The Importance of Proper Clutch Techniques When Driving a Manual Transmission Vehicle

When driving a manual transmission vehicle, there are several habits that can put unnecessary wear and tear on the clutch and other components. In this article, we will discuss five common mistakes that drivers make when operating a manual transmission vehicle, and provide tips on how to avoid them.

Firstly, it is essential to understand the importance of pressing the clutch pedal all the way down before shifting gears. This may seem obvious, but many drivers fail to do so, which can lead to wear and tear on the clutch disc and throw-out bearing. When you press the clutch pedal partially, you are not fully engaging the clutch, and this can cause friction and heat buildup. Additionally, resting your foot on the clutch pedal while driving is a common mistake that can also put unnecessary stress on the clutch.

So, how do you know if you're doing it right? Let's start with hills. When driving uphill, there are three things to consider: holding the brake, accelerating, and not rolling back too much. Holding the brake when going up a hill is essential because it allows you to control your speed and prevent the vehicle from rolling backward. However, if you're on a steep hill and don't want to roll back, you need to pull the brake, let the clutch out slowly, and then accelerate smoothly.

When driving uphill, it's also crucial to avoid applying too much throttle when you're not at high engine RPMs. This can cause the engine to lug, which puts unnecessary stress on the transmission and can lead to premature wear. Instead, try downshifting if you need more power or skip gears altogether. For example, if you're driving in sixth gear at 40 miles per hour, it's not a good idea to floor it because this will cause the engine to lug.

Another common mistake is failing to fully engage the clutch pedal when shifting gears. This can lead to slipping and wear on the clutch disc and throw-out bearing. To avoid this, make sure to press the clutch pedal all the way down before shifting gears. Additionally, try not to rest your foot on the clutch pedal while driving because this can put unnecessary stress on the clutch.

Finally, it's essential to practice proper clutch techniques in a safe environment, such as an empty parking lot, before hitting the road. This will help you get a feel for how the car responds and allow you to develop muscle memory for shifting gears smoothly. By following these tips, you can avoid common mistakes that can put unnecessary wear and tear on your manual transmission vehicle's clutch and other components.

One thing that some drivers may not be aware of is that modern cars often come with features such as "break hold" which allows the car to hold its position when you're on a hill. This means that if you let go of the brake while driving uphill, the car will tend to stay in place. However, this feature is not available on all vehicles, and it's essential to know whether your car has this feature or not.

In summary, proper clutch techniques are crucial for avoiding wear and tear on your manual transmission vehicle's components. By following these tips, you can ensure a smooth and safe driving experience while also extending the life of your car.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHello everyone and welcomeIn this video we'll be talking about five bad habitsthat you may fall into driving a manual transmission vehicle.And the reason I'm making this video isbecause you know behind the scenesthere's a lot of things happening with a manual transmissionthat you may not be thinking aboutif you don't fully understand how they work.So we're gonna get into these bad habits andtalk about why exactly you may not want to do them.So the first one is you shouldn't rest your hand on the gear shift in a manual transmission vehicleyou shouldn't use it as a hand rest instead whenever you need to shift gear, you know do the gear shiftand then take your hand of put it back on the wheel, do the gear shift take your hand off put back on the wheelif you need to down shift take your hand off put it back on the wheelyou shouldn't be resting your hand on the gear shiftso why shouldn't you rest your hand on the gear shift? well you have too understand whats happening within the transmissionso when you are shifting a gear you have a selector fork and you are pushing that selector forkup against a rotating collar and you press that collar into the gear that you wanna chooseSo what you have happening is you have static object that just moves back and forth rubbing up against this rotating component thats used to select the gearSo you're gonna have a little bit of wear on that selector fork when you do shift gears. But it's not much because it's a very short duration where you pressing up against itnow if you're leaving your hand on thegear shift while it's in gearwhat's happening is you could beapplying pressure on that selector forkup against that collar so you've got arotating component pressing up againstthatselector fork and you can wear outthat selector fork and so you don't wantto be doing that. Now if you just put alittle bit of a pressure on it if you'renot really touching it much if you'rejust kind of holding in place becauseyou're going to you know select anothergear nextit's not a huge deal but you should knowthat putting pressure on it can causepremature wear of those gear for it'sbecause you're pressing up against therotating component and you can even findin owner's manuals it will tell younot to use the gear shift as a hand rest.now another good reason not to leaveyour hand on the gear shift is that it'salso just a good idea to have both handson the wheel for maximum controlespecially in any sort of competitiveenvironment. So moving on to number twoone bad habit is to leave it in gearwhile you're sitting at a stoplight soif you come up to a stoplight the bestidea instead of just leaving it in geartake it out of here put it in neutraland let your foot off the clutchso why should you do this well here isthe pressure plate and this is thediaphragm spring and so this is what'sgoing to be engaging and disengagingyour clutch and so within yourtransmission this is the throw outbearing and so when you push in thatclutch pedalwhat you're doing is you're pushing thethrow out bearing up against thisdiaphragm spring and you're relievingpressure so that it doesn't clamp downon that clutch discso when you're sitting at a stoplightand you put it in gearwhat you're doing is you're pressingthis up against it and you can wear outthese throw out bearing so it'sunnecessary wear to just have it sittingthere so you can just put it in neutrallet out the clutch and then you know itcan sit there and it's not wearing upagainst itnow the other thing is when you do haveyour clutch engaged with it in neutralyou're not gonna have your clutchspinning in there so you know if you didstart to have some clearance issues withyour clutchyou could have some premature wear justsitting there with an in gearrather than engaging it now people willargue hey you know you want to have itin gear just in case you need to get upand go or whatever but you know there'splenty of scenarios where there's goingto be a car in front of you a car behindthings like that there's no need to justleave it in gear and it doesn't reallytake any time to put it into gear it's avery quick thing to doand the other thing people say it's likehey you know you might get rear-endedyou want to have it in gear so that youknow if your foot comes off the clutchyour vehicle stops it's like well youshould have your foot on the brake so ifyou are going to get rounded your footsare going to be on the break I've hadthis happen to me twiceunfortunately in my Subaru STi whereI've been stopped with my foot on thebrake cards in neutral and I've been hitfrom behind and it's not a big deal youknow you keep your foot on the brakeyour kind of natural reaction in anemergency situation like that is atendency to break because you don't wantto move you're not trying to moveso your thought is I need to stop movingso you hit the brake when your footsalready on it you know obviously you'rejust going to stay stopped but anywaysthe big point there with leaving it inneutral when you come to a stop light isto prevent premature wear of this throwout bearing which is going to bepressing up against that diaphragmspringmoving on to number three you shouldnever use the clutch to hold yourself ona hill and this may seem pretty obviousbut plenty of people still do it whereyou basically feather the throttle andthe clutch pedal to get that sweet spotwhere your vehicle doesn'troll down the hill but what you're doingis you're burning up the frictionmaterial on your clutch disc so yourclutch is spinning at one speed and yourengines is the pressure plate here whichsandwiches this clutch disc between theflywheelthis is going to be rotating at anotherspeed based on your throttleso you're rotating this at one speed inorder to bring this up to speed and indoing so you're just gonna be wearingout this friction material because thisis rubbing up against the pressure plateand flywheel and so you're going to bewearing out your clutch and there's justabsolutely no reason to do thatso instead what you should be doing isjust holding the brake when you're onthe hill that seems pretty obvious butthe next question is okay well how do Iacceleratewell there's two things that you can doactually probably three things a lot ofmodern cars now come with break hold andso when you're on a hill and you havethe clutch pressed in when you let yourfoot off the brakethey'll tend to hold you now plenty ofvehicles do not for example I don'tbelieve this nissan 370z has itand so in that case if it's not a bighill you know you can just kind of waitand then get on to the throttle fairlyquickly bring out your clutch a littlebit so you know you're ready to do thatand have a transition you may roll alittle bit back but not much where itmatters now the third scenario let's sayyou're on a pretty steep hill and youdon't want to roll back because there'sa car right behind youwell what you're going to do is pull thebrake you've got your clutch pedal andyour foot on the brakeyou can now let your foot off of thebreak assuming your brakes going to holdyouand so then what you want to do you canput it in gear now you're going to startto ease off of the clutch where itstarts to bite and you'll feel thisbecause the car is going to start totalk a little bit and then you're goingto let off the brake and then you're offnow it's a good idea to practice this onflat ground so you get the hang of itbefore you're actually on a hill and youneed to actually do it for realso you know you can just find an emptyparking lot something like that pull theebrake start to let the clutch outyou can feel it start to grab let mebreak down and you accelerate you don'troll back at allnumber fourdidn't apply a lot of throttle whenyou're not at a very high engine rpmso for example if you're in sixth yearand I'm going 40 miles per hour rightnow it's not a good idea to floor itbecause what you're doing is you'relugging the engine it's not a hugegearing disadvantage and you're tellingit to accelerate as hard as it can andso you're kind of conflicting thereso rather than you know flooring in 6thgear it's a much smarter idea don't belazyjust down shift if you need more than 50or you know go down the second gear ifyou need you can skip gear so long asyou rub match i have a separate videoexplaining that but it is important thatyou know if you need to accelerate don'tbe lazy just down shift because you'regoing to lug the engineif you have it in you know 60 or 40miles per hour in the engine RPMs arereally low and you're telling it to workreally hard but it's that such a hugegearing disadvantage that it doesn'twork out it can cause problems andfinally number fiveone thing you don't want to do is whileyou're driving rest your foot let's seehere on the highway rest your foot onthe clutch pedal and that also seemspretty obvious but it's also somethingthat some people commonly do and sothere are several reasons why don't wantto do this first of all resting yourfoot on that clutch pedal means yourclutch may not be fully engaged in soyou can have a little bit of slip withtheir clutch discyou're not putting down full power andyou can be wearing out your clutchanother reason there is you can bewearing out your throw out bearing onceagain because you're pressing that throwout bearing against the diaphragm springas i showed earlier in the videoso those are five habits that may befairly common for some people if youdon't fully understand how manualtransmission workshopefully that cleared up the confusionand hopefully you know you can learnfrom that if you are applying any ofthese bad driving techniques you knowfrom time to time i'll always findmyself resting my hand on the gearshiftlever it's not the end of the world youknow I'm not applying a ton of pressureon and wearing out that fort but thereare some little things like thatwhat you may not always be thinkingabout which you you know but should puta little bit of thought into whiledriving a manual transmission vehicle asyou could wear it out a little bitsoonerso thank you guys for watching and ifyou have any questions or comments feelfree to leave those belowI guess it really need to make thenoises i mean it's got a great sounding engine.\n"