Well, I'm living through the worst string of bad luck I've ever had to endure. It starts with my cabin basement getting flooded requiring major restoration work. Luckily, most of that will be covered by insurance. The next thing that happened was that I broke my ankle waterskiing on the third turn of my first run of the year. Season over before it started. The next thing that happened was that as I was leaving to head home the *$#&^(%! clutch failed on my '08 SS. That clutch only had 64,000 Km (~40,000 miles) on it. Fortunately, it happened when I was just a little ways from the nearest decent sized town to my cabin and not high in a mountain pass hundreds of Km from both my cabin and my home so the towing bill wasn't too bad and my 2 dogs and I can stay in my cabin and not a motel while the car gets fixed. The same day the car broke down, I had another bit of bad luck which deprived me of $3,600 of income which I REALLY needed but I won't get into details about that.

Today, I get a call from the GM Stealership I had the car towed to (July 4 is not a holiday in Canada) and they tell me I a new clutch kit (24239996) which they would charge me a whopping $548.77 CAD for () and that I should also order and replace the Slave cylinder (24242805) for $258.60 CAD and that it will take them 3-4 weeks to get coming from GM in the States. Apparently, only donkey cart service is available for getting those parts to Canada. Labour to fix will be 8 hours so that's gonna be at least a grand for labour.

I'm back at my cabin now, trying to find parts that I can get cheaper and faster. I have no internet out here, I have to use my cell phone as a wifi hotspot and cell coverage is flakey at best out here. I'm lucky if I can get an LTE data connection and lots of time it's down to 3G and unbelievably slow or no network available. As such, it's difficult and time consuming for me to determine what parts I need to/should order and then track them down on Rock Auto. I also have to be careful of the bandwidth I use so as not to go over my cell phone monthly data limit and be fleeced by unreasonable extra data charges.

You people out there with fast, reliable internet connections and good knowledge of available parts for the '08 SS clutch assy; can you please give me a hand?

First of all, what all parts should I be ordering? Is 24239996 the part no. for the clutch kit or just the pressure plate? Do I also need to order the clutch disc 24239997? What about a pilot bearing? Is 24242805 a good number for the slave cyl?

Are there any decent third party alternatives for any of these parts? I am NOT impressed with the quality and durability of the OEM clutches on these cars. They're sh*t quality compared to the Sachs clutches I used to put in my Volvos.

I would gladly pay a little more to get something of higher quality and more durable/long lasting than the OEM GM SS clutch. I should also mention that I'm at stock power but I can be an aggressive driver and like to put that car through its paces gearing down hard into corners and accelerating quick out of them, etc. when I get on a windy road such as the road from the main highway to my cabin. I'm probably a more demanding driver than what the stock clutch was designed for.

My internet is working half-decent right now (skips in and out) and I can see that Rock-Auto is offering me several performance options from M-Pact. Options include a kits with Hi-torque Steelback, multi-friction and 6-puck ceramic discs. Are these good? Which one(s) is/are most recommended? Here are the links:

Steelback https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...pt=1993&jsn=13

Multi-friction https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...441155&pt=1993

6-Puck Ceramic https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...441155&pt=1993

 

Check TTR and ZZP

 

@Oldblue Thanks for your advice but did you read the part about me having crappy internet service and needing to minimize bandwidth used to find things? Cell service is so spotty here and I lose my connection all the time. It could literally take me more than a half hour and chew up a lot of valuable bandwidth for me to find the sites and products just to get to one of the products you might be recommending. I need links right to the EXACT pages I should be looking at. Is TTR TTV Racing? I don't know what TTR or ZZP is. More information please.

Is there a Kevlar clutch disc alternative available for the SS? According to what Rock Auto says are the advantages and characteristics of the various clutch disc materials, Kevlar seems like the best alternative for me at least in terms of durability.

 

Clutch Pressure Plate And Disc Set. PLATE KIT.

Part Number: 24239996Transmission Clutch Pressure Plate and Friction Plate Set.

Fits Cobalt, HHR, Pursuit

Cobalt; 2.0L.

 

https://www.turbotechracing.com/prod...idproduct=5396

https://www.turbotechracing.com/prod...idproduct=5426

https://www.turbotechracing.com/prod...idproduct=5250

 

I was interested in the TurboTech Stage 1 Kevlar disc clutch kit but they're telling me 3 - 5 days just to have it made and 1 - 2 weeks more to get it here. I need something much faster than that. Nothing goes right.

All the local auto parts stores can only get me a Luk OEM replacement kit which is also available at Rock Auto. https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...441155&pt=1993

What is my best option on Rock Auto? Here are my clutch kit choices. None of them include a Kevlar clutch disc. It's either organic, sintered ceramic or cerametalic.

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/...lutch+kit,1993

 

This won’t take much bandwidth; what exactly happened when the clutch failed? I ask because typically, a worn-out clutch begins to slip a little before it become completely undrivable.

 

Yeah. And I'm curious as to why the clutch died with only 40k miles on the car. Or is this a replacement clutch that failed after only 40k miles.
Kevlar replacement ? Why the need ? Are you that hard on your car ?

 

I had just driven a wide open 30 km stretch of windy fun lakeside road pretty fast and aggressively (having a lot of fun at 5 am) and was just coming over a hillcrest into a sharp corner when I pushed the clutch pedal in to downshift and it didn't come back out. Thereafter, I could not get it into gear while the engine was running. I had no slippage warning the disc was going to fail prior to that.

I'm not inordinately hard on clutches; I shift cleanly and don't ride the clutch, race, do burn-outs or anything like that. But I do often drive more aggressively than most people when cornering. That's when I drive the SS like a sportscar; I go fast down windy roads when I can; I downshift hard going into corners forcing the revs up and then come out fast at the apex going up through the gears putting that turbo and drivetrain through its paces and making it work hard. I have fun with the car. I just happen to have done a lot of that over these last 3-ish weeks.

The clutch that just failed is not the original clutch. The original one went at 40,000 Km because there was an oil leak of some kind into the transmission (great initial quality GM!) and the clutch disc got contaminated. I had the clutch replaced at a local garage so now that I realize that, I'm not sure if an OEM or third party clutch got put in there. Whatever got put in there, it was nowhere as durable as the Sachs clutches I used to put in my RWD turbo and normally aspirated Volvos (now those were actually well made cars). I used to drive the Volvos hard too but the clutches always lasted well over 100,000 Km.

What I need to know is if any of the M-Pact Daily Driver Performance Upgrade kits available on Rock Auto (links provided in OP) are any good and which of them is most likely to be the most durable and long-lasting. I'm kind of thinking maybe the Stage 1.5 OEM upgrade kit might be good for me; steel backed organic on the flywheel side and sintered ceramic puck on the pressure plate side. Kind of a hybrid design. They say it's a good choice for someone who has done a moderate power increase or somebody who drives more aggressively than most at stock power which is me. Anybody installed one of those kits in their SS?

 

It's not just the pedal return spring that broke? Pretty common.