Well the clutch master took a dump on the 2009 Pontiac Vibe base 1.8L and I was wondering if anyone has had experience with the LuK brand by the German Schaeffler Group?? ADV, Rock Auto, Partsgeek and others carry it…
Funny thing is, I can look up a 09 Matrix and the LuK part number is the same for both, as well as a few others, but Partsgeek is showing different part numbers for the twin vehicles…??.. And either my labor guide as well as my old works labor guide is wrong, or the labor for the Vibe is 1.5 hours and the labor for the Matrix is 3.4 hours, but the Vibe looks more like the 3.4 is accurate… I think I could almost R&R the trans faster… lol
So I am a little worried about ordering Matrix master and slave for it seeing different part numbers for both vehicles as well as many more offerings for the Matrix vs Vibe… Again they are sister vehicles other than some body panels and interior…
Anyway, if unsure about the LuK line, what is a good GM online parts store to use??
Yes, I am more or less procrastinating the inevitable…
Both the master and slave cylinders are shared with the Corolla of the same year, Both Autozone’s listing and O’Reilly’s show the clutch master as fitting either the Matrix or Vibe. GM discontinued the factory part. Luk’s own site shows the master as fitting either engine option but the slave cylinders are a different part number
Yeah I knew they were both based off the Corolla and of course the master and slave are different part numbers, just strange that Partsgeek show different part numbers between the masters…
And all the parts houses show 3 or 4 masters to choose from for the Matrix, but only one for the Vibe, including AZ for the most part…
Anyway, mainly curios about the LuK brand, if anyone has had good/bad luck with them…
Or what brand is better?
And I am also wondering why Aisin, I think is the OE (for the Matrix anyway) manufacture is not showing it fits the Vibe… I might just get the Aisin brand and cross my fingers that it fits…
I am pretty sure they are the same, but even the labor is showing a different time between the 2…
Yeah I know I am wayyy over thinking this, and I would tell anyone else just to go for it cause they are the same… but my stupid mind keeps asking me why…
I am strictly asking about the master due to it being a complete PIA to replace, you could almost do the slave blind folded, so not worried about it, but it WILL be replaced at the same time…
LuK is a major supplier of clutch parts worldwide and has been for a very long time. They have a plant and engineering office in Ohio so some of those products are US engineered and made. I actually interviewed for a job with them once. I would trust their parts.
Thank you, that helps a lot, I was reading up on them and it looks like they make a lot of OEM clutch’s even for Ford…
I’m not going to say I have or have not ever heard of them, cause I am terrible with names…
Thank you Mustangman and asemaster, the LuK parts fit great and are working great so far…
Evidently the clutch master has been going bad for over a year now, maybe more… It was feeling almost like one or two synchro’s were going bad, it was getting hard to speed shift 1-2 and 3rd had gotten really hard to hit fast, but felt normal under normal shifting, so no suspension of a part failing… And almost every time you would put it in reverse it would grind a little, I thought it was either my bad knee/leg not pushing the clutch in far enough or something… This vehicle has not been babied by any means…
But after my son invented many new words not allowed on the forum, trying to get to the clutch master, he finally got the clutch master and slave cylinders installed and bleed out properly, he said it is like a new vehicle, guess the clutch was not being depressed all the way… I guess it happened so slowly we didn’t notice it until it finally crapped out on us… kinda like cooking a frog…
Well, here is an update on the LuK Clutch Master Cylinder (and slave cylinder) that went out 2 years ago…
Last week the LuK plastic clevis broke around the clevis pin, so I ordered the cheapest one with a metal clevis from Rock Auto, got it in Sunday and my son installed the new metal clevis in place of the broken plastic one, the push rods for both clutch masters had the same threads…
Been working great, that is up until today, when the clutch master took a dump/puked fluid on the ground…
So now my son is replacing the LuK clutch master cylinder from Rock Auto with the cheapo one from Rock Auto I ordered to rob the metal clevis off of…,We will see how long this one last…
I have done similar things in the past. You feel a little regret at having the rest of that assembly sitting on a shelf for the one part you snabbed off of it. Then, when the original fails and I have the backup sitting there, I feel wise for having bought it
Thanks for sharing this detailed experience. The connection between the Pontiac Vibe and Toyota Matrix parts is really interesting, especially when different parts catalogs show different numbers for what seem to be very similar components. It’s also helpful to hear that the LuK parts worked well after replacing the master and slave cylinders. Real-world experiences like this are often much more useful than simply relying on a parts catalog. Great discussion!
Yes, my son said the clutch master literally broke into multiple pieces as he was removing it…
Now, I don’t know if it was just a defect from a bad batch, or one of the Counterfeit parts out there, and Rock Auto happened to get some in stock, never had this happen before… After installing the newest one, he said the clutch feels more like it did with the OEM one…
Sheesh. Doesn’t sound like something that could be a one off. Materials not up to the task for some reason. Unless you’re using battery acid in your clutch system
Shouldn’t have been, it shares it’s reservoir with the brake master…
The only thing I can come up with is I somehow got a counterfeit part, but no way to know what happened now, I should have asked my son to keep it so I could examine it closer at some point…
But it lasted 2 years with no issues other than it felt different the entire time…
