Clutch in or out?

The main wear-and-tear is mainly on your left leg, keeping the pedal down. If, however, you don't push th epedal down all the way, you can wear the clutch plate.

I have always been told to leave the car in neutral with your foot on the brake when stopped at a light. Staying in gear with the clutch pedal to the floor supposedly causes extra wear on the throw out bearing.

It not only wears the throwout bearing, it also wears the spring of the pressure plate. This is not designed to stay 'unclamped' for very long. Depending on the pressure plate type, there may be little fingers that come into the center. When you push on the clutch, those fingers get pushed on, releasing the clamping action of the pressure plate. The throwout bearing can wear the fingers in time, creating a weak spot, and eventual failure of the pressure plate.

I've changed enough clutch assemblies to know a little about them, I change it on my race car every 3 races!

I also love those guys who are at a light uphill, not using the brake, but lunging forward/backward using the clutch pedal. yeah, that will make the clutch last.

That and downshifting, which is not necessary unless you are getting ready to exit a turn in that gear. I wouldn't use your engine to brake, it wears the clutch & components, uses more fuel, and brakes are a lot cheaper and easier to replace.

You would only downshift under racing situations when you need to exit a slow turn in a lower gear due to the momentum you've lost in corner entry (braking, etc.)

in article YO5zb.548393$9l5.388892@pd7tw2no, brackenburn at snipped-for-privacy@invalid.ca wrote on 12/2/03 2:34 PM:

In terms of the health of the throwout bearing, it is generally best to let the car idle in neutral with the clutch engaged [foot off of the clutch]. However, there are safety and common sense considerations which may require keeping the clutch depressed. If you cannot see the 'other side' of the traffic light to recognize the yellow light as the signal to depress the clutch and put the lever in first, then you may have to keep the car in first with clutch disengaged. Otherwise, you lose a couple of seconds when the light turns green, and receive honking horns behind you.

Leaving it in puts more wear on the throwout bearing, pressure plate and thrust bearing in the engine, leaving it out puts more wear on the tranny input shaft bearings and 1st gear syncro when you shift back into gear. It's a tradeoff, I usually hold the pedal in for short lights and shift into neutral for long ones.

push on the clutch,

eventual failure

change it on my race

to exit a turn

components, uses

In that way, I'm glad in my country the light turns yellow first, before turning green, not just red straight to green like it is in the US.

Wonder if it has to do with the fact that most cars in the US have historically been automatics so they don't need that "get ready" stage as opposed to Europe, where most are stickshifts.

Cheers,

Pete

Thanks guys for your contributions. I'll put it in neutral. You eager-beavers, anxious to blast off on the green light could end up T-boned by some idiot trying to beat their red light...................

Andy I.

That puts wear on the 3rd syncro, but then so does driving, there's no reason not to do it, but no reason to do it if you don't need to either.

Well it's a given that you should look to see if the oncomming traffic is actually stopping before gunning it through the intersection.

I think it's just a different opinion of how it should work when the system was first designed. The yellow after red is a decent idea, but nobody thought of it at the time or didn't think it was nessesary, and beyond that it became a standard, if some lights did it and some didn't things would be a mess. The system was decided way back before automatic transmissions were around.

Yah, I only really do it when I see a stoplight far away, and the revs in

Where I live in Canada the yellow light is pretty long for the cross traffic, then there is their red. Then there is a slight delay before we get the green. Perhaps it is all similar in actual timings. Doesn't seem to be an overly problematic system over here as far as traffic lights go, except the synchronization of lights in certain areas is bad, or non existant... some places have it quite good tho, my route to work in the morning is a particularly well engineered stretch for carrying many cars.