From my friend who owns an '07 with 14,000 miles on it. He told me his car is in the shop with a bad clutch and trans. $7,000 worth of repairs and once again the certified blue oval service makes a bold move. They tried to make him PAY for the repairs. He argued with them for 2 days straight and then threatened with a lawsuit. He says he believes they're going to do it for him after speaking with many people at Ford.

He told me this car has the same clutch in it as the Terminator Cobras had. Sounds to me like they're not going to last. I could see if he never drove stick before, but hes had several cobras prior to this one.

 

Naw, its more like the clutch in the Ford GT, a dual disc affair IIRC, also IIRC the cost of the clutch is 1500.00 alone

 

GT500's clutch is completely different, and much stouter. Transmission is the newest bit from Tremec, the TR6060, stouter than what the old Cobra or Viper come with as well and better shifting too. Both seem to be holding up nicely overall at this point, and in cars with far more than the 500hp/480lb-ft tq the run of the mill GT500 comes with.

If he is as good as you claim my bet says he either got a bum setup from the factory or, with respect, at some point he screwed up very badly and just doesn't want to fess up to it. But to be blunt the fact that he has owned a couple of Cobra's doesn't mean much. I know I guy who has owned two Vipers and a C5 Z06 and he still stinks, although I do like him well enough not to say that in front of him. Owning a fast car doesn't make you a good driver.

I think we're going to have to see far more than one failure like this in a year before we can say this stuff wont hold up.

 

Clutch is a dual disc setup like the one in the Ford GT, but, not as nice. It is a different material and a diff size.

One of the reported problems with clutches is that it needs a lube of some sort on the spline. Ford, apparently was not doing that on most of the '07s. They started it this Summer with the late '07s and '08s. Tell your buddy to persist with Ford/SVT.

 

It is probably not his driving style.

His problem is becoming more and more common.

Check some of the other forums.

More and more people are having the same problem.

The spline lube is the issue with the early 07 GT500's along with what starts out as a grinding and hard shifting between 1st and 2nd gears (most noticably when cold). As it progress' shifting to 3rd and reverse becomes an issue.

In the end, probably most of us that have early GT500's will eventually have problems.

Cal

 

That would be the time to take the car to the dealer.