How often do you guys replace clutches?

yamaha wrote: I've only had to replace clutches due to something breaking.......never a clutch due to wear.

Yep, never due to wear unless I've bought the car knowing.

I'm interested in how most people "tell" a clutch is worn? By it slipping?

Gasoline wrote: My brother was around 340k miles on the same Honda civic clutch. That has to be some kind of world record. I would have killed it in a week.

I bought an accord with a chattery clutch that I thought was going out. 125k miles then. Still going strong with the next owner at >400k miles now on the original clutch.

HiTempguy wrote:

yamaha wrote: I've only had to replace clutches due to something breaking.......never a clutch due to wear.

Yep, never due to wear unless I've bought the car knowing. I'm interested in how most people "tell" a clutch is worn? By it slipping?

It was a pretty good sign when the clutch wouldn't engage.

idk, my '03 mazda6 (V6) had DBW throttle and ABS/TCS. it also has 164k on the original clutch.

N Sperlo wrote: It was a pretty good sign when the clutch wouldn't engage.

So, the clutch failed? My point is that really, clutch performance shouldn't degrade until the material is completely gone and you are riding around on steel on steel. We're talking about wear, not failure. I don't see why a clutch would start "slipping" after it gets a bit worn.

What I am trying to say is, 99% of clutch replacements are due to abuse (such as slipping the clutch too much or glazing the flywheel over which can then cause slipping), not actual wear.

HiTempguy wrote:

N Sperlo wrote: It was a pretty good sign when the clutch wouldn't engage.

So, the clutch failed? My point is that really, clutch performance shouldn't degrade until the material is completely gone and you are riding around on steel on steel. We're talking about wear, not failure. I don't see why a clutch would start "slipping" after it gets a bit worn. What I am trying to say is, 99% of clutch replacements are due to abuse (such as slipping the clutch too much or glazing the flywheel over which can then cause slipping), not actual wear.

Abuse causes wear.

More wear = less material and/or easier to glaze.

Less material = less capacity for heat

Heat = bad.

Bad = slipping clutch

The current clutch in the MX6 is slipping. I'll bet it's worn pretty good. (And maybe abused due to power) But either way, the abuse has caused more wear which means it needs to be replaced.

It's purely semantics at this point. I know it needs to be replaced because it slips, and generally just feels bad.

N Sperlo wrote: I do a lot of double clutching unlike Brian Spillner, and hope that means there will be less wear. I've changed clutches at 130,000 and the Ranger that I just changed everything in was at 160,000.

Double clutching slightly increases clutch wear but greatly reduces synchro wear. Rev-matching decreases clutch wear.

In reply to HiTempguy:

Failed two weeks after I bought it. It was likely terribly abused. It was cheap though. I believe as it was falling apart, it would rev up and down as the clutch slipped at a low RPM. That would be around 1.5-2k RPM. 5th gear at 2-2.5k was awful.

It doesn't matter how nice you are to the clutch, it will eventually fail. Once its slipping, you're pretty close.

GameboyRMH wrote:

N Sperlo wrote: I do a lot of double clutching unlike Brian Spillner, and hope that means there will be less wear. I've changed clutches at 130,000 and the Ranger that I just changed everything in was at 160,000.

Double clutching slightly increases clutch wear but greatly reduces synchro wear. Rev-matching decreases clutch wear.

Essentially by D-clutching minus revving, isn't that essentially what you're doing? Matching the transmission to engine speed therefore reducing wear on both because the speed of the clutch is closer too that of the engine? I understand the clutch is "used" more, but when in neutral, you are lacking the weight of the transmission, so the benefit of needing less clutch when shifting into gear outweighs the negative effects of using the clutch more often.... Thats at least what I would expect.

Way back when I had my SAAB 96, it seemed that I had to replace the clutch every year as it would slip at the first autocross. Luckily an easy job. Finally found the cause. My wife drove the car. We live on a side hill. When she backed out of the garage she always started up the hill, neccesitating more clutch slippage. Suggested that from now on,she go down the hill. No more clutch problems.

N Sperlo wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote:

N Sperlo wrote: I do a lot of double clutching unlike Brian Spillner, and hope that means there will be less wear. I've changed clutches at 130,000 and the Ranger that I just changed everything in was at 160,000.

Double clutching slightly increases clutch wear but greatly reduces synchro wear. Rev-matching decreases clutch wear.

Essentially by D-clutching minus revving, isn't that essentially what you're doing? Matching the transmission to engine speed therefore reducing wear on both because the speed of the clutch is closer too that of the engine?

Nope double-clutching does nothing for the clutch, other than maybe slowing spin-down slightly which is practically a non-issue in terms of clutch wear since only the weight of the input side of the transmission internals is on the clutch at the time and the difference will be taken up instantly before any meaningful friction is acheived between the flywheel and clutch.

The purpose of double-clutching is to match the speeds of the input and output gears in the gearbox. If you let the revs fall out of match or remain too high between the neutral re-engagement and engaging in-gear, the clutch will still have to slip to let the engine speed and the transmission input speed, which is now locked to some multiple of the output speed, match up with the engine speed which isn't necessarily similar unless you've rev-matched.

A friend of mine taught me how to shift without using the clutch. You only use it to take off. I use this method to check the syncros on any stick car. It works very well.

stan_d wrote: A friend of mine taught me how to shift without using the clutch. You only use it to take off. I use this method to check the syncros on any stick car. It works very well.

This is very, very hard on the synchros, it puts the inertia of the entire vehicle on them instead of just the weight of the transmission internals. The best-matched "floated" shift will be harder on them than the worst unmatched straight-shift.

disc wear = thinner disc
thinner disc = less clamp load from pressure plate
less clamp load eventually = slipping clutch

N Sperlo wrote:

HiTempguy wrote:

yamaha wrote: I've only had to replace clutches due to something breaking.......never a clutch due to wear.

Yep, never due to wear unless I've bought the car knowing. I'm interested in how most people "tell" a clutch is worn? By it slipping?

It was a pretty good sign when the clutch wouldn't engage.

This is what happened to my '95 sho shortly after I bought it......spring came out of the disc itself and stopped the pressure plate from releasing. Synchros were good in that car though......floated quite well.

I had a 95 Golf TD that had 335k kms (roughly 200 k miles) on it that was still on the original clutch.

We did the clutch on our Mazda3 after 115k. A significant amount of that was stop and go, and the driver has now been "modified" slightly, after she decided she didn't want to wear out the new clutch as quickly.

03 Dodge SRT4, replaced at 120k because it was slipping, plenty of material left on the clutch disc, had been slipping in 5th gear at low rpms for 40k or so. Made a hybrid stock style pressure plate, south bend stage 3 disc, and aluminum flywheel setup...works great.

88 Suzuki Samurai, after building custom dual runner intake with CV carb and 31" tires now slips on WOT accel. No idea how many miles on it, guessing close to 200k.

2011 Elantra with DBW, 98500 miles as of today, zero clutch issues

I bought my 91 Escort with a bad clutch and 132,000 miles. It was still good enough to get me 16 miles home though. I have replaced it twice since then with now 377,000, miles of mostly pizza delivery.

This clutch will not wear till metal meets metal and starts to slip before the rivets cause any damage to the flywheel.

While I don't baby it, I am very good at throttle matching the shifts so there is little if any slippage between gears. At about 2200 pounds it doesn't take a strain to get it going either. So...132K, 210K and 330K. Not really helpful to figure the intervals huh?

Bruce

I've never had to replace a clutch due to wear. Just upgrading. That being said, I can't wait to ditch the stock clutch in my Mazda 2. Thing feels like sludge. I'll most likely ditch it before it's even close to worn out.

In reply to asetech: I thought you guys replaced clutches every third transmission.....

AngryCorvair wrote: disc wear = thinner disc thinner disc = less clamp load from pressure plate less clamp load eventually = slipping clutch

You're my hero. I'm a retard. Good thing someone else out there was able to think for me!

Makes perfect sense.

One thing I have found is tha you must replace the pressure plate as well as the disc. Seems the heat built up reduces the spring tension, this may not be as much with diaphragm types. Seen it a lot, where a person would just replace the disc and shortly after the clutch fails.

Another thing I've seen is wear and tear on the pressure plate changing the fulcrum point(or so I believe, something's wearing out), making the pedal heavy enough you have concerns about things breaking and developing a funny walk doe to an oversized left leg. This also seems to reduce the clamping force and causes the clutch to slip.