Ok, I got both Monroe and Sachs and visually compared/inspected them. I would rate Monroe 3 or 3.5 out of 5 and Sachs 4 or 4.5 out of 5 based on what I see. Sachs look better overall, packed in boxes, shocks with holograms and seems more professional, like parts you would like to work with.
My five year old (55k+ miles) Eibach Pro setup has been great thus far... the shocks/stuts are actually made by Sachs. So, Sachs gets me vote.
After just a day I can tell I really like the SRE clutch kit. It seems like it engages just a touch quicker when letting the clutch out. The effort to push the clutch in has increased significantly. When rowing through the gears its pretty much like stock.
I just got my car back after having a Sachs organic clutch kit installed and I've put a few hundred miles on it over the past few days. Pedal Feel The pedal is stiffer than with the stock LUK unit. If I had to guess, I'd say 30-40% stiffer. It's not difficult to operate, but it is noticeably stiffer. This gives me a sense that the Sachs pressure plate is applying more force to the clutch disc and should hold more torque. Engagement The Sachs unit engages right at the last bit of pedal travel when lifting off the clutch. It also engages over a very narrow range of pedal travel. This took some getting used to to drive it smoothly, as the stock clutch engaged sooner and over a longer range of pedal travel. The upside is that the clutch can be disengaged more quickly and it just takes a quick press of the clutch with a minimal amount of travel to shift. Once I got used to the new engagement point, stop-and-go driving was no problem. As suspected with an organic disc, there is no chatter during feathered engagement. Torque Holding After some initial break-in, the clutch held the APR Stage 3 91-octane torque without issue. I then put some higher octane fuel in and gave the 93-octane tune a whirl, and there appeared to be a few instances of clutch slippage in higher gears. But after those initial few instances, the 93-octane torque seemed to hold without issue. I suspect the initial slippage may have been due to the clutch to pressure plate and clutch to flywheels surfaces not being fully mated and worn-in yet due to the low mileage on the new clutch. Conclusion So far, it's hard to say for sure if the Sachs organic clutch kit reliably holds more torque than the stock LUK clutch kit, simply because I went from stock to APR Stage 3 w/ the Sachs organic clutch at the same time. I'll have a better idea of the 93-octane torque holding reliability after the Thunderhill track event in mid January. Only time will tell if the clutch continues to hold well as the friction surfaces wear. The Sachs unit is not auto-adjusting like the LUK, so I suspect it will have a reduced lifetime. That being said, for a daily driving clutch that likely holds more than stock, the Sachs organic still appears to be the best option available.
i have 300 miles on the Sachs SMF set up and i couldn't be more pleased. i hear no noise at idle, and very little noise on decel. you'd probably never notice it if no one told you about it. this is definitely the quietest SMF set up out there and you don't have to keep wondering how long your DMF is going to hold up.
After getting severe slip at S1+, I opted for the Sachs kit (DMF retained) at 12,000 miles, and got a full TBE to go 2+ shortly after (93 oct). I'm just about to hit 35000 miles and have put 23,000 miles on the clutch with no issues.
I have just over a year and about 15,000 miles on my SRE DMF kit. Like Spin mentioned I ran the 100 octane file almost all summer (7,000ish hard miles) which is 404WTQ according to APR with never a sign of slip. At this point I'm not worried about the SRE parts at all.
I've been running this on my stage 2+ R, for the past ~6K miles. No issues so far, especially in this colder weather. My clutch was slipping in the cold this time last year, and so far this Sachs clutch kit is holding up great.
I just have to say it's odd having suspension again. I didn't realize just how gone my suspension really was. I was so used to a stiff ride that now I feel like I'm floating around on a hovercraft. Strange.
I installed a 210mm clutch kit in my car and (I think) it doesn't work: I saw Black Forest Industries only sells the 210mm clutch for MkI's as an upgrade so I went on Rockauto and bought a Sachs 210mm clutch kit for an 84 1.8L Rabbit and a flywheel on Ebay
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