V12 Vantage clutch life question

[LTP]

I happened to stumble on some posts on Reddit (I know, I know . ) from the USA talking about clutch life and inadequacy on the VH V12 Vantage and claiming multiple cases of early failure and this being a well-known dealer issue. It struck me that PH is well acquainted with the shortcomings of the single-plate in the V8 Vantage but I can't recall having seen anyone talk about a short life or failures of the V12 twin-plate clutch in the V12 installation. Some of these cars are now 17 years old. We also know about US drivers and "auto" transmissions

As far as I could find there were only about 1308 V12V's made of any stripe (or 1199 if this already includes the 109 Roadsters), with 226 going to USA and Canada. I also guess not many were daily drivers.

I would estimate that we probably have the single largest population of V12V and V12VS owners on the internet here on PH (willing to be corrected) so out of curiosity I thought I'd pose these questions to the community:

• Any V12 Vantage owners (manual or SSIII) had any clutch issues or early failures?
• What sort of mileages do you have on them?

Edited by LTP on Saturday 10th October 17:53

[bogie]

Only heard of couple of early failures on here since the V12V came out. Must be plenty of DB9s out there that could give an indication, although the gearbox is different and likely not driven as hard (trackdays etc). Must be a few V12V out there with a few miles on them by now....although my car is not one of them, bought it with 14k miles on it and doing a few more since

2016 V12S SSIII with 24k miles

[Evolution-6]

My v12v manual is circa 60k miles. Zero clutch issues, and still working as it should.

[CSK1]

V12 Vantage S Roadster, Performance Pack, SportshiftIII, owned for 11 years now, 25,000 miles (40,000 km). Road driving and some track days. No clutch issues whatsoever.

[LTP]

Thanks guys - keep 'em coming

[Graze01]

V12VS 2017, owned since 3700km, now 72,000km no issues at all.

Bought a 2012 V12 manual with 23300km at end of March, drove it carefully home some 1200km on main highways (heavily controlled speed limits due to cameras and average speed zones) so never got to push it or really rev it out and it performed perfectly. The first time I took it country driving, changed down to 4th, accelerated hard to pass a car and all I could smell was clutch burning

Been waiting since May for a clutch kit, seems they are now in stock at DAE

It had 2 previous owners - obviously they didn’t know how to manage the clutch - maybe too much reversing up hills

Graze

[andymadmak]

2013 V12 S, SS3 now on 40k miles. Clutch was replaced at 18k miles due to a bent finger on the cover which caused some weird intermittent error messages. Zero issues since, including some spirited driving on some Italian mountain passes....

[Spiker63]

2012 V12 Vantage manual. Bought it just over 2 years ago with 23,000 milles and no record of a clutch change. Now has 27,000 miles and no sign of any issue. Took it over a few mountain passes last year and I live in a city, so the clutch has had reasonable use.

As I imagine others do, I try to take care of the clutch by keeping the revs low to get moving from standstill, minimising clutch slip and rev matching (as close and I can) on all shifts.