it's a pain unless you have all the gear...

 

By gear, do you mean 3 floor jacks, 4 jackstands, bag o tools, couple of wooden boards, two hammers, and some gojo?

That's what my buddy and I used to replace the slutch on his 96 Jeep Cherokee 4X4...

I guess if we did that one then the xA shouldn't be so tough...

 

FWD is usually a pain in the butt. . .

 

We had an FWD tranny out twice before... We were trying to do a rear main seal on his then "winter beater" Dodge Spirit Turbo. We ran out of lift time, put it back together, pushed it out, then did it all over again the next week...! Then I noticed that the seal loked pretty dry (i.e it wasn't leaking) and my buddy ended up having to change the oil pan gasket on his own on his back the following day!

Any who... I'll take my xA in for a 25,000 mile check this month and see if there's any chance of a clutch job in my near future... If I end up doing it my self, I'll just wait till it realy needs it!

 

A thought just popped into my head... Could the weight of the vehicle's wheels have anything to do with slippage? I may be crazy, but since the RS1 came with those heavier wheels, wouldn't that increase chances of slippage? Anyone out there with either heavier or lighter than OE wheels/tires have any input...?

 

yes, that is a factor.
the more the drivetrain weighs, the more force is need to overcome it.
this will cause more wear and tear over time....

 

oh, when i say drivetrain...i am talking about rotational mass from the clutch to the wheels.

 

Definitely, the heavier the wheels the more strain there is on the clutch. . . big heavy wheels are purely cosmetic. . . any handling/traction gains can be gained simply with wider wheels of a smaller diameter.

But I believe a lot of people with slippage issues also have stock wheels.

 

I see... Thanks for the input! I thought I may have noticed some slightly less obvious slipping since I've gone to the winter wheels... I wasn't sure, but then I began thinking of the rotatinoal mass thing and it started to make sense.

Anyone else out there have a similar experience?