FA

Hi

I am finding that for city driving I am getting 15,000km per clutch. Is this
normal? Does anyone make a better after market clutch?

Cheers

FA

Pete

"FA" <fa@connect.net.au> wrote in message
news:bs8g8g$2tn$1@perki.connect.com.au...
> Hi
>
> I am finding that for city driving I am getting 15,000km per clutch. Is
this
> normal? Does anyone make a better after market clutch?

Maybe you're not using it correctly? When taking off in 1st gear, I try to
engage it as low as possible - 1500rpm or less. The higher the engagement
rpms, the shorter it'll last. I'm at 50k km right now, still on the
original clutch and it's still working fine. I know many A4 owners who have
gove much longer than that.

Cheers,

Pete

xymergy@suds.com

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 15:27:59 +1100, "FA" <fa@connect.net.au> wrote:

>I am finding that for city driving I am getting 15,000km per clutch. Is this
>normal? Does anyone make a better after market clutch?

No, this is not normal. Are you fully engaging the clutch each time
you shift? Stepping on it ALL THE WAY down to the floor and releasing
it ALL THE WAY up when engaging the gears?

People kill clutches by riding them, by keeping their foot on them
and depressing them slightly while driving along or by leaving the
pedal all the way on the floor while coasting along in neutral or by
playing at stop lights with the accelerator and clutch coordination,
rocking the car back and forth (my brother in law likes to do this).

My rule for my clutch is to never ever touch it unless I need to
engage the transmission. The clutch is either all the way engaged or
left totally alone, no coasting along or sitting at long stoplights
with it depressed (put the car in neutral, release, and reengage when
you need to get into first gear).

I have never had to replace a clutch in any of my four manual
transmission cars ('89 Dodge Colt, '85 Audi 4KS, '95 VW Passat VR6,
'98 Audi A4 Q2., on which I've done probably 200,000 miles of
driving, and this doesn't include the miles on the Audis and the VW
which I bought used with their original clutches. In fact, that '85
Audi finally died at 145k miles with its original clutch.

Chris Mauritz

xymergy@suds.com wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 15:27:59 +1100, "FA" <fa@connect.net.au> wrote:
>
>
>>I am finding that for city driving I am getting 15,000km per clutch. Is this
>>normal? Does anyone make a better after market clutch?
>
>
> No, this is not normal. Are you fully engaging the clutch each time
> you shift? Stepping on it ALL THE WAY down to the floor and releasing
> it ALL THE WAY up when engaging the gears?
>
> People kill clutches by riding them, by keeping their foot on them
> and depressing them slightly while driving along or by leaving the
> pedal all the way on the floor while coasting along in neutral or by
> playing at stop lights with the accelerator and clutch coordination,
> rocking the car back and forth (my brother in law likes to do this).
>
> My rule for my clutch is to never ever touch it unless I need to
> engage the transmission. The clutch is either all the way engaged or
> left totally alone, no coasting along or sitting at long stoplights
> with it depressed (put the car in neutral, release, and reengage when
> you need to get into first gear).
>
> I have never had to replace a clutch in any of my four manual
> transmission cars ('89 Dodge Colt, '85 Audi 4KS, '95 VW Passat VR6,
> '98 Audi A4 Q2., on which I've done probably 200,000 miles of
> driving, and this doesn't include the miles on the Audis and the VW
> which I bought used with their original clutches. In fact, that '85
> Audi finally died at 145k miles with its original clutch.

I agree. It sounds like a case of pilot error on the part of the
original poster. 15,000km is about 20% of the life I'd expect out of a
1.8TQ clutch, and I spend a lot of time driving in and around NYC.
Having travelled and worked down under on a number of occasions, I can't
recall anything close to the traffic snarls I see here every day. My
recommendation would be for the original poster to find someone who
knows how to drive a standard shift vehicle and have them ride with them
for a bit to find out what's being done wrong.

Richard Wall

Dear FA
Normal, no !! You must drive like my mother in law , she gets through a
clutch in this sort of mileage , but then she revs the car really hard and
crawls along using a slipping clutch.
I drove my first A6 1.8 T 130000 miles, 209000 KM with no problems with the
clutch. My old Peugeot 306 XSi managed 110000 miles before the clutch
actuator arm broke (Clutch still OK). Both had a mix of motorways and city
crawls. Perhaps you should get a tiptronic ?

Regards Richard
"FA" <fa@connect.net.au> wrote in message
news:bs8g8g$2tn$1@perki.connect.com.au...
> Hi
>
> I am finding that for city driving I am getting 15,000km per clutch. Is
this
> normal? Does anyone make a better after market clutch?
>
> Cheers
>
> FA
>
>

Scott

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 15:27:59 +1100, "FA" <fa@connect.net.au> wrote:

>Hi
>
>I am finding that for city driving I am getting 15,000km per clutch. Is this
>normal? Does anyone make a better after market clutch?

Not normal. Even in my Golf that I abused the heck out of, did lots of
Autocrossing with, etc, I got 160kmi on the original clutch.
The worst vehicle by far was a 1992 Camry we had, regularly ate
clutches at 50kmi, though perhaps my wife was riding the clutch some.

Look to your driving, get someone that has over 100kmi on their manual
transmission to ride with you through all the types of driving you
usually do, including stopping on hills. They will probably see what
is happening.

Scott