I had my clutch done under my service contract about 7 months ago and the sevice contract is over now. I think they put in a really cheap clutch or they didnt use the motorcraft slave. Recently the clutch has been chattering, slipping out of gear without using the clutch, and the petal is hard as a rock. After I had it done it drove excellent untill now and it went to hell. Im tired of replacing clutches so when it goes I think I should get a clutch that lasts longer than others. Centerforce makes a clutch for my truck which is a 97 Ford Ranger 4.0 w/M4OD. The only problem is the cost of centerforce clutches so any sugestions would be excellent

 

You need to find out why the clutch is going out -- there might be several reasons for that. For instance, once I had a car with a leaky rear main oil seal, and after the 3rd clutch, I bit the bullet and replaced the seal. Of course, being in my early 20's at that time probably didn't help much either.

 

Clutches can go early for many reasons, and we'll just assume you don't ride the clutch at all.

Like Aurgathor suggested, a leaky rear main seal could do a clutch in fairly quickly, but its also possible that the bell housing isn't straight along the mating surfaces, causing the input shaft and clutch to be slightly crooked as compared to the flywheel's surface. Any misalignment will result in only a portion of the clutch surface biting into the flywheel surface, which wears it out much faster than if the entire clutch surface had opportunity to "bite" and work together. This was more common with transmissions that have seperate bell housings... more pieces, more bolts, and the old bell housings were often iron which rusts creating an uneven surface. Your 97 will have an integrated bellhousing, but that still doesn't eliminate warpage or misalignment.

Maybe the true problem isn't the clutch - maybe the pressure plate was warn and not replaced. A few bent or broken fingers will prevent the pressure plate from applying full pressure. Less than full pressure = clutch slippage.

Could also be the throw-out bearing - maybe that's shot and wasn't replaced.

Maybe the flywheel wasn't resurfaced when the new clutch was installed. Flywheels often need to be turned much like brake rotors, and a lot of shops don't have the machinery to do so, and often they just "chuck them back in if it's good enough". Though, good enough is resurfaced, nothing less. Imperfections in the flywheel surface will cause very fast clutch wear.

Could even have been a defective, new clutch (or pressure plate, or throwout bearing). While uncommon, just because a part is new, doesn't mean its good. I'm sure you can think of an example in your life where you bought something brand new and had to take it back and exchange it.... this might be one of those times.