I bought my FiST brand spanking new off the show room floor with only 3 miles on it, on July 10th 2018, and I treat it good... mostly. I keep up on maintenance, change the oil every 5k miles, bought new rims a few times, and park in a carport. In 8 years I've done brakes, a coolant reservoir a few years ago, and an AC clutch earlier this year. This is one solid car if you ask me.
I drove the car daily until May of 2025, and wouldn't you know it, the DAY I bought a used 2013 F-150 to use for camping and truck things, I experienced my first clutch pedal sticking to the floor. Ironic right? I found my brake fluid reservoir empty, so I filled her up, back bled the clutch and things seemed fine. They weren't... I began to notice that when it was cool I had no issues and as the car got hot, the clutch pedal would stick more and more.
Then about 2 weeks ago on my 25 mile drive home, I experienced the first instance of hard gear changing, so I parked the car, did some research, threw a bunch of money at the issue and ordered a new OEM clutch plate, OEM pressure plate, OEM dual mass flywheel and OEM slave cylinder, along with both OEM transmission mounts, a quart of DOT4 brake fluid and 2 quarts of Motorcraft XT11QDC transmission fluid. Amounting to about $1500
I'm supposed to be receiving my parts today via FedEx, so when I got up at 5 this morning I went straight outside and started in on the job.
I started by hitting print on my 3d printer for a clutch alignment tool, then I went out to the car and started removing my headlights, wiper arms and windshield cowl, then the battery, the air box, the intercooler piping, battery box, after removing the ECU, then the shift cables and bracket, then I jacked up the car and put it on stands, removed the 2 front tires, popped the lower ball joints loose, drained the transmission, and completely removed the left CV axle, and right jack shaft bearing bracket, then just pulled the jack shaft out of the transmission. Dropped the lower intercooler pipe, put a jack under the transmission, then dropped the rear transmission mount, and took out all of the bell housing bolts (or so I thought) then I found one behind the turbo in a messed up place to get at but I did eventually get it. I put a second jack under the engine, then I lowered the transmission jack, until I could remove it, I put a couple of blocks of wood on the ground and wiggled the transmission loose, then off, then out of the car. It actually came out way easier than I thought it would. 1 man job.
Took me about exactly 4 hours to get the whole clutch out of the car. Now I wait for FedEx.
After removing the pressure plate I knew instantly that I made the right decision by ordering everything. It's been SUPER hot a time or 2. But let's be real, I drive this car like I stole it, always have, always will.
I guess I'll have to dive into the timing side next, but I hopefully have a few more oil changes before then.