2023 clutch fire danger

[Jenpurplejeep]

I have a new 2023 jeep manual transmission only 230 miles on it and i just got the notice that my clutch could catch fire and I called the dealer and they told me not to drive it till they can get me in to have it checked but there’s currently no fix? Anyone have any idea or know anything more about it? What is the likelihood of it actually catching fire? Should I not drive it at all and cancel all my summer plans?

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[Dr. Jones]

Check out the thread.
Clutch Recall (2/23/23): Clutch Pressure Plate May Overheat -- Affecting 70,000 Manual Jeep Wranglers and Gladiators

 

[bjm00se]

They gave you the "cover your ass" (CYA) response. So if something happens, well, they TOLD YOU not to drive it. ?

But pretty much nobody on this forum is parking their 6sp Jeeps. I know I'm still driving mine.

 

[GSRON]

So there's 70,000 units affected by this recall. If you treat the #'s given as individual claims there's 68 claims........

"The automaker says that it is aware of 26 customer assistance records, 36 warranty claims, six field reports, one injury, and no crashes that could be related to this issue."

That's LESS THAN ONE PERCENT.

Drive your Jeep.

 

[bjm00se]

That's LESS THAN ONE PERCENT.

Drive your Jeep.

Not to be pedantic, but 68 incidents on 70,000 jeeps is not only less than one percent, it's an order of magnitude more rare, one-in-a-thousand, one tenth of one percent.

 

[Jared1956]

Drive it….just don’t let your foot rest on the clutch pedal between shifts or especially while driving in general. Make 100% sure your foot isn’t touching the pedal unless it is to shift. These are super light clutches with super high on the pedal stroke engagement. If you think you are hovering between shifts and in fact are just lightly touching the pedal, chances are you are exerting enough force to slip the clutch. Once the clutch is worn enough from a few thousand miles of doing this, it will eventually overheat and could explode.

Also don’t be a dope and try and drive this like a sports car with rev matching and other dumb shit. Accelerate, let off the accelerator, depress the clutch, change gear, let off clutch, depress the accelerator.

 

[Jared1956]

YMMV, and I thought about doing this exactly. But it is not a big deal. Why take away some of the best parts of driving a manual. I'm sure more than enough of the 70,000 affected have been rev matching and heel-toe from day one.

This is a hit-by-lightning problem and you are stuck on a desert with no shelter. There is very little you can to to avoid calamity.

I agree with you, but there are some people who are scared and trying to minimize their risk. For those people, these are some steps they can take, along with a fire extinguisher, to mitigate some of that risk.

My guess is these clutches are too light for the heavy four doors, set up for the ESS system, and combined with driver error of touching the pedal while you think you are hovering, is causing them to slip their lives away prematurely. Once the friction material is worn off, then the best driver in the world is going to have a failure because there is nothing he/she can do. Once the material is gone, that’s when these things heat up enough on the highway especially due to wind resistance and high gear high throttle input, they fracture.

 

[TroyMclure]

I have a new 2023 jeep manual transmission only 230 miles on it and i just got the notice that my clutch could catch fire and I called the dealer and they told me not to drive it till they can get me in to have it checked but there’s currently no fix? Anyone have any idea or know anything more about it? What is the likelihood of it actually catching fire? Should I not drive it at all and cancel all my summer plans?

Sorry, but I kinda crack up when I see new threads about this issue. And the inevitable responses about how the people whose transmissions exploded don't know how to drive an MT, are resting their foot on the clutch, etc.

This has been a known issue with the JL clutch for at least 3 years. How could you not know about it? There's even a Facebok group of people who have had this happen, trying to get enough people to interest a law firm in filing a class action lawsuit.

There are numerous threads on this website from people documenting their pressure plates fracturing, throwing shrapnel through the transmission, and in some case causing the Jeep to catch on fire. The first guy (I think) to experience this failure posted a thread on this site a few years ago. He got the usual hate - you don't know how to drive an MT, etc. He got nothing from Jeep, and tried so hard to get their attention, they blocked him on their Facebook and Twitter pages. Since then, more people experienced clutch failures, and Jeep was forced to issue a recall - 2, in fact. The first was about putting a plastic sleeve over the line from the master cylinder. The second was a software patch (FOR A MECHANICAL DESIGN FLAW/DEFECT).

Apparently these 2 recalls did not fix the problem, because people have reported clutch failures after having both recalls done. There is a recent thread here, and it looks like the NHTSA is finally forcing Jeep to admit their recalls did not fix the clutch problem. Guess that's why you got that notice.

You can search for the threads on this site. I think the last one was from last August, where a guy posted (with pictures) his niece's Jeep had the clutch failure and burned on the side of the road.

Oh, and in most cases, the drivers were experienced stick shift drivers, and they did not rest their foot on the clutch.

Did they sell you a Jeep with a known issue? Yup. Is the incidence of clutch failure really low, compared to the number sold. Yes. But that's not much consolation if your clutch explodes and possibly causes the car to burn.

On a positive note, the number of failures is relatively low. And most were reported after the odometer had over 10,000 miles on it.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own a Wrangler. I wanted to buy one (starting 2 years ago), and preferred an MT. My internet research brought me to this great website. Reading about the clutch issue, and Jeep's treatment of people who experienced the failure, scared me away from buying one. I still check into this site to see if Jeep resolved the JL clutch issue. It doesn't appear so.

 

[Jared1956]

Sorry, but I kinda crack up when I see new threads about this issue. And the inevitable responses about how the people whose transmissions exploded don't know how to drive an MT, are resting their foot on the clutch, etc.

This has been a known issue with the JL clutch for at least 3 years. How could you not know about it? There's even a Facebok group of people who have had this happen, trying to get enough people to interest a law firm in filing a class action lawsuit.

There are numerous threads on this website from people documenting their pressure plates fracturing, throwing shrapnel through the transmission, and in some case causing the Jeep to catch on fire. The first guy (I think) to experience this failure posted a thread on this site a few years ago. He got the usual hate - you don't know how to drive an MT, etc. He got nothing from Jeep, and tried so hard to get their attention, they blocked him on their Facebook and Twitter pages. Since then, more people experienced clutch failures, and Jeep was forced to issue a recall - 2, in fact. The first was about putting a plastic sleeve over the line from the master cylinder. The second was a software patch (FOR A MECHANICAL DESIGN FLAW/DEFECT).

Apparently these 2 recalls did not fix the problem, because people have reported clutch failures after having both recalls done. There is a recent thread here, and it looks like the NTSB is finally forcing Jeep to admit their recalls did not fix the clutch problem. Guess that's why you got that notice.

You can search for the threads on this site. I think the last one was from last August, where a guy posted (with pictures) his niece's Jeep had the clutch failure and burned on the side of the road.

Oh, and in most cases, the drivers were experienced stick shift drivers, and they did not rest their foot on the clutch.

Did they sell you a Jeep with a known issue? Yup. Is the incidence of clutch failure really low, compared to the number sold. Yes. But that's not much consolation if your clutch explodes and possibly causes the car to burn.

On a positive note, the number of failures is relatively low. And most were reported after the odometer had over 10,000 miles on it.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own a Wrangler. I wanted to buy one (staring 2 years ago), and preferred an MT. My internet research brought me to this great website. Reading about the clutch issue, and Jeep's treatment of people who experienced the failure, scared me away from buying one. I still check in to this site to see if Jeep resolved the JL clutch issue. It doesn't appear so.

Nope. If it was a design failure, EVERY single clutch out there would be frying and exploding. There are tons and tons of people that have over 50-80k miles on these clutches with no issues.

Yes, there were a few hydraulic issues that MAY have caused some of the early issues, but this is a driver error issue full stop. There is literally zero other explanation for this. I’ve owned two JL’s with manuals and have had zero issues with either. The issue is people are riding the clutch between shifts and they don’t even know it. I am a lifetime manual owner and driver and I caught myself in the beginning doing it. You hover over the pedal between shifts in town and you think you’re not exerting enough pressure to matter, and that is true on EVERY other manual you’ve ever driven, but not this one! So you MUST be 100% sure you foot isn’t even TOUCHING the damned pedal between shifts or you are slipping the life of this thing away and not even knowing it.

So is that a design flaw? No. It’s a design that is completely intolerant of poor technique. Heavy four door Jeeps being driven by people who do this are slipping their clutches lives away daily. Then they get on the highway and think because they are in 5th or 6th gear and not touching the clutch when it exploded that it can’t possible be that issue. Folks, the damage was done weeks and months before you got on the highway, it only manifested at high load and high speed.

 

[azwjowner]

Nope. If it was a design failure, EVERY single clutch out there would be frying and exploding. There are tons and tons of people that have over 50-80k miles on these clutches with no issues.

Yes, there were a few hydraulic issues that MAY have caused some of the early issues, but this is a driver error issue full stop. There is literally zero other explanation for this. I’ve owned two JL’s with manuals and have had zero issues with either. The issue is people are riding the clutch between shifts and they don’t even know it. I am a lifetime manual owner and driver and I caught myself in the beginning doing it. You hover over the pedal between shifts in town and you think you’re not exerting enough pressure to matter, and that is true on EVERY other manual you’ve ever driven, but not this one! So you MUST be 100% sure you foot isn’t even TOUCHING the damned pedal between shifts or you are slipping the life of this thing away and not even knowing it.

So is that a design flaw? No. It’s a design that is completely intolerant of poor technique. Heavy four door Jeeps being driven by people who do this are slipping their clutches lives away daily. Then they get on the highway and think because they are in 5th or 6th gear and not touching the clutch when it exploded that it can’t possible be that issue. Folks, the damage was done weeks and months before you got on the highway, it only manifested at high load and high speed.

I don't see how you can make this argument when (1) you don't have access to the necessary engineering analysis to actually know whether there is a design flaw or not and (2) Jeep has admitted it's a design flaw, which is conclusive.

Just because there's a design flaw doesn't mean there will be a high failure rate. There is variation in individual materials and machining processes.

 

[TroyMclure]

Nope. If it was a design failure, EVERY single clutch out there would be frying and exploding. There are tons and tons of people that have over 50-80k miles on these clutches with no issues.

Yes, there were a few hydraulic issues that MAY have caused some of the early issues, but this is a driver error issue full stop. There is literally zero other explanation for this. I’ve owned two JL’s with manuals and have had zero issues with either. The issue is people are riding the clutch between shifts and they don’t even know it. I am a lifetime manual owner and driver and I caught myself in the beginning doing it. You hover over the pedal between shifts in town and you think you’re not exerting enough pressure to matter, and that is true on EVERY other manual you’ve ever driven, but not this one! So you MUST be 100% sure you foot isn’t even TOUCHING the damned pedal between shifts or you are slipping the life of this thing away and not even knowing it.

So is that a design flaw? No. It’s a design that is completely intolerant of poor technique. Heavy four door Jeeps being driven by people who do this are slipping their clutches lives away daily. Then they get on the highway and think because they are in 5th or 6th gear and not touching the clutch when it exploded that it can’t possible be that issue. Folks, the damage was done weeks and months before you got on the highway, it only manifested at high load and high speed.

You really don't know what you're talking about.

If it was a design failure, EVERY single clutch out there would be frying and exploding.

Not true at all. A design flaw might only fail under certain circumstances. The O-rings on the space shuttle had issues, but only the Challenger blew up because of it.

I've owned two JL’s with manuals and have had zero issues with either.

Congratulations. Pure anecdote.

The issue is people are riding the clutch between shifts and they don’t even know it.

You know this how? Did you follow and watch the driving habits of all those who experienced the clutch failure?


For the sake of argument, let's say this problem is due to poor driving technique. This not a new phenomenon. In the past, the worst MT driver might completely wear out the clutch. Worst case - you completely wear out the friction material and the car won't move. What didn't happen was the the pressure plate exploded with such force that it blew through the bell housing, and the shrapnel cut fuel lines, igniting the car. That is a design flaw or defect.

 

[BuyHold]

You really don't know what you're talking about.

Well put.

What didn't happen was the the pressure plate exploded with such force that it blew through the bell housing, and the shrapnel cut fuel lines, igniting the car. That is a design flaw or defect.

Exactly, if it were only driving style (which I am not convinced it is given most of these failures appear to occur on the highway at stable speeds, presumably no shifting) there would be a lot of people with burned out clutches on Jeeps that didn't move. That they explode and catch fire is an issue with the design pure and simple.

 

[TroyMclure]

(2) Jeep has admitted it's a design flaw, which is conclusive.

I think this is a pretty important point. Because Jeep issued not 1, but 2 recalls to address the clutch issue. Car manufacturers are loathe to issue recalls. They have a team of lawyers and actuaries to tell them when they need to issue a recall or not. So when a manufacturer issues a recall, you know there's a problem.

And Jeep was told their first 2 recalls did not fix the problem. There is a Facebook page of people who had the first 2 recalls done, experienced clutch failure, they reached to out Jeep, and were told to go pound sand.

Now, Jeep is forced to announce a 3rd recall sometime in April. Yet, they kept selling jeeps with the same clutch design.

 

[Turaven]

Also don’t be a dope and try and drive this like a sports car with rev matching and other dumb shit. Accelerate, let off the accelerator, depress the clutch, change gear, let off clutch, depress the accelerator.

You absolutely should be rev matching if you're actually worried about the pressure plate overheating and exploding, which is the issue at hand. Using the clutch to rev matching for you generates significantly more heat/wear than blipping the throttle.

 

[Sid845]

I kept driving even after knowing that the clutch was slipping, I didn't have a choice, I live in small town, we don't even have Uber or Lyft. Now it's gotten really bad, the orange auto start/stop sign with an "!" mark shows up and the screen doesn't show what gear the car is in either. The dealership here in town won't even give me a loaner. Why isn't jeep working on fixing this?

This is so wrong, I saved up for 3 years and bought this car. I can't afford to hire a lawyer to fight a huge company. If anyone is filling a class action lawsuit in ohio about this issue, please post it on here.

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