As I've followed along here, I have begun to wonder......
Are the clutches really that bad?
Are the axles really that weak?
Blew up the engine?

I agree that Chevy made these cars to be driven, but c'mon. How does one burn up a clutch in 5000 miles?

Or twist a driveshaft in two?

Or blow up the engine?

I drove my Quad 4 Calais very hard. The clutch....that I put in, is still going strong after 50k miles (stock by the way) Dropped the clutch at the drags repeatedly, never broke an axle.

I have this sneaking suspision that these are owner problems......

GM markets these cars for kids, and I gather it worked. As much as I love my SS, I guess I bought a kids car. At least my mom and dad didn't buy it for me........

I think your on to something their. Hmmmmm.........

I have this sneaking suspision that these are owner problems......


although i do believe the clutches are really crappy, yes most of the breakage issues are due to inexperience. i've put almost 11,000 miles on my car since the end of june, and ran it pretty hard atleast once a day, on the weekends a little bit more. modded it with water injection, airbox mod, xylene gas, acetone gas, header.... and i have not even had a single burp out of my car.(not even a single CEL) the one thing that i will not do is dump the clutch. these cars can take a beating

I agree with you Ron.. ;)
I have almost 8K on mine, done a little spririted driving here and there, and I have not had a single mechanical problem. Dumped the clutch once and almost wound up in the ditch, the damn thing yanked so hard it surprised the crap out of me :D
It may of been marketed for the younger crowd, but I love this car, and can't wait for stage 3 to be announced.

i love my car as well but it kinda pissed me off that the service technician who changed my oil didnt put enough back in!!! well bout a thousand miles after the oil change my engine started clanking!!! oh yea the best part is that they are saying it could be a normal occurance to that model of engine!! i am totally throwing the bullshit flag on this one!!

Way to hit the nail on the head. My father works for GM and he's the guy you all hate. He's an Area Service Manager. He's seen 3 cases already of a blown clutch. One instance he was telling me was from a girl who bought the car who had no clue how to drive a manual transmission. And the other two were from two teenage kids, that had bald tires at 2k miles. Someone see a trend here ;)

hmmm interesting, I know I have went through a clutch and a transmission and certainly don't beat on the car anywhere near my 300whp Firebird which runs great time after time and has not broke. So yeah I am gonna go with shitty components.

the parts in this car are geared more to mid-performance.. which is where this car sits.. but so many drive this car to its max.. not where gm planned this car to be driven at.. so not bad components but not great...

we will really see hoe bad these components are when 300+ hp comes in.. hopefully we wont have rods flying thru are hoods..

also you gotta think.. good strong motor weaker supporting parts..(lsj).. or you have lets say a civic si on your hands.. weak motor but better supporting parts..

20+ 1/4 mile runs bone stock with a best time of 14.5@97, 9000 miles, and not one problem. I've been driving a stick for 14 years.

I also agree that 90% of the drivetrain problems are directly related to the driver.

I've seriously abused my Ion RL. My clutch is still strong at 17k miles, never slipped, still grabs hard. My second gear seems alittle iffy sometimes though..