While the clutch is depressed, the ball bearing that holds it, comes under severe tension and wears down much faster.
Sluggish performance is caused by lack of power, not torque. You can always make torque - that’s what the transmission is for.
No wear on the clutch occurs when it is fully engaged (pedal up) or fully disengaged (pedal down) (except for wear on the throw bearing when not fully engaged). Wear on the clutch happens when you engage the clutch. The amount of wear is proportional to how much the clutch must slip to accomodate the difference between the engine and transmission speed. At low RPMs, its pretty difficult to match RPMs between the engine and transmission, so the clutch will slip more, causing more wear.
There’s also a safety issue. No danger of your foot slipping off the clutch if you’re in neutral. In British driving tests, leaving your car in gear while stationary for any length of time is verboten. You wouldn’t necessarily fail for that reason alone, but it would count against you.
Don’t use the clutch. Learn to shift without it. Takes practice and a good ear and feel for the speed of the engine and the speed of the car.
Try it some time. Don’t force it. When the gears are synced the shifter should just fall in place.
Some cars are so low geared that you can’t do this downshifting into first without crawling so slow you feel you’re about to roll backwards.
Any trucker worth his java does this as a matter of course.
Hmmm, taking driving lessons here Ireland and am ordered by (qualified) instructor to find the “bite” of the clutch whilst stopped at traffic lights, crossings etc. so as to be able to take off again as soon as possible. I can totally see the safety issue, but it seems to be both common and official practice here to do it the way I’ve described.
Maybe it was just my instructor then, because I can’t find any evidence to back up my claim about failing the test. He was insistent that you put the car in neutral, especially if there were pedestrians crossing in front of you. Of course, I don’t actually do that any more, unless I’m stationary for ages.
Huh. I’ve always thought it was safer to stay in gear.
If you’re in neutral and, I dunno, you have a heart attack or something, your foot slips off the brake, then, yippee! We have a car with a running engine, free to roll as far as gravity, intertia and a lack of large intervening objects will take it.
My experience is that if the car is in gear and you suddenly take your foot off the clutch the car gives a mighty shudder while making an unpleasant sound, and stalls, becoming a stationary object with the engine engaged, so it ain’t goin’ nowhere. IMHO this is preferable in the heart-attack scenario.
Could a stopped car really lurch ahead far and fast enough run into somebody if your foot slips off the clutch? None of the cars I’ve ever stalled at a stoplight have displayed this behaviour, but my automotive experience is limited.
As I am a healthy young person and unlikely to spontaneously lose consciousness, I leave the car in neutral at stop lights, anyhow, to save on my flyback bearing or whatever you call it, but I wonder about the saftey of it.
If it’s on enough of a slope to roll.
The engine will likely die without much movement of the car so long as the brake is firmly applied. But without the brake on, it’s quite possible for the car to propel itself while in gear. Unless it’s headed uphill, it’s much more dangerous than a car in neutral. And if you get rear-ended, it’s not a sure bet that you’ll keep the brake applied.
Release bearing, or throwout bearing.
IIRC, in Greece, puting the car in neutral and releasing the clutch is mentioned in the books as recomended action(for safety concerns and the bearing thing). I don’t think they fail people for not doing it.
But how many accidents due to a foot sliping from clutch pedal have actually happened? To my experience, this number must be very close to, or exactly zero. I have encountered some extremely bad drivers, but none of them has done that mistake…at least they have the reflexes to step immediately on the brake so the engine simply stalls!
As for finding the “bite” of the clutch while stoped, I believe this to be very silly. Maybe its good for a new driver while he’s learning, but as one becomes more experienced and builds up his confidence, it is possible to engage 1st gear (from neutral) and start the car again in one move. And besides, this practice kills the clutch. 
This leads one to wonder how you get the car moving in the first place…
You start it in first gear.
I have twice been hit from behind by someone sitting behind me at a traffic light, whose foot slipped off the clutch. They also happened to be revving the engine when it happened. There’s no way you can reach the brake in the time it takes for the car to jerk forward a couple of feet. A friend of mine also once managed to do this on a motorbike (her hand slipped, rather than her foot), and broke both arms :eek:
Am I right in thinking that driving a car with a manual gearbox is considered quite an exotic thing to do in the US? It never ceases to amaze me how many threads there are about how to do something that is taken for granted pretty much everywhere else…
It isn’t that rare. You tend to see manual transmissions more with low end cars (because automatic is more expensive) and with high performance cars than with your standard mid-range cars, but I believe most cars are available with manual transmissions. I believe the majority of cars are probably automatics, but that’s probably more like a 60 or 70% majority than 99%.
You mean you put it in gear with the engine off, then you crank the starter motor to start moving the car?
Yep.
If the battery is in decent shape, and the engine will start right up and run smoothly (it’s wise to start it in neutral first to ensure this, letting it warm up a bit if needed), the car will be propelled a bit and the engine will start, after which you need to accelerate. It tends to be a lurchy take-off, and might be difficult or impossible if you’re facing up a steep enough slope. It’s a bit of a pain, and it’s stressful on the battery and starter, so if one must drive with a clutch that won’t release, part of the technique is to avoid coming to a complete stop if at all possible. It’s not the kind of thing to do in stop and go traffic.
Even with an engine that won’t run, a good battery and starter can propel the car slowly in gear for a short distance.
And you definitely need to be in a low gear. First and reverse are OK. Second might work, but it’s iffy and there’s no reason to do it. Higher gears and the starter doesn’t have enough leverage to move the car.
Yet another reason why a manual transmission is safer. Cars can die on you at the most inopportune times: in the middle of a busy intersection, just around a blind curve, halfway across a level (grade) crossing. “Cranking the hell outta there” isn’t the most dignified piece of driving you’ll ever see, but it has saved lives.
Not mine… the ignition won’t engage without the clutch pedal fully depressed. Safety, I guess.
Technically true, but the average car has a clutch safety switch. IMHO, the average driver is unaware of this switch, incapable of bypassing it, and is ignorant of this technique for moving the car by using the starter. My old Toyota Pickup truck had a clutch safety override switch on the dash.
You are quite right. I stand corrected. I was posting from the Australian POV. These “safety” (and I use the term loosely) switches are comparatively recent developments here. I have owned many cars, automatic and manual, and NONE of them has had any such devices. I frequently borrow a friend’s '94 Mazda 323 automatic, and it is loaded with them. I find it really annoying.