jroback and I are both in the ATL, and I am sure he can corroborate my claim of the stop and go traffic just about everywhere in the area during the week, or around sports venues and such at any time.

I certainly do see stop and go traffic every day on the way home. When I am in slow moving traffic I tend to leave the car in gear (1st) and engage/disengage the clutch to move slowly. If the traffic comes to a complete stop and I know I'm gonna be sitting there for a minute or or more I take the the car out of gear and let off the clutch. I usually engage from a stop at low RPM but try and engage as quickly and smoothly as the engine power will allow.

Hoping my clutch will last at least 60K miles.

 

Parking garages are not pleasant. Usually creep along at idle in first, as engine is happy, provided incline not too steep. I try to avoid stopping by looking ahead as far as possible and will try to stop at the end on the level spots when there is a back up. And coast down in neutral without clutch depressed as previously mentioned. At hospital garages, dr.s have spots right inside close, I usually park there, as all assume you are an MD.

 

this is how a clutch will wear out in 20-40k miles. you are holding the pressure plate open against its force, accelerating its fatique factor, and constantly wearing the clutch the discs out , ever so slightly. complete clutch disengagement is really needed if you want the clutch to last. sure, its a lot more work, but easier on your foot. that clutch pedal is pretty stiff to hold anyway, but I guess you could get your quad workout done on the way to work in traffic.

 

both feet in, as we do on the track!

 

because it seems like the AM clutch has a high force pressure plate and grabby pads, its important to not fight it with high rpm slip. its not going to work and cause a ton of wear. you are doing it right. low rpm and release to get going and just dump the clutch on a racing start. I always just match RPMs and release into neutral without the clutch, as there is no need to cycle the clutch pedal if the shifter just slips out of gear with no real force. upshifting and downshifting on a non-gerico gear box is probably not advised. you will wear out those synchros and that gear box is not cheap to work on.

yeah, but the master is not a wear component, it should last a very long time, regardless of how much it is worked. its failure was probably a matter of time, not how much it was used. (something failed like a seal, or maybe just a defect). But, you make the point, that by taking the car out of gear and not leaving the clutch in, you save the more expensive and difficult to fix. that's the idea here!

 

Yup. My experience exactly.

 

I will endeavor to not keep the clutch engaged as much in slow moving traffic. I definitely do want the clutch to last as long as possible given the circumstances. I hate that I have to deal with the slow moving traffic (well hell, I guess everybody does) and I imagine the clutch is just not gonna last as long because of that.

I had a 3000GT VR4 for about 12 years. I put two clutches in that car. On the last one I decided to get a high performance clutch and found one that had Kevlar in the friction material. Do we have any possibilities for longer wearing, high performance clutches for the AM cars?

 

sounds like you might be on the road to a longer living clutch. its tough, but a good habit to get into, especially in traffic. the clutch master can take it. the discs, pressure plate and TOB cannot take the continuous engagement. again, if you saw my clutch discs after so much use and saw the actual part number writing on the discs themselves, you would be a believer instantly. (on a race car of 10 seasons AND 20k of street miles). now, I don't live in San Francisco and don't drive it in traffic, but it still makes a point you can make the clutches live a long time with some care.

 

too much to worry about. I'll replace the clutch when it goes and not sweat, been driving sticks for decades and never had one wear out yet.

 

When I, my wife and my son took the Aston Martin Performance training we all got instructions on the proper way to drive using the 6 speed. First, I was in the wrong seating position. The proper one is to reach to the steering wheel arms stretched with the pivot point of the wrist on top of the wheel, then move the seat forward until the elbows are slightly bent down about 2 or 3 inches. (not fully stretched). This position also provided an ideal positioning in relationship to the clutch pedal making it less tedious to hold down the pedal which has quite a bit of force on the older Vantages.


Next - I used to have my foot resting on the clutch pedal - a big no-no! If not physically shifting, the hand goes back to the steering wheel and the foot goes to the dead pedal.


By the end of the day I was used to this procedure.


I think riding the clutch (resting the foot on the pedal which is what I used to do on any manual car I owned) vs. using the dead pedal might make a difference in clutch life.


Now that I have a SS, that's no longer in my control.

 

The SS will wear the clutch faster as you know but you can help it by performing the reset every time you start the car and going to neutral at every stop light. All of this has been covered before but it is good to remember. Clutch life has a lot to do with where you live and type of driving as well as technique. If you live in a high rise in San Fransisco and drive in stop and go traffic up and down the hills every day your clutch is doomed no matter your technique.
A mechanic friend in Miami changes clutches of 430 F1 cars for people who live in the high rises because they wear out the clutches driving up and down the parking garage every day.
Sometimes you need an automatic!

 

"First, I was in the wrong seating position. The proper one is to reach to the steering wheel arms stretched with the pivot point of the wrist on top of the wheel, then move the seat forward until the elbows are slightly bent down about 2 or 3 inches. (not fully stretched)."

I will try this tonight. Not sure how close I am to this ideal, but I'm sure that the trainers know better than I do.

 

actually, resting your foot on the clutch, if there is no slip, wont cause any issue, but that is a good habit to get into. the problem with resting your foot on the clutch , is slight TOB wear. the real issue is clutch release technique, not having the clutch depressed for anything more than the actual shift. the AM clutch is grabby due to high PP force. you don't want to rev the car and release. its high wear and you get a jolt as you take off. you want a low rpm, slow release with adding throttle to get moving! quicker starts require more RPM and a faster clutch release. there is no issue with our car's reverse ratio. very much in line with most other cars , being around a normal 1st gear ratio. our first gear is pretty low compared to most supercars at near 11:1 net reduction. (many cars are in the 8:1 ratio in 1st) reverse is near 8:1, so no excuses there.


The point of all this, is that it doesn't take much to smoke the AM clutch due to the characteristics ive listed. so, slightly different techniques should be used with our cars vs the others out there. if AM would have used a double disc clutch on the manuals, there would not be as much of an issue.

 

Common wisdom is that reverse is actually closer to a second gear ratio which is why it requires higher revs to start moving without stalling. Sport Shift II changed the reverse ratio a bit to make it more like first gear.

 

common wisdom might be a little off, just because the actual ratio is more like most cars 1st gears, so it shouldn't be a problem. I have never even had a thought of a problem in reverse. once time, however, before I figured out what the issue was with the clutch, I was using the traditional method of climbing backward up a steep hill with an unknown top situation. (cars, traffic, etc). and I cooked the clutch . later after figuring out the clutch disc and pressure plate situation, I figured out that the moderate revs were killing the clutch . however, I can tell you that climbing that hill in 2nd would have been near impossible.


I think I posted the actual gear ratios in a post from another thread a while ago. bottom line, our 2nd at 7:1 is 10-15% taller than many cars 1st gear, and our reverse is still shorter or equal than most all 1st gears in most performance cars you find.