Clutch problems of the 2005 Saturn ION

Vehicle: 2005 Saturn Ion red line I was driving in columbus, OH area to meet some friends and I had stopped at a red light. When I left the red light I went through the gears to get up to speed and as I came to 4th gear the shifter would not go in. So I let out the clutch and tried to go back in. As I pressed the clutch pedal again it immediately fell to the floor with no pressure on the pedal at all and I could not select any gears. Then the vehicle started to vibrate really bad so I pulled over at the walgreen's a few yards away. When I came to a stop I noticed hydraulic fluid leaking from the car and it was shaking badly. So I called my friends and they came to look. My clutch had given up but we were not sure how badly. We had the vehicle towed to a repair shop nearby that also specialized in these vehicles. The friction disc in the clutch had ripped completely apart which in turn scored and warped the flywheel. This also caused the slave cylinder to over extend which is where the fluid leaked from and debris flying around within the bellhousing had contacted the fluid feed line to the slave cylinder and punctured a hole in it. New parts were ordered to repair the vehicle and they consisted of this: 1 new flywheel, 1 new clutch friction disc, 1 new clutch pressure plate, 6 new clutch plate to flywheel bolts, 1 new slave cylinder, 1 new throw out bearing, 1 new clutch fluid feed line, 5 quarts of hydraulic fluid, and 1 quart of transmission fluid. The total labor charged was for 8 hours of work. The total repair costs for labor and parts came to $1,752. I am not the only owner of this platform of vehicle to experience clutch failure issues. I do still have the old parts for inspection. I upgraded to newer, stronger parts to avoid this happening again in 4,500 miles which is where this happened. 4,500 miles on the odometer. Here is the visual of what happened. . Read more...

I was driving my 2005 Saturn Ion2 and the brakes totally failed when I depressed the clutch on my 5 speed transmission. After taking it in for service the mechanic told me that the slave cylinder was leaking and allowed air into the brake system because the brakes and clutch have a shared hydraulic fluid reservoir. I couldn't downshift because the clutch failed and I couldn't brake because the brakes failed. The warning system failed because there was still some fluid in the shared reservoir. The warning light goes on when the system is out of fluid not when it is running low. Scary stuff. . . I could have been killed or killed others. Lucky for me I was not going highway speeds and/or on a busy street. I was able to use the emergency brake to stop. . .