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One for the drivers and mechanics.. clutch life

-alan-

-alan-

pfm Member
Anywhere between 30k miles and 250k miles seemingly nowadays, depending on car make/model and how you drive.

Leaving aside the type of car, apart from the obvious WOT launches and endlessly slipping the clutch for no good reason, I was wondering are there any other prime causes of dead clutches ?

Or conversely - with another of the offspring entering the learner driver phase shortly - what else should a driver do (or not do) to get the maximum possible life-span out of one ?
 
Don’t buy a Honda Civic. I’m hearing too many stories of c25k miles life expectancy. Petrol and diseasel.
 
Riding a foot on the clutch is meant to be a killer, I am told.

But in something like 800,000 miles so far I have never had a clutch changed. Mileages on cars from 20K to 180K.

Hillman Imp, Triumph Spitfire, Morris 1300, Cortina Mk3, Astra Mk1, Cavalier 1.6 Estate, Mini 1000, Datsun Cherry, Audi 80, Renault 21, Renault 21, Toyota Camry, Volkswagen Sharon, BMW 523, Jaguar X-type, Volvo XC60. Not counting the toy Jensen Healey, about 10,000 miles in 15 years.

No clutch work other than fluids ever. One blown up engine (left the oil filler cap off!) but the clutch was OK. Only Automatic has been the current Volvo.

So I reckon clutches are pretty reliable these days - so surely most breakages must be usage or just plain unlucky.
 
I'm driving an 18 year old Daewoo Matiz, the clutch was on the floor when I bought it 4+ years ago and it's still on the floor. I don't think it has a clutch.
 
Don't ride it, if you do it will prematurely wear the release bearing and pressure plate. This may however take 50k miles or more. Abuse they can take, I've had the clutch stinking as I tried to reverse up a hill i in the dark, it survived.

one failure mode is the modern curse, the concentric slave. I bought a vectra that had had a clutch at 75 and 85k. It was on 95. Great. About 120k it leaked and trashed the clutch. I replaced it. Some months later it started leaking again, I binned it.

thi s will be the old astra with the new hg? Just drive it.
 
One thing to bear in mind on many cars sold in the last twenty odd years is the dual mass flywheel. They serve a very useful purpose, but if they let go, and a garage does the job, say bye bye to £700-1000 for clutch, DMF and labour. One way to shorten the DMF’s life is to floor the throttle pedal off-boost (turbo diesel or petrol) and feel the surge as the boost rushes in.
 
stevec67 said:
this will be the old astra with the new hg? Just drive it.
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Ah the old Astra's in full rude health approaching 200k km. Passed our equivalent of the MOT at the 2nd go there following a 'Dangerous vehicle' classification for a sticky bonnet catch, plus 2 additional 'Major' issues - namely one left and one right rear indicator bulb not being deemed sufficiently orange first time around. If the clutch goes in it, it'll be goodnight :)

Tony Lockhart said:
Don’t buy a Honda Civic. I’m hearing too many stories of c25k miles life expectancy. Petrol and diseasel.
Click to expand...

May well be a case in point: we have an '11 diseasel Civic with 98k miles on it, all fine, the brother bought an '08 one last year with 60k miles and the clutch has started to slip on it like an old Daf Variomatic on song :). That's one of the things prompting the qn. in the first place .
 
It`s mostly in how they`re driven. Mrs BMs first two cars, both 1.4 Fiestas bought 3 years old from the company she worked for and both having "belonged" to the same driver required clutches at 16000 and 22000 miles respectively - they both then carried on to very high mileages without further clutch replacement.
 
Crikey - 16k is appalling.

I'm trying to figure out the determinants for wear. Is it a simple function of how much 'slip' it has seen in usage, and the number of cycles where the clutch pedal has been depressed and the length of time it has been held in ?

I.e. the mechanism has a finite life - reduce the number/duration of any of the above and it'll last longer, perhaps even the life of the car.

Or am I missing something else central to the whole thing ?
 
-alan- said:
Or conversely - with another of the offspring entering the learner driver phase shortly - what else should a driver do (or not do) to get the maximum possible life-span out of one ?
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Don't let learners use them. I went through 4 clutches in about 6 years as a driving instructor. In the 6 years since I retired still on the same one.
 
I don't think you're missing anything.

It's just friction material. It will wear just like brake pads depending on how much it's sliding over its partner component.

So as said above, no wear while fully engaged or fully disengaged.

Wear only occuring in the phase where it is "slipping"

"Dropping" the clutch surprisingly doesn't cause much wear on the clutch plate itself, because it is instantly engaged.

Hill starts. That's when you can really make them suffer.
 
davidsrsb said:
I never had a clutch go, but have got through a few slave cylinders on various makes.
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This, the slave cylinder went on my Monaro after 60k. This was within 10k of the previous owner changing the clutch! It wasn't as pricey as I thought it'd be - about £800.
 
my dad went through clutches very quickly - when he was working it was high mileage company cars, he always rode the clutch. In retirement up until earlier this year, still riding the clutch and still going through one every 18 months. Until after alot of moaning from me, I persuaded him to the dark side of an auto box......
 
I get around 500 miles from the clutch in my rally car, but that's about how long the gearbox lasts, so it's no great hassle to change the plate when the box is off getting rebuilt.
On road cars I've never had to replace one.
 
The only clutch that I have had to replace in 40 years was on a VW Passat which was a pool car in its early life, so I think lots of drivers on one clutch is a killer, See post #11
 
Never had a clutch fail in 40 years of driving - had a slave cylinder go once though. I've always been very conscious of not riding the clutch, maybe that's the reason - or I've been lucky.
 
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