"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
NY wrote
What is a good life for a clutch?

I forgot to say that the previous car, the Golf, I used daily for more
than 45 years and only stopped using it when I had stupidly not
bothered to fix the known leaking windscreen and it eventually
rusted the floor and I couldnt be arsed to cut that out and replace it.

That is a fantastic life for a car that is used every day. The longest I've
had a car is a little over 10 years from new. Of my past cars (based on DVLA
information) the oldest lasted 18 years until it was last taxed.

My present car has done 170,000 and is still on its original clutch -
unless the clutch was replaced within the first 18,000 of its life before
I bought the car.

Unlikely.

Exactly - I was being facetious.

The bite point has got gradually higher,

Havent seen that either.

That's a standard symptom of clutch wear. To begin with, a self-adjusting
mechanism compensates for greater clutch plate travel as the clutch's
frictional surfaces wear, but eventually the end of that self-adjusting
range is reached and the clutch pedal has to be raised higher off the floor
before the bite point is reached. I suppose in theory a garage could make a
manual adjustment to the cable (or fluid mechanism) so the bite point is
reached with the pedal closer to the floor, where it is easier to control
without lifting your heel off the floor.

Yes I wonder why cars still have a Bowden cable to a sensor under the
bonnet, when nowadays the sensor could be right next to the pedal,
eliminating the friction of the Bowden cable.

Most dont have a bowden cable to the sensor under the bonnet.

Ah. I remember my first two fuel-injected cars in the 1990s had a big rotary
variable resistor under the bonnet, roughly where a carburettor used to be,
operated by a Bowden cable. I've just checked my present car and I can't see
any sign of something like that so they've stopped doing it that way now.

With those the problem appears to just be they press the accelerator
instead of the brake.

It may be a bit of both:

I'm not convinced. The ones that get media coverage are
because someone got injured or the wall got demolished
an in that case it must the wrong pedal was used.

maybe (and I'm speculating) they press the accelerator a bit too hard,
panic when the car surges forwards unexpectedly, and hit the accelerator
harder instead of taking their foot off the accelerator and hitting the
brake.

No evidence that thats what happened.

If you get to hear a driver's account of what happened, it's usually along
the lines of "the car suddenly surged forward - I don't know how it
happened" which could be either excessive pressure on the accelerator or
pressing the accelerator instead of the brake. It's difficult to tell from
the small amount of information you usually hear about the cause.