600 hp car and replaced your clutch with an oem part. But that's just me and my .02 cents.

DriftTrix

Also its just a thought but i might be able to set up a GB for it. If any1 is interested, they are OEM quality clutches.

moconnor

iTrader: (14)

$300 for a no-name clutch is a very poor deal. Brand new OEM (Exedy) clutches are cheaper than that on ebay. And, asserting that it is OEM quality does not make it so.

The last people I would like to work on my car are mechanics at big chain stores. I particularly don't like the idea of potentially spending six hours in their seedy waiting areas every few years while they replace a crappy no-name clutch with yet another crappy no-name clutch. There are better ways of spending a Saturday.

adam c

iTrader: (2)

I once bought a Napa "Lifetime Warranty" CV joint for an old Subaru. What a piece of crap. I recall having it replaced every 8-10K. The part was warrantied, but not the labor. In the long run, I wound up spending more that I would have if I had got an OEM (good quality) part in the first place.

I suspect that the labor is not included in the "lifetime warranty" of this clutch. Even if it is, how many quality mechanics do you think work at Autozone. I certainly wouldn't want them working on my car.

DriftTrix

By the way Autozone is not a mechanics shop, its just a parts store = )

and i too would never take my car to a big chain mechanics shop eather. I was just offering up a place were you could get a clutch with a lifetime warranty.

They're a parts store the're not going to do it for you.

jeesus just take this thread off, i was just posting a great deal and if you dont like it, dont take it.

DamonB

It isn't a no-name. He said the clutch is made by Luk, which is a well known and respected clutch manufacturer who does in fact supply many OEM's.

Asserting that since it was purchased from Autozone it is of piece of crap quality does not make it so either.

http://www.lukclutch.com/

DriftTrix

Thanx DamonB.

Its not 300 dollars i think its in the $480 dollar range =) Its not cheap but I guess thats how some people rate their potatos.

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

i might be interested in getting one after the motor is in and gets worn in... i think its a good idea! its really not that hard to pull a tranny so i really dont know why everyone is bitching about the time involved... NAPA parts suck dont take it personal but your a moron if you buy stuff from them the gaskets they sell are tiney and made of cardboard. i have a luk clutch on my daily driver and i think i honestly beat the **** out of that car worse than i do than the fd... its go 35k on it right now and doesnt slip one bit. like i said if you wanna organise a gb i would be interested in a month prolly after they sweep off the roads around here! i think this clutch is a good idea to anyone that has mechanical abilities to tear it down and put one in. i know i'll have no problems with my lift and 25k in snap on/matco/sk..... tools. and lets not bad mouth the product anymore till we hear of somones disk exploding and whatnot. bump for interesting thread!!! i aint hatin...

audiobot7

I bought a set of front brakes from Autozone a few years ago, definitely wasn't worth it.

Larz

I work at O"Reilly. The clutch that my store carries and autozones are only 1Y warranty. Unless something just changed last night. I don't use any parts from any autoparts store on my FD save for simple things like a wix fuel filter and a wix oil filter. I was also able to get my NGK plugs through O'Reilly. But I will be trying Wagner brake rotors this season at auto x, which were purchased through O'reill. Those are lifetime warranty. And I have done NO warranty returns on those as long as I've worked for the company. Couldn't afford a big brake kit, so those will have to do for now. And changing out a clutch every year is just a major pain in the ***. I'd rather shell out the cash for an ACT or centerforce or even a Malloy OEM one.

fsae_alum

My motto with respect to lifetime warranty parts from AutoZone is this: "What good is a lifetime warranty if you're changing out the part every 3 months?" It all depends on what you have more of....time or money.

209FD

iTrader: (2)

are you sure the warranty covers the friction material itself? Many times these lifetime warrantys only cover the hardware and not the friction material itself. Using autozones lifetime brake pads as an example, if the pad cracks or the friction material becomes unriveted then they would replace it, but not if it is worn down.

jic

iTrader: (1)

there it is..time or money..you choose

akiratdk

hmmm....FD are performace cars am I correct? So I think its best to put performance parts even though if its stock.... I just replaced my muffer with a custom muffler from the muffler shop.... its sounds nice and all but the heat our cars make is so high that the muffler I installed is starting to change shape!!!! I will get my RB Duals again but our cars are different than normal cars... my 2 cents.

moconnor

iTrader: (14)

Well, not to play semantic word games but everything is a brand name somewhere. In the FD universe and in the performance market in general, Luk is a completely unknown entity.

No - but simple logic will tell you that the onus of proof is not on me and that I am perfectly entitled to assume it is crap until proved otherwise (though the degree to which people still try hoary old negative proof arguments is interesting). Given the general quality of stuff at Autozone, I think my claim is on pretty solid ground.

DriftTrix

I work for autozone and at my store i take back brakes that are worn down regardless of the brake backing or anything. Its how i interpret our warrantees's so i take it no questions asked. Clutches being the same way.

Autozone owns duralast. If you want to reflect duralasts quality with Autozone its fine with me.

BUT, we also sell products from

Apexi
Innovative
Sparco
K/N
Holly
Etc.

We sell SAFCII, sparco racing seats, im 70% sure we could even order a PFC so by you saying the brakes suck from duralast and that reflects AutoZone's quality then you must mean apexi sells crappy products, innovative has shitty turbos, k/ns don't last hours.

Its a parts store. You go there to BUY PARTS they have 1000 page VDP books that can order things from brands you would never have related to autozone

The prices ARE marked up. SAFCII i think are in the 400 dollar ballpark but you get the product delivered to you in 2 business days AND they cover the warranty that's on the product.

Do you think any company would be willing to market a clutch that lasts a lifetime when it costs them 500+ dollars to replace it every year? Trust me the people that make these clutches know how long it will last. Even if its a cheap clutch that wears faster then cheese i doubt they would throw a lifetime warranty if its going to cost them 500 dollars to replace! I promise you if you took it to my store in washington i would trade it out as many times as you wanted.

They just recently reduced duralasts clutches from a lifetime to a 1year because they didn't cut it in the long run.

It basically did. I just noticed it yesterday and 2 weeks ago it defiantly wasn't there.

DamonB

There are few people who actually make parts of any kind. You have a company who makes parts to others' specs and then sells those parts to other companies who stick it in their box with their name and sell it to you. This is true of everything. For instance Ford (or any other auto manufacturer) really doesn't MAKE cars, they assemble cars from parts which they've spec'd to outside suppliers. You've never heard of any of the companies that build the parts in Ford's cars because those parts aren't available or marketed to you, they're marketed to car manufacturers.

From Luk's website at minimum they supply clutch and automatic torque convertor parts to all these OEM guys below. I've bet you've never heard of them either:

Acura
Alfa Romeo
Allison Transmission
American Motors
Audi
Austin
Austin Healey
BMW
Buick
Chevrolet (even Corvette!)
Chrysler
Daihatsu
Dodge
Eagle
Fiat
Ford (Luk is used exclusively in all diesel trucks)
Geo
GMC
Honda
Hyundai
Infiniti
Isuzu
Jaguar
Jeep
Kia
Lexus
Mazda
Mercedes-Benz
Mercury
MG
Mitsubishi
Nissan
Oldsmobile
Opel
Peugeot
Plymouth
Pontiac
Porsche
Renault
Rover
Saab
Saturn
Subaru
Suzuki
Toyota
Triumph
Volkswagen
Volvo

In addition to the OEM market Luk sells into the aftermarket and fleet industries as well. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out several aftermarket brands are in fact Luk parts. Did I mention yet they are the largest supplier of OEM clutches in the entire world?

But I'm sure everything from Luk is complete **** and all those OEM's are just trying to save a buck while the clutches and transmissions grenade a year later and they get to constantly replace them under the new car's warranty

Simple logic tells me you don't know what you're talking about.

moconnor

iTrader: (14)

I am giving my impressions based on Autozone stores only - nobody could keep track of all the interrelationships between corporate entities. Lots of companies with poor products own high quality companies. Fiat owns Ferrari, for example.

Even WalMart sells brand name products - I would not confuse the quality of those those products with the general quality level of WalMart products.

Lifetime warranties are a pretty standard way of selling unknown products. Even a poor clutch will probably last 3-5 years - and what are the chances of a consumer having the receipt (or even the same consumer even owning the car at that point) if the clutch does fails? The calculation is often that the claim level will be low enough to offset the marketing advantage.

This could very well be a fine clutch but it is unproven in an FD - and using the warranty to pick it over, say, ACT is not sensible IMHO (particularly since is seems to be more expensive than even very high quality clutches). Now, if Exedy offered a lifetime warranty and ACT didn't, I would probably pick the Exedy. But that is a different story.

4CN Air

iTrader: (7)

Luk clutche's are used extensively by Daimler-Benz. The turbo PT cruisers and such use them, Neon guys use them as a slight upgrade from stock. They are very nice "OEM quality" parts.

BTW: I've seen some real crap come from Exedy. Their street/strip for my friends 'charged Integra slipped more than the stock clutch.

A lot is application specific though. V8 guys swear by CenterForce yet Neon guys will use stock over the CenterForce for the 1st gen Neon. For some reason it just doesn't hold, even at near stock levels.

209FD

iTrader: (2)

LUK is quality and very established. Im a tech for a Ford dealer and we almost exclusively use LUK on all the cars we work on, and like DamonB implied, why would a manufacturer put something in a car just so they have to replace it again at their cost.

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

Damon rules... you said what i wish i could have thought of! perfect just simply perfect...

4CN Air

iTrader: (7)

Which is why they'll probably get out of the financial mess they are currently in and why GM (who makes or owns the companies that make all of their parts) will probably end up in bankruptcy.

A little off topic but it's not everyday I can apply business concepts to cars. Those damn engineers get to do it all the time.