Been wondering about this for a while:
How can you prolong the life of a clutch?
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Don't hold that car on it at hills/junctions. Use handbrake.
Put gearbox in neutral and foot off clutch pedal when stationary for any time.
Use low revs. when setting off (though not low enough for engine to labour).
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Sore point at the moment.
The clutch on the Pug 405 has started to slip at 97,000 miles.
Never had a clutch go on a car before despite doing up to 125,000.
Just bad luck or do I blame the missus or the kids?
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Sore point at the moment. The clutch on the Pug 405 has started to slip at 97,000 miles. Never had a clutch go on a car before despite doing up to 125,000. Just bad luck or do I blame the missus or the kids?
Mileage does not mean a lot. Lots of miles covered on a motorway with very little clutch usage. Couple of miles through town could see 100 clutch operations.
I once changed a clutch on a Ford at 12000 miles! It was used in town a lot though.
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Dont slip it. Ie dont hold it on the hills via a clutch, always choose the correct gear for the correct speed. Dont ride it at lights - neutral please. Dont rest your foot on the pedal while driving.
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I would imagine the more a clutch is used, the shorter its life. I would imagine urban driving would wear one out quicker than one in a car driven mainly on motorways.
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My Mother-In-Law wore out 2 clutches in 30,000 miles through the sorts of abuse described here already. I told her to think of the pedal as a switch rather than a volume control.
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The following information may or not be relevant to car drivers, it's common sense anyway.
The MAN 7.5 tonners I work on have a manufacturers sticker in the cab. "To prolong clutch life, always pull away in 1st gear, laden or unladen. Revs should not normally exceed 1100 rpm". Iveco's have a similar warning, and their ECU is programmed to prevent the engine from revving above about 1300 rpm unless the road speed is above 5mph. (ie clutch fully engaged). The Iveco's ECU also counts the number of times the vehicle has been moved from standstill in a gear other than first or reverse. Main dealers use this information to argue about premature cluth wear / warranty claims.
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I believe using the clutch purely to change gear and not to use it as a handbrake replacement is the real key. I was taught this and have never had a clutch replaced. The theory about the amount of use will have some truth, but my dad has never had a clutch replaced and he's a driving instructor keeping cars to well past 100,000 miles - 90% of his work is round town so should be ideal conditions for wrecking clutches. I still see one of his cars (a 1996 Fiesta) which I owned for a while and I spoke to the driver recently - it's now done 150,000 miles and no clutch problems yet.
I work with people who seem to go through a clutch a year and if I go out with them I can see why. They believe the handbrake should be touched twice during a journey, once just after you have started the car and immediately before turning the engine off!
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A mate had a new Renault 19 a few years ago and was very rough with his clutch and with his driving in general. Surprising because he had once been a car mechanic. He always drove with his hand on the gear lever and I recall mentioning to him that I had read somewhere that this pracise can harm the gearbox.
Never heard of that one he said but inside two years he had to have both his clutch and gearbox replaced.
Coincidence perhaps regarding the gearbox but I do recall seeing this advice somewhere. Has anyone else heard of this..
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Basic in IAM training is reduced use of gears (hence clutch) when slowing towards a hazard, and block changing (also saving on number of gear changes). I probably save at least 1 change in 4 overall, compared to how I drove a year or so ago, so that must prolong clutch/gearbox and other stuff too....
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I was re-educated to this idea too, recently Not IAM though. Automatic all the way I think for me in the future.
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Worse thing about a manual is reversing and the fact that when your at a set of traffic lights and it turns green, some impatient person will always beep as your trying to get the car rolling without stalling and grinding.
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Yes, I have heard of the possibility of gearbox damage by keeping a hand on the gearlever. It is possible to apply an inadvertant light force through the selector linkage and transfer this force to the synchromesh cones in the gearbox. This will cause premature wear on them and in theory with helical gears it can give the layshaft thrust washers a harder time than usual.
I always thought that the clutch was for starting from rest, changing gear and stopping until one of my friends held a heavy Laguna estate on a local steep hill for 2/3 minutes waiting for a gap in the traffic. He said he always did this. I was a passenger in his daughter's car a few weeks later and she held the vehicle on the clutch on a hill for a total red traffic light sequence. She asked what the smell was, as it didn't smell like that all the time! I explained, politely, and was told that "dad said it was ok and didn't do any damage" The following week her car's clutch plate collapsed and it had to be trailered away. I think the trick is to get full engagement as soon as possible.
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"Yes, I have heard of the possibility of gearbox damage by keeping a hand on the gearlever. It is possible to apply an inadvertant light force through the selector linkage and transfer this force to the synchromesh cones in the gearbox. This will cause premature wear on them and in theory with helical gears it can give the layshaft thrust washers a harder time than usual."
Yup, wrecked a Sierra gearbox in 40k miles doing that very thing.
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When pulling away, don't use excessive revs while slipping the clutch. Also another clutch wearing habit is when people change down from, say, 4th to 2nd on approach to a tight bend, gradually letting the clutch up with the engine on tickover, in effect using the clutch as a disc brake.
Cheers, SS
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On my Land Rover Discovery there is a record of a clutch change at 20,000 miles!
Apparently the first owner was terrible at wearing clutches out. This was replaced at his cost. The warranty did not cover this as it was a wear item.
The second clutch is a gooden at around 102k
H
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Block changing down from 4th to 2nd as mentioned above i think is probably the worst thing for clutch wear. I have never been in the habit of slipping the clutch at traffic lights or revving the engine hard on pulling away, but i did slow down alot with the gears in an older car.
This meant a new clutch at about 60k.
Lesson learned now though. I always just use brakes to slow for a corner or when coming to a stop and have never had to replace a clutch since. Coincidence maybe.
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Surely most cars now have electronic controlled idling speeds? Even my 93 Volvo does. It idles at 800 rpm, and if I let the clutch in gently the revs remain at 800 but the control gives it just enough gas to pull the load. There is no need to touch the accelerator at all.
All that old driving school stuff about increasing the gas, co-ordinating the clutch pedal, giving it more gas, is out of date.
You still hear many drivers reving their engines as they pull away, and all that time the clutch is slipping and wearing.
Used gently, clutches last for ever - well, 310,000 miles so far.
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Cliff you are pretty close to the truth with that last line - in all the years I've been driving I've never had a clutch wear out. My Rover 220 GTi was sold at 135,000 miles and the clutch was still biting almost good as new.
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I assume when you say block changing you mean going from 1 > 3 > 5 or something along those lines.
I never do that but I was taught to do it when slowing down. Presumably doing just when reducing speed won't damage the clutch?
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I always block change going up the gears, maybe not 1st to 2nd, but frequently 2nd to 4th or 3rd to 5th. In a diesel why not - you've got the torque.
I never change down to a stop. "Gears to go, brakes to slow" is I think what they teach nowadays. Brakes are cheaper to replace than clutches and gearboxes.
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Sorry for confusion - I first mentioned block changing, but didn't meniton that I was talking about Up only. My gearbox arrangement seems to make 2nd to 4th quite hard to do smoothly, but 3rd to 5th works well.
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Worse thing about a manual is reversing and the fact that when your at a set of traffic lights and it turns green, some impatient person will always beep as your trying to get the car rolling without stalling and grinding.
There's a good answer to this one. When the driver behind me sounds his horn I stop, set the handbrake, switch off, get out and go back and say "Yes? Can I help you?" In a pleasant, friendly voice.
The usual response is "You should have gone!" or "I thought you were going."
"If you don't mind, I'll drive my car and you drive yours" Walk back, get in and wait for the light to change again before driving away with a huge grin.
I like to think that next time they'll be a bit slower to use the horn and give the driver ahead a chance.
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"before driving away with a huge grin" which reveals several unsightly gaps where a few moments ago there were teeth.
It's a nice idea GOG, and I have often thought about it, but was discouraged when I let someone in front of me with a smile and a cheery wave at some lights (he was in the wrong lane) and when the same happened at the next lights he made various rude signs, one of which included the waving of a Stanley knife.
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Another thing that wears out a clutch of course is failure to adjust the engine revs to the new gear just before the clutch bites. Changing up, it happens almost naturally because the required engine speed is less. But "block changing" down without increasing engine revs is a sure way of giving the clutch maximum slippage and wear.
Anyone remember driving instructors from way back teaching how to engage a non-synchro 1st gear while moving? 4th to 1st at 20 mph was the ultimate test. Pointless, of course!
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I have an Audi A4 Tdi 2006 model and it has now done 152k and no clutch problems!
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