Clutch Life....

This is somewhat just me thinking out loud, but I am constantly perplexed by the number of modern performance cars that go through clutches regularly. Just in the 'Other Cars' classifieds section, I've run across: an Aston Martin V12 Vantage (manual) with a new clutch at 10k miles; a Maserati GranSport (F1/Cambriocorsa trans) with a new clutch at 22k miles; an early Lamborghini Murcielago (gated manual) with a new clutch at 15k miles. I'm sure there are plenty more, but those were all relatively recent listings that caught my eye.

As someone who has personally done an extensive amount of vehicular maintenance, including clutch replacements, it is hard for me to fathom going through clutches every 10k miles or so. I realize that higher performance clutches can't really take the abuse of a stock clutch in a Civic or something like that. I know that track days can greatly impact clutch life (especially depending on how good the driver is at rev-matching downshifts), and heavy traffic isn't optimal either.

However, my (admittedly normal) cars have gone hundreds of thousands of miles on stock clutches. I replaced the clutch in my current GTI about a year ago at 200k miles, and the clutch disk still had plenty of life left. The only reason I even undertook that job was because the release bearing started to fail, and the dual-mass flywheel was seized. Not sure if it was the original clutch, but I suspect so because I believe it was mostly a highway car prior to my ownership. It's really odd to me to see so many relatively low-mile exotics with new clutches, and it makes me wonder how many people truly know how to drive a manual, or if they mainly just know how to not stall. The Cambriocorsa/F1/E-gear transmissions are also interesting because clutch wear should be minimized due to proper automated rev-matching (but that is countered by increased wear in stop and roll traffic).

 

Good point about the engine-out service. I guess if money isn't an issue, then go ahead and replace the clutch while the engine and transmission are out, although clutches are a lot more expensive on these cars - I mean it already was close to $1000 to DIY the clutch in my GTI, although it was a slight upgrade to a Stage I clutch (the stock replacement kits were about $750 iirc). Still, some of the more common manual performance cars - mainly the Corvette and 911 - don't seem to go through clutches nearly as regularly, which makes me wonder what the difference is.

I've read that the F1 does not ever fully engage the clutch in reverse, and instead slips it continually. Slipping any clutch for an extended amount of time will wear it out rather quickly, but going uphill is especially taxing because you're also working against gravity in that situation.