Avoiding clutch wear...

My main advice would be try not to worry so much. Clutch readings via OBD are a very rough estimate. You should get 20,000mi/30,000km out of an F1 clutch with normal driving you have described above. Just avoid reversing up hill and stop/start traffic. My car has been through 2 clutches both of which gave over 30,000 km service - previous owner tracked it a bit and I do an equal mix of town and highway. Incidentally my 355 was stick shift at 50,000km and was still on its original clutch with no sign of being close to worn out.
Personally I let the transmission and engine warm up fully before switching to race mode - if you've every driven a manual box Ferrari you can feel how much they baulk when cold. I'm sure that the software accounts for engine temp and adjusts the shift speed accordingly, but I'm fussy.

 

My clutch wear has gone from 20 to 22% in 5 years and 10000 miles. Around town it just sits in auto and normal, outside of town the normal or sport mode and a mix of auto and paddles. There is that much torque in the engine you should use it. You will have had 2 clutches by the time i need one. Handbook warns against using race on the road, its just overkill given the available torque

 

Your reversing technique feels wrong - you should be aiming to engage the clutch and keep it engaged

Similar on starting off (which you do not describe) and in traffic

I have to say there's ten years of F1 experience in this section so maybe a little time browsing might yield results

 

I´ve read many times that you should just leave it in race mode and my experience is that the shifts are harder.

My impression is that the clutch engages much faster from stand still also. However in race mode you should watch it because the nanny systems are not as active and you can find yourself in a messy situation if you’re not careful.
Also the shifts in race mode seem harder to the drivetrain in general. Lots of force on the engine mounts.

I never use the auto mode at all and do all the up and downshifting myself expect for 2-1 downshift. Also I put the car in neutral when coming to a situation where I will make a full stop. That means I can put it in neutral from third or fourth gear sometimes and use the brakes instead.

 

Get away from this jumping on the throttle for the road, just engage the auto or paddles and just feel it in until it starts moving. I bet any passenger has a sore neck driving with you.
As someone else says avoid race on the road as you are cutting out some of the safety systems which are there to stop you stuffing it in a wall. I put mine at 45 degrees coming out of the tyre fitters with 2 new rear tyres with it on auto and normal- they can bite .
There is some debate about putting in neutral at junctions, i do as the workshop said best practice, others say makes no difference. I dont have much wear in 5 years

 

Corey, don't worry about it. The advice I would follow are two things 1) let it warm up before putting in race mode...which means you might be at your destination before that happens . and 2) try to keep the clutch engaged in reverse.

I bought a 360 stick with only 8k miles. Previous owner had destroyed the clutch and it had a rock-hard pedal. I managed another 4k out of it in a year, finally put a new clutch in this week after the TO bearing started howling. 12k miles out of the original clutch. Now I'm just hoping this one lasts me 13k miles!

 

This thread is off to a great start. As you can see, there are 1000 different opinions. You will see 1000 opinions on the clutch life too. Let's just say, those of us who have driven a lot of miles in one don't worry about the clutch. You should just drive it and not obsess about the clutch.

A few tips: When you drive a manual do you punch the throttle to start? In an F1 do it the same way you would in a manual.Ease on the gas to get rolling, feather off to fully engage, drive without a care. Even with stop & go traffic, if you are careful, you will get 40-50K miles on a clutch. AND, high RPM shifting isn't really an issue. Just don't change throttle when shifting, it tends to confuse the algorithm and make shifts slip more.

I should add: in reverse you can not fully engage the clutch (despite the assertion above). The gear is much too tall for that. R is what it is so just take care with it and don't worry.

 

I had an F1 360 for over 12 years and I DD drove it, traffic and all. Yes, I would ease on the throttle to get moving. Then feather off the throttle to cause full engagement. You should make full clutch engagement in 1-1.5 car lengths, assuming a relatively level road. From there it mostly doesn't matter, shift as you want but don't change throttle when shifting. I routinely downshifted coming to lights because I loved the sound. A little more wear (maybe?) but so little in the grand scheme of things that it didn't matter. It all comes down to having your system set up correctly THEN drive it like a manual and you are good to go.

 

Actually his reversing technique is perfect. In Reverse the clutch will NEVER fulling engage so the longer you have applied throttle, the more wear you will get.
I feel mine engage and then I roll with momentum and repeat. Once again reverse will always slip, Slip = burning clutch.
IMHO, do not worry about it. Drive it like you would a manual other than that reverse thing, and that my friend nobody can change.

 

This pretty well describes the way I drive our 360, and the last sentence is key. We have the clutch adjusted every two years, and fluids flushed. Some might say that's being over fussy, but I don't think so. Our car has 44K miles on it and the clutch read 41% wear last spring. This has tracked right along in 7 years of driving. I expect to get 60K miles out of this clutch barring something unforeseen.

Good luck.

 

The clutch locks up in reverse just like it does in 1st. Go to a large parking lot and prove it to yourself, preferably one with a downhill slope. The problem with reverse in the 360 (and 575M) is that reverse is way too high a gear, almost like starting in 2nd gear. No idea why the Italians wanted to go that fast in reverse. That requires the system to slip the clutch a bit until things lock up. Most of us do not drive a long enough distance in reverse to get it to fully lock, especially if you are on and off the throttle.

 

I have a gated 360 so not directly applicable to F1's...

I've been quite delighted in how much torque the 360 engine has at idle. Typically, when I start out from a stop, I just let out the clutch without giving any gas. I've never stalled it nor even come close. I don't give any gas until the clutch is completely out. As for going in reverse, I let out the clutch idling to back up too and if I need to slow down, I use the brake instead of the clutch, leaving the transmission fully engaged. That was the suggestion given to me by a Ferrari master tech when I picked up my car at his shop. Don't use the clutch, use the brake. That's a direct quote.

 

I tried to say what Taz said. He just said it SO much better.

Another hint, in traffic it will just creep along in 1st. If you touch the brake, it will drop out. Leave a little room and use the low gears to move slow and steady with the traffic. It takes some patience since you don't take off as fast as them bunch and you don't pump the brakes as much, nor come to a complete stop nearly as often. Once you get the hang of it traffic isn't an issue.

 

This is an automated manual, so it should be driven like a manual. The biggest problem I see here is "jabbing" the throttle off the get-go. The worst thing you can do if give it the beans before the clutch is fully engaged -you are forcing the friction plate and clutch to spin before they are engaged adding significant wear. From a stop you should be giving light throttle and holding it there until you feel it engage and then go for it.

It is mentioned in the instruction manual not to let off gas when shifting, so I follow the manual in this regard.

Reverse isnt a problem, like in a manual you might have to maintain steady throttle and feather clutch engagement for precision movements, same applies here, light throttle is ok.

I'm not sure I buy the "race mode is better for clutch". Since when is dropping the clutch as fast as possible the best way to extend clutch life? I think sport is fine

Coming to a stop from 6th I honestly just pull back into neutral. If the traffic gets going before full stop then just pull shift up and it'll pop into appropriate gear. If it's very slow you might need to apply some brake before it'll shift up

 

Either the upshift or downshift paddle will get you the same gear from neutral, but it will almost always be too high a gear for comfortable acceleration. As a technique, I use the downshift paddle to get a gear and be ready for an almost immediate downshift to get a usable gear.

 

When you say you have the clutch adjusted - what exactly does this involve? I have a manual 430 but I am guessing the principle is the same. Change gearbox fluid every 2 years, and if there's a specific direction to give my workshop about adjusting the clutch, I would love to know.

I don't know how good my technique is. I have driven manual cars for decades, but my last driving lesson was in 1986 in a 1.0 litre Mini Metro (with the exception of some race training on circuits, where clutch use wasn't part of the goal).

I occasionally use Race, when really blasting fast on open roads, and probably snatch at the clutch when on full throttle. In town, at low speeds, I always coast when I see a red light or line of traffic ahead. Sometimes I feel I haven't modulated properly when trying to pull away cleanly but not too fast, which irritates me.

 

Yesterday, I had a chance to put 1,000 miles on my clutch in about 45 minutes. Our local Ferrari group had a meetup in a parking lot, followed shortly after by a spirited drive on some twisty roads and a high speed chase on an empty expressway. It was a game of keep up with the leader. Most of the time, I was between 5 and 8k RPM's, rapidly shifting between 3rd and 4th. A couple of times I smelled clutch, although it could have been from the Lambo in front of me. I know I burned down some brake pad too. My gated 360 Spider performed flawlessly and was a true blast. 50 cars participated. Nicely done with social distancing. While technically it wasn't essential travel for something mundane like groceries, it was essentially a stress reliever.

Tennessee isn't in hard lockdown like many other areas so this was a legal event.