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How many miles do you get out of a clutch?


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Harry is correct.

Anyone else that uses the engine/clutch to slow their car down may or may not make your brakes last longer and may or may not wear out the clutch faster.

if have to "slip" the clutch each time you change gears then the clutch will wear out faster than a person that doesn't "slip the clutch" when they change gears...whether it's up shifting or down shifting.

(all this is assuming there are no fluid leaks or other problems with the clutch assembly)

Edited by blunc
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Not much of that, if anything, translates to everyday driving. Not a whole lotta F1 cars being driven back and forth to work or the mall. Not many "daily drivers" getting a new clutch after every run to the 7-11.

Downshifting to slow a car in real-world, normal driving is pointless and counter-productive. Every car has a braking system, that's what's meant to slow/stop the car.

In the real-world, 'normal' driving scenario in today's cars with fantastic brakes, I'd have to agree. The first part of my post was intended to explain how the technique of downshifting was helpful in times past when production-car brakes were often barely adequate for the task of stopping a vehicle in other than stop-and-go driving. A lot of things hang around after a good reason for them to be abandoned has become commonplace. Current brake performance makes the tecnique unnecessary, for the most part.

However, having no fallback skills to slow a vehicle in an emergency, or should the brakes prove to be inadequate for whatever reason, strikes me as somewhat counter-productive also. Some cases of "runaway acceleration" in recent memory could have ended less tragically if the operators had ingrained optional behaviors beyond simply standing on the brakes in panic.

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It's extremely rare (if not completely unheard of) for a modern day car's brakes to totally fail. That would mean that both circuits had to fail at the same time (highly unlikely).

In such a "worst case" scenario... a manual trans car with totally inoperative brakes... my guess is that in 99% of those situations (rare as they are, probably actually non-existent), the average driver in a panic situation is better off mashing the clutch and yanking on the parking brake lever than trying to practice his F1 driving skills and downshifting to slow the car. Even the best downshift expert will have rear-ended that semi long before the magic of downshifting had slowed his car to any appreciable extent.

Bottom line: Downshifting to slow/stop a car in everyday driving is a completely silly and useless exercise. Sure, if you want to play Jackie Stewart, have fun... but the average person driving the average car in average conditions has absolutely no need to do so.

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As far as downshifting to slow down, sometimes I downshift a standard to fourth when going down a steep mountain. You never know when your foot is going to slip or something out of left field is going to happen. Our Malibu is autostick so I downshift it from sixth to fifth or fourth. I know that there is usually not a reason to downshift an auto/autostick but, if you have ever seen the tiny brakes they put on new Malibus, you would understand. They've been checked by several shops and they slip more than the average car with a six or eight inch brake pad.

When it comes to changing clutches, I have had five standard vehicles and changed them as follows:

87 S10 at approx. 100,000

91 S10 didn't own it long enough

98 S10 never changed yet but it only has 60,000 on it

94 Camaro changed to Centerforce stage 3 @ 80,000 and never had another problem (drove that car hard)

04 Cavalier at least 125,000 with now broken odometer and clutch never changed (I drive it responsibly.)

Edited by Skydime
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I had an '85 Ranger with just over 250k on the clock and the original clutch wasn't missing a beat. Same thing could not be said for the rest of the truck. :lol: On the other hand, my girlfriend went through two clutches in one year in her Jetta. Third time around she had it changed at another dealer and it was still fine when she traded it in with about 30,000 on the third clutch. The tech at the VW dealer she took it to the last time was a bit more thorough- he checked the pedal freeplay and IIRC he even bled the master and slave cylinders when he changed the clutch.

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I downshift all of the time myself. But, I use the same shift points when I downshift as I do when I upshift. In other words, I don't shift down into a gear before I reach the speed that I shift up from that particular gear. So, I'm not putting any more strain on the drivetrain downshifting than I do when I shift up. Probably less so. I don't do it so much to save the brakes,but rather to keep the heat down that is generated by braking.

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Sputtering doesn't sound like a clutch problem to me. If it were slipping you'd have an increase in rpm without an increase in speed. If its sputtering try a basic tune up. A new fuel filter, plugs, and wires might solve the problem. FWIW I have 152k on the clutch in my truck. I have only owned it for the last 25k but the original owner said it was never replaced.

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