Thoughts and Prayer <> Aamco is doing my new clutch
 

My TOB finally gave up the ghost and it is time for a new clutch. Most of the local shops were less than confidence inspiring and crazy expensive if they even wanted to do the job at all. There are a couple of Subaru enthusiast shops in the region but they're booked out for weeks or too far to drive it syncro shifting in traffic and I can't wait that long so I took it to the Aamco that's essentially on my corner :scared0016: They have also been challenging and have not inspired confidence but they matched the best prices I was quoted from the enthusiast shops and are using only OEM parts.

Here's to hoping things go well and it doesn't strand me somewhere remote as I have a 1500 mile road trip to do starting next Sunday. :cheers:

You already know the good news.

You can walk home from where your car is being worked on.

From personal experience, our cars are super easy to change the clutch. Any shady mechanic can do it with a few jack stands. Heck I did mine in my garage.

It's a super easy job. If you ever have the chance to see it done you'll be amazed how easy it is. Well at lest if you have lift.

A shadetree mechanic maybe, but I don’t think I would want a “shady” mechanic doing any work on my car :lol:

Well that's why you always ask for the leftover bolts. :cheers:

If my driveway was flat I'd have tried it myself. It's been about 25 years since I've done a clutch and you're right, this one seems pretty easy so I know I can do it. I just couldn't convince myself there was a good way to put the car up high enough for me to feel safe crawling under there and yanking on stuff. At this stage of my life I feel better about someone else breaking off rusted bolts too.

I just don't feel good about having to take it to a chain shop that is piss poor at communication and wouldn't let me give them things like the part number for the new throwout bearing just to make sure I get that rather than the same old pos one. They also refuse to turn a flywheel and will only replace and that has to be at their discretion because after the car is in pieces they can pretty much tell the customer whatever they want and you're stuck with it.

Tough bind. Fingers crossed that they get it right for you.

Well, I picked it up yesterday afternoon and it felt pretty good for the couple of miles I drove. I initially thought it felt awfully soft but then started to remember that it felt pretty much like that when I got the car almost 5 years ago. It's more precise than it has been for a long time, maybe due to the new shift fork they put in. I'm going to get it out on the open road today and give it a good run to settle things in because I'm doing ~750 miles on Sunday and returning on Tuesday night. They did keep it right at the $1100 estimate so that's not too terrible I guess but, that's only with a good wipe down cleaning of the flywheel rather than a resurface and I don't know which TOB they used because the part # isn't on the work order receipt.

That just comes from cleaning and lubing the quill. You're no longer fighting the bind between that and the TOB.

that would annoy me, the TOB that is. i would have supplied the part to be sure...

The flywheel should be fine. The TOB is ~$30, definitely should've made sure they got the right part for a $1100 job.

That wasn't an option :(

And that's one of the worst parts of the whole experience, not being able to have any input.

Well, I did a good sized little trip yesterday of about 250 miles and everything seems to be working well. The extremely light action has settled into a more normal pedal feel and the tranny whine quieted down a lot. I think I'm going to change the fluid soon anyway just because I have no idea what's in there and it'll make me feel better if I know.

How many miles did you reach until your TOB gave up?

103,000 before it totally crapped out but it started squealing when it was cold early last winter around 90k. There were days during the winter that it was pretty bad but it always got quiet once things warmed up and when it warmed up last spring it was good to go again. All of a sudden it decided it was finished one afternoon when I was about 180 miles from home. That was a fun trip :bonk: