Well, the people that I've talked to have been talking to people on the corporate level from what I understand (via phone and through their customer care program) and it doesn't seem to make any difference. The one person did get their parts covered for free, but they still had to pay the labor. The person posting on the board from Fiat also seems to be at the corporate level or close to it.
The closest thing we have in the U.S. to what you guys are talking about are "lemon laws". If you get a bad car (lemon) and have a certain number of issues with it that cannot be resolved, you can sometimes get the car replaced. However, this varies state by state and some states are better about it than others.
Generally the way it works here is you take your car to the dealer, they try to find the problem, notify corporate of the problem, and then wait to see if it's authorized for repair under the warranty. If Fiat (or whomever) decides that it's outside the warranty coverage, they will deny the repair to be covered under warranty. This is what seems to be happening to the people who have been affected by the clutch issue.
The next thing we can do is notify the aforementioned agency (National Highway Transport Safety Administration - NHTSA) and file a complaint. They will investigate (or are supposed to) anything auto related that could cause an accident and can require the manufacturer to initiate a recall. I've been telling people to do that because if enough people file a complaint with the NHTSA, maybe they will get involved.
This problem seems to be happening in a very small number of people's vehicles (as far as I can tell at any rate - there are only around 10 or less people reporting the problem on the board that I am on and there are several thousand registered users - that doesn't take into account people who are not on a discussion board or are on some other board), but many of us are taking notice of them just in case. People have been reporting the clutch issue anywhere from around 500 miles to around 35,000 miles, so there is no real established pattern other than people with basically new cars are having the clutch go out.
Consumer protection laws are hit or miss here. If you buy a normal product like a computer, iPod, radio, clothing, or something along those lines, stores will usually just give you another one if you have problems with it. It also depends on the dealer as some are considerably better than others and will look out for you. I used to work at a Kia dealer and it was not unusual for us to still cover someone's repair outside of warranty because they had been a good customer, they wanted their continued business, etc.
All that said, it's one more reason why the misses and I are considering moving out of the U.S. in the next few years after we finish school. We're looking at the UK, New Zealand, Canada, and a few others
