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Do I Not Know How To Drive A Manual?
milehigh
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I took my '05 Subaru Legacy GT to get an oil change. They said everything looked fine. I got home later, invoice says "Clutch will need replacement soon." That can't be! I just had it replaced in 2010, less than 20k miles ago! I call the dealership, he said given the light inspection they did they could've drawn that conclusion from the catch point and the travel of the pedal and they could've been wrong. This made sense, because since I had it replaced the pedal had always had a relatively high catch on it. Easy enough, no problems.
Until today, when I was remembering how the first clutch started to give out (5th gear, accelerating between 65-75). I rarely have reason to hit those speeds anymore with about 90% city driving. Anyways I get on the highway, get it into 5th, and sure enough, between 70 and 75 the tach blips up to 6k, drops, catches again and continues accelerating. Got up to 90 with no further issues before slowing down.
So, the h/a part.
1. I know the writing is on the wall, I scheduled to have the clutch replaced at an indie Subie specific shop that was recommended to me by several people next Friday the 15th. They quoted $600 less than the dealer and this was the earliest I could do it. I'm going to need to squeeze another 300-400 miles out of this one before that appointment. What tips would one give if I'm trying to baby a clutch? I don't ride the clutch. My foot is always on the dead pedal when I'm not engaging it. Obviously I should use the lowest RPM's possible to get the car moving and avoid any kind of slipping while shifting (is there a "best practices" way to avoid this?). The only thing I can think of that maybe I have done is not depressed the pedal fully when shifting (maybe 90% of the way?), I don't know if that can cause wear though, as it's never caused the gears to grind.
2. Isn't this and incredibly short life span for a clutch? I've had my spirited driving moments, but I'd say 95-97% of the time I'm in commuting mode and don't accelerate hard. I've never launched the car (since I got the clutch replaced the first time that is). Not to mention I learned when I was 21 on a 2002 Honda Civic Si, which I abused in every way possible for over 4 years and 50k miles (car had 110k when I sold it) and that still had the stock clutch going strong. Obviously cars are different, but the earliest I've heard clutches going were sport clutches lasting 25k when driven super hard during track days.
Until today, when I was remembering how the first clutch started to give out (5th gear, accelerating between 65-75). I rarely have reason to hit those speeds anymore with about 90% city driving. Anyways I get on the highway, get it into 5th, and sure enough, between 70 and 75 the tach blips up to 6k, drops, catches again and continues accelerating. Got up to 90 with no further issues before slowing down.
So, the h/a part.
1. I know the writing is on the wall, I scheduled to have the clutch replaced at an indie Subie specific shop that was recommended to me by several people next Friday the 15th. They quoted $600 less than the dealer and this was the earliest I could do it. I'm going to need to squeeze another 300-400 miles out of this one before that appointment. What tips would one give if I'm trying to baby a clutch? I don't ride the clutch. My foot is always on the dead pedal when I'm not engaging it. Obviously I should use the lowest RPM's possible to get the car moving and avoid any kind of slipping while shifting (is there a "best practices" way to avoid this?). The only thing I can think of that maybe I have done is not depressed the pedal fully when shifting (maybe 90% of the way?), I don't know if that can cause wear though, as it's never caused the gears to grind.
2. Isn't this and incredibly short life span for a clutch? I've had my spirited driving moments, but I'd say 95-97% of the time I'm in commuting mode and don't accelerate hard. I've never launched the car (since I got the clutch replaced the first time that is). Not to mention I learned when I was 21 on a 2002 Honda Civic Si, which I abused in every way possible for over 4 years and 50k miles (car had 110k when I sold it) and that still had the stock clutch going strong. Obviously cars are different, but the earliest I've heard clutches going were sport clutches lasting 25k when driven super hard during track days.
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Back in 2K10, did they replace the flywheel or resurface? Those models had a dual mass flywheel which Subaru dealers would replace and not resurface, and only some places would resurface.
To baby it make sure shift changes are well rev-matched and then do not power through after the shift, in fact letting off the gas and slowly letting it on afterwards should mean minimal wear on contact points, but this is not a terribly intuitive way to drive.
OEM (Subaru) clutch kits are going to be super expensive, so it's probably in your best bet to try and find a quality aftermarket unit this time around. I have personal experience with an Xtreme (shitty name, I know) performance clutch in my old car. It took all sorts of meat-headed abuse from me and still worked like new after a few years, up until I blew the motor.
As soon as I learned that was a thing I've had no trouble. I typically get ~110K out of my clutches. Of course, Subaru's (and all wheel drive systems in general) are known to burn out clutches faster than normal. I've personally encountered people wearing an Audi S4 clutch down in ~5K miles from the "neat trick" of revving up and just popping it out, since all wheel drive keeps the car from slipping.
Most people have several bad clutch habits that greatly shorten it's life span:
* Riding the clutch. Sort of like Great Scott described. Remember that many clutches are very sensitive, and just resting your foot on the pedal can cause it to partially engage. Most cars have a foot pad or rest near the clutch, use it.
* Using the clutch as a lazy way to keep the car in gear. If your RPM's are that low, put the car in neutral and come off the clutch.
* (This one is more for the young and brash) Using the clutch as some kind of "launch assist" or rev tool. Not only is that bad for the clutch, it makes you look silly at red lights.
The one thing many people DON'T do that would help is learning proper shifting technique. It's relatively easy to learn to drive a stick these days, but it takes some practice and forethought to properly shift. I recommend watching a youtube video showing proper rev matching, then going out to an empty parking lot and trying it with different gears. In theory, with proper rev matching, you don't even need to use the clutch at all, though this is something I don't do.
If you want to get real fancy you can learn to double clutch and heel-toe, but those are more for performance driving, and just "fun to know".
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Double-clutching isn't really a thing anymore. The only purpose it would serve would be to reduce wear on your syncros, but most syncros are pretty long lasting anyway. You could maybe argue that it's a smoother shift, but on modern transmissions I doubt it would be noticeable.
Also, what's up with the bolder part? Seems perfectly fine to me. There could be a problem if you engage an idling engine with a fast coasting car. I.e. when you downshift it helps to rev up the engine before you release the clutch to try and match engine speed and transmission speed. But just letting the car idle with the clutch in while you coast seems perfectly legit.
Won't this wear the throw out bearing and not the actual clutch plate? A bad habit, but not very as long as you're not doing it a ton afaik.
Not saying you do that, but I see some of my friends doing the same thing.
Wearing out the throw out bearing seems a supreme boundary condition. In my experience you know within hours of installation if you have a bad throw out bearing and friction plates are going to be worn out 99 times to every 1 throw out bearing.
In case the clutch does go totally while you are on the road between now and the 15th, it might be a good idea to brush up on clutch-less shifting. Its not fun but can save you a tow charge.
Yes, well, the point is "doing it a ton". Most people who drive a stick like this, do it A LOT. It's part of their driving habit, to use the clutch at super low RPM to keep the engine from stalling rather than just throwing it in neutral for a second.
When I had my Mustang, I bought it used, and 5k miles in to the ownership, the clutch literally exploded on me while doing a down shift. I had to drive the car home basically in first. Luckily I wasn't far from home.
(The place I bought it from replaced the clutch for free...when he pulled the housing apart, the clutch plate was literally in pieces...his comment was "Whoever owned this car before you got rid of it for a reason...they couldn't drive it"...which makes sense I guess, why they had sold their 20k mile brand new completely optioned out Mustang GT)
One thing I notice, and this has been with the only other person with whom I've spoken IRL about the car is that you have to ride the clutch a little bit when you take off. It gets worse in traffic, because people with automatics are tremendously fucking slow, and the car does not do well if you can't take off. You either ride the clutch when you start, or you either stall or blow up your tranny. If you compare it to a FWD with a manual, where you can pretty much engage the clutch at idle from a dead stop and it won't be an issue.
I have like ~30k or so on my clutch. They don't often last to 50k miles. Driving in reverse also adds a ton of wear on the clutch. If you notice there's a nice clutch burning smell when you back up, it's because they don't handle too well in reverse. I don't recall offhand exactly how it works, but even when fully engaged, the clutch burns a bit.
Also, for $600 less than the dealer to have your clutch replaced is a hell of a good deal. That's not much more than the price for parts. To do the clutch, you need the $700 flywheel. It cannot be resurfaced, as it's a dual-mass light-as-hell flywheel. It get straight up replaced. The clutch itself is around $300. The dealer quoted me as $2k to replace it. The rest of the $1k price from the flywheel and clutch are labor and miscellaneous stuff, like transmission fluid.
I did get mine resurfaced (maybe this wasn't a good idea) and a clutch job for under $1K when dealer wanted $2K. However, they did have to redo the work twice (bad throwout bearing caused squeaking) and I sold it about 15K mles after so I don't know if the clutch job would've lasted compared to new flywheel.
In fact, I have a hard time imagining why they wouldn't have just used the cheaper WRX flywheel in the first place...like what is so special about the Legacy it needs a crazy expensive dual mass flywheel?
In practice, this is slightly true.
But they're basically an expensive waste of time.