How do I get the most miles out of my clutch

Factual Questions
1

As I just bought my first car with a manual transmission and want to do everything possible to postpone the inevitable replacement of my clutch. Since my 2 previous cars were automatics, my stick shift experience is limited to the occasional ‘car switch’ with my mom or other borrowed cars. I have the timing down so that acceleration is smooth, so I am not actively destroying it, but I am sure that there are things I could be doing better…

What advice do you have for me to extend the life of my clutch?

2

Don’t ride the clutch. No matter how light you think your foot is on the pedal TAKE IT OFF. At first this takes a bit if concentration, but it is well worth it and soon you will not even think about leaving your foot on the clutch pedal. Our Saturn (don’t even ask what we were thinking :confused: when we bought it) has 90,000 miles on the clutch after two teen-age learners, MrPict punched them if they rode the clutch (child abuse maybe, effective definately). :eek:

3

I second not riding the clutch.

Also, smooth upshifts help a lot, with good rev matching to help keep your syncros from dying (and the car from jerking).

If you’re really into saving your clutch don’t bother to downshift if you’re stopping. Just use your brakes (clutch in). Although the damage is very minor when downshifting, it’s still a little wear on it. I normally rev match 3rd gear and “coast” but I don’t bother shifting down farther unless I’m racing :slight_smile:

Oh yeah, avoid racing on a track, my clutch didn’t like that one bit :smiley:

But in the end I wouldn’t worry much about manual clutches. They’re relatively cheap to change (compared to an auto, we spent $5000 total on automatic transmission replacements on an 92 voyager).

4

Damnit, wrong button…

Compare that $5000 (first tranny was $3500 and the second was $1500 used plus a $600 transmission computer) to a brand new TRD clutch for my 6 speed Matrix at $1200 INSTALLED (Canadian).

5

Controlled slippage is a clutch’s business, that’s how take-offs from a standstill are possible. Just don’t get carried away allowing too much time for this, or the clutch won’t last as long as it should. Try to think of it as almost an on/off switch. Within the bounds of reasonable smoothness, it’s best to have the pedal either all the way up (and foot off of it) or all the way down. Anywhere in between and there’s slippage, which causes wear. No-nonsense, get-down-to-business, do-it-quick raising of the pedal – to the degree consistent with appropriate smoothness – minimizes wear.

6

Clutches typicaly last between 50,000 to 120,000km. Depends where you drive. If you are doing many trips within the city (frequent start-stop), then expect your clutch to die early.

You can practice releasing the clutch a bit faster and thus reduce unnecesary sliping. There isn’t really much else you can do about that.

On a slightly unrelated note, one of the most common mistake that people do with stickshifts, is to keep the clutch depressed while waiting for example at a traffic light. Thats a no-no. Put the car into neutral and release the clutch.

Another solution (not recomended), is to not use the clutch at all! You can power-shift instead. That is, you jerk the gas pedal a little, and at the same time pull the stick to neutral. Then, (now comes the hard part!!!) using the gas pedal, bring the engine’s RPM to the point where it would go if the shift was done the traditional way. (lower RPM for upshift, higher RPM for downshift). If executed correctly, the gear change will be much smoother than normal (because tranny and engine speeds are matched). If not, a nice assortment of sounds will be generated :smiley: :cool:

7

Indeed Dog80, I once used to own a truly sweet 1981 BMW Alpina 323i - a really wonderful driving car. 16" 3-piece ultra-light Alpina wheels, and 12" disks all round - along with a limited slip diff.

It had a 2.7 litre straight six Alpina donk in it (bored and stroked from the normal 2.3 litres rated at 220hp) with a close ratio 5 speed grearbox. I bought the car from my uncle in 1991 and he bought it brand new. In the 10 years I owned that car, the transmission was so extraordinarily finely tuned that I reckon I did 40% of my gear shifts without a clutch. It used to freak out first time passengers that’s for sure.

Sadly, I lent the car to a brother-in-law who basically killed it.

Most professional truck drivers would be familiar with clutchless-shifting - as would most motorcyclists I’d say. It’s a cool thing when you can do it well.

8

I like to drive with my foot inside but off to the left side. In most American-friendly manual cars, there is a foot plate down there which one can rest the toe upon–I adjust my seating position in unfamiliar cars so that my clutch foot toe touches that false pedal on the left in the way I like it. That makes my return to an unfamiliar pedal somewhat more predictable, in my case, because I can always predict the arc of movement of my foot against its arrival on the pedal.

That’s why I prefer driving in bare feet, where I can curl my big toe to control the clutch. People used to get pissed when I stripped off my boots to drive Porsches, but it paid off: I never wrecked one to the point where the damage could not be instantly concealed. Ahem.

Just get in tune with these ideas and you should be fine:

The clutch is not a brake. If you want to engine brake, you have to crisply match your engine RPMs with the lower gear and nail the shift. Otherwise, you’re laboring the transmission. Not that I disagree with learning.

The quicker and cleaner that you can get into and out of a gear is key to the lifetime of your clutch and transmission. Shift quickly, at the proper speed, and you shall be rewarded with longer clutch life.

Speed shifting and other such nonsense is probably bullshit. If you have to learn these techni

9

As I was saying…

Speed shifting is probably bullshit, because screwing up this maneuver at speed stresses the very parts of your transmission which you wish to preserve. Learn to use it on the same car that you plan to employ the practice upon, and you’re likely not going to benefit.

Learn it on the old man’s car, and it suddenly becomes an enticing challenge.

10

Clutchless shifting is neat and all, but the risk of damaging your transmission is not worth the tiny amount of wear you’ll save.

The real way to improve on most people’s shifting is to rev-match, which basically amounts to getting the engine spinning at the right RPM for the gear you’re going into. This means that if you’re going to downshift from 4th to 3rd, you’re going to be going from (for example) 2500 rpm in one gear to 3500 rpm in the other. There’s a right and a wrong way to do this.

Most people do it like this: put the clutch in, letting the rpm’s drop to near idle, then put it in 3rd and let the clutch out, causing the clutch plate friction to get the engine up to 3500 rpm. As this happens, the driver’s thoughts (“I am a badass race-car driver”) are drowned out by the clutch whining in agony, a sound most people seem to think means “great shift, dude”. The car slows down quite a bit in the process, since it’s basically using your clutch plate as a big expensive brake pad, which is bad for it.

The correct way to downshift is to put the clutch in, then while you’re shifting from 4th to 3rd, you give the car just enough throttle so the rpm’s get up to the right spot (3500 in my example, but it varies based on your car and your speed, and is just something you have to get a feel for), so when you let the clutch out, there is negligible wear on the clutch plate. You then let off the gas, which uses the engine compression to slow the car.

There’s this idea out there that downshifting is 1) a really effective way of slowing down, and 2) how the cool guys do it. It turns out that the incorrect method of downshifting is actually much more effective at slowing your car down (although at the expense of your clutch), so people end up with the idea that since that method of downshifting “works really well”, it must be the right way.

Not only is rev-matching a great skill because it’s good for your car, but it’s useful in high-performance driving, it makes the ride smoother for your passengers (if you’re good at it), and it’s fun.

11

50,000 to 120,000km? Either the clutch design on the car(s) you use are flimsy, or you need to work on your technique. I’m unhappy if a clutch lets go before 250,000km. Most cars I have driven made it to the wrecking yard with the original clutch. Clutches are destroyed by, among other things, riding the clutch, slow clutch engagement, low RPM upshifts and jerky downshifts.

12

“Low RPM upshifts” as well, 5cents? I often shift up at 2000 to 2500 rpm (when I’m not in a hurry) in an effort to save gas. Am I damaging my clutch by doing this?

13

Depends on the engine. If your engine is “lugging”, it isn’t good for your clutch, engine, or fuel economy.

If you are driving a diesel or a big old car, your shift point might be appropriate. You want to upshift so that the engine starts in the next gear just above the speed where it will lug. On a typical modern gas engine, this point is about 2000 RPM. Depending on your gearing, this means you’ll probably want to shift at around 3000 RPM. Use full throttle (or close to it) when accelerating. When you get up to speed, use the highest gear you can. All of these things will help fuel economy.

14

How does changing gears at poor change points affect the performance of the clutch - it is either engaged or not engaged and doesn’t know anything about the gear you’re in, the revs you’re pulling or anything else?

15

A clutch is not a binary device. When you engage the clutch at low RPM, if you are even a little off in RPM there will be a lot of slippage.

16

How? I’m not recommending it but the car’s sluggish performance at too few revs is caused by the lack of torque in that range, not a slipping clutch, isn’t it? Once my foot is off the pedal the clutch isn’t working at all. is it?

17

Oops. I meant to say if the revs are too low the car will simply stall. So how is the clutch in play at all?

18

:eek: What are you talking about, man? At 250,000km I scrap the car! :smiley:

Now, seriously, even 120000km is a stretch. The first clutch on my car (Seat Toledo) died at about 100000-110000km, but back then the car was doing mostly highway trips. Then I started using the car downtown and the second clutch came at about 80000km later. I consider this normal wear. People who race frequently change clutches much sooner, maybe 15000-30000km.

19

And why is that, may I ask?

20

My dad raced, clutches and transmissions didn’t last more than a few weekends. However, just for going around town, there’s no need to grind down a clutch. Cars I’ve driven:

Toyota Camry: 360,000 km on original clutch, scrapped when clutch toasted (that was the last straw…)
Mazda 323: 160,000 km original clutch, scrapped due to body rot
Volvo 240: 250,000 miles (about 400,000 km), original clutch, scrapped due to body rot

If you are smooth, the clutch sees minimal wear.