Demon Trans tries to bankrupt me, at least it's not a DSG - that would be gay

[Subliminal]

As many of you already know I've been having problems with my car the last few weeks. Installed a brand new Ringer Racing clutch a couple weeks ago and the car wouldn't start so dropped the trans a 2nd time to find the pressure plate tabs had made contact with the bellhousing, and Mike from Ringer advised to shave down the tabs and "there will be no other issues".

After doing that, the car started but the clutch was still slipping in 3rd and up. Was advised by Mike it's "normal" while breaking in the clutch but after a few days of driving around I had a bad feeling there's something else going on. Was ready to trade in the car for something else at this point because I'm not sure if it's the clutch or something else going wrong with the car since it's slipping just as easily, if not easier, than the toasted clutch I just replaced.

Started to return the car to stock so we dropped the trans a third time, so I could re-sell the new clutch kit, and that's when we discovered the slip was caused because the disk still isn't making full contact. On top of that the pressure plate has been scraping new parts of the trans.

Ended up throwing the old ACT flywheel and pressure plate back on with the new Ringer disk and low n behold, the car finally holds power.

After explaining this to Mike and showing him pictures, his only offer was to send out a new pressure plate. I replied the last thing I currently want to do is drop the trans a 4th f'ing time.

Didn't hear back from him until I filed a dispute with Paypal. Here is our discussion-

Honestly I probably would've agreed to his last message and return the unused parts for a full refund if it wasn't for all his bullshit responses beforehand. I assume he expects me to pay for shipping the parts back as well, so my attitude is let PayPal make a decision because I won't be surprised if they just refund me the total and tell me to not bother returning the defective parts. Maybe I'm wrong, we'll see

 

[Subliminal]

 

[q74]

I'm still confused what the defect is/was to cause contact?

 

[Subliminal]

I'm still confused what the defect is/was to cause contact?

First cause of contact was the tab below and in the next pic the white line is where it hit. Then if you look back at the pics above from the 3rd drop you can see the new marks on the trans where the face of the pressure plate was making contact

 

[EpicTech]

That sucks, I would be pissed. Recommend getting an ACT, or spend a little more and get a Southbend ? Paypal will refund you, they did me every time I asked for it.

 

[El_bigote_AJ]

I don’t know, there’s still more I’d be concerned about, cause that ACT disc still had plenty of meat and shouldn’t really been slipping so quickly the way it did… esp with just a is20 pump gas tune . And now that the setup has a flywheel surface and pressure plate surface that was “bedded” from a different disc I’d be concerned how long this mixed setup will last in the current state. With this ordeal and the AC comp going so prematurely I’d be stuck wondering “what’s next” in the back of my head and prob. Still contemplate cutting my lose and trading the car in before it’s time to do the clutch again. On the ac subject - what was the diagnosis the comp burnt up and it’s not just low on Freon? Cause the clutch won’t engage if it’s low. (Needs a true gauge manifold put on the car that will read the high side pressure and the low side pressure, not just a can that will read the low side)

 

[Subliminal]

I don’t know, there’s still more I’d be concerned about, cause that ACT disc still had plenty of meat and shouldn’t really been slipping so quickly the way it did… esp with just a is20 pump gas tune . And now that the setup has a flywheel surface and pressure plate surface that was “bedded” from a different disc I’d be concerned how long this mixed setup will last in the current state. With this ordeal and the AC comp going so prematurely I’d be stuck wondering “what’s next” in the back of my head and prob. Still contemplate cutting my lose and trading the car in before it’s time to do the clutch again. On the ac subject - what was the diagnosis the comp burnt up and it’s not just low on Freon? Cause the clutch won’t engage if it’s low. (Needs a true gauge manifold put on the car that will read the high side pressure and the low side pressure, not just a can that will read the low side)

Lol as if I wasn't paranoid about the car enough already

But ya I have wondered how long the current setup will last... it's part of the reason I'm still so pissed about the whole ordeal with Ringer. Even after all this trouble I'm still not 100% confident in the clutch holding long term. The pedal is super light from the ACT plate but also super grabby from the Ringer disk.

Compressor leak... if you recall me mentioning before about a burning smell, well now I'm pretty sure it was from the compressor. I could smell it again after pulling into the garage after the ac stopped working, and underneath the compressor you can see oil on the undertray. Before we talked about rough takeoffs with the AC on... had wondered if it was the compressor going bad. Clutch is still engaging though, although I have heard noise from the compressor area a couple times while driving (w/ AC OFF) so the car has just been sitting for now until the new compressor arrives. The last month has been a real pain in the ass with the car.

Really don't want to get rid of the car. There's not really many cars I would want to replace it with and the ones that I would consider are either over $50k (plus markups) or I've heard horror stories about multiple motors/trans blowing in the course of a year - Hyundai's N's for example. And while their warranty looks good on paper I've heard them declining warranties for any reason they can possibly find which isn't that surprising

 

[Subliminal]

That sucks, I would be pissed. Recommend getting an ACT, or spend a little more and get a Southbend ? Paypal will refund you, they did me every time I asked for it.

ACT is what I replaced after 20k miles. I suspect Paypal will side with me and Mike knows it which is why he's so upset and at the very end offered a full refund if I return the unused items. Did you ever have to go through the dispute/claim process with Paypal though? Right now he seems to just be leaving the last message 'unread' instead of letting it go to review by Paypal.

 

[Subliminal]

Could the compressor going bad cause the ACT clutch to prematurely wear out? Car felt like its starting to stall during the last ~50% of clutch travel when taking off in 1st w/ ac running, would that be enough to burn out the disk after a while?

 

[Daks]

I have nothing to offer here - just want to say that I feel bad that you are going through this. sorry dude.

 

[Subliminal]

I have nothing to offer here - just want to say that I feel bad that you are going through this. sorry dude.

Thanks Daks. It's been a hassle for sure but overall I still consider myself pretty fortunate... fortunate I don't need to drive to work every day, fortunate I can afford the repairs, fortunate there's people around willing to help, etc

 

[sterkrazzy]

Is ringer racing a rebranded clutch master? I feel like I've heard that before, and I wouldn't touch a clutch master with a 10 foot pole.

 

[Subliminal]

Is ringer racing a rebranded clutch master? I feel like I've heard that before, and I wouldn't touch a clutch master with a 10 foot pole.

Yup

 

[sterkrazzy]

I have no experience with CM. It's just when I was doing clutch research on my mk6 my mechanic was trying to get me into one, so I looked at them a bunch. From the stuff I had read way back then made me feel like they were a bad clutch for our cars. Seemed to be a lot of people with hondas and stuff like that running them no problem, but I saw plenty of complaints from VW people about the CM clutches.

 

[El_bigote_AJ]

It’s not fully a rebrand, it’s a clutch kit that’s manufactured by clutchmasters to ringers specs (which happens more often than people think)

Southbend for example gets Made by exedy