NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

I suppose it you don't do much stop-start driving or having to
hill-start on steep hills, the clutch wear will be less than mine.

The difference appears to be how we drive, I dont ride the clutch, ever.

Depends what exactly "ride the clutch" means - I've never known precisely.

Have your foot on the clutch with the clutch itself slipping so you dont
either have the clutch fully engaged, not slipping, or fully disengaged.

I presume it means letting the clutch slip any more than it has to in
order to do its job.

Yes.

Every time you set off from rest, the clutch will slip - that's the whole
purpose of a clutch, to cushion setting off at a minimum but non-zero
engine speed which, in the lowest gear, equates to a few mph, which you
don't want to present, in an instant, to the driving wheels.

Yes, but doing that clearly didnt see my Golf need a new one in
more than 45 years of daily driving, or even see the grab point
change as far as the pedal position changing is concerned either.

The amount of slippage depends on the effective weight of the vehicle (ie
mass times sin(gradient angle)) and the engine speed. You try to minimise
this by a) keeping the engine revs as low as you can without stalling,

I dont.

b) letting the clutch up as fast as possible without jerking the car so it
spends a minimum time slipping, and c) not applying much power until the
clutch is fully engaged.

I dont do that either.

Other gearchanges *theoretically* cause no wear if you manage to match the
engine speed to the road speed in the new gear. I'm probably not *too* bad
at getting it close, but I'm not perfect - my "good" to "cocked-up"
gearchange ratio is high but not 100% ;-)

Cant remember the last time I ever stuffed that up.
And I do change gears around most corners.

I certainly don't do what one driver did who gave me a lift. She took her
foot right off the accelerator at each and every gear change, changed to
the new gear and then either let the clutch up on the idling engine (which
caused a sudden retardation) or else revved the engine to far too high a
speed before letting the clutch up (which caused a sudden jolt forwards).
I dread to think what effect it was having on her clutch. When she
apologised and said "help!" after a *particularly* bad jolt, I very
tactfully suggested that it might be useful if she tried at least to
maintain the same engine revs, or else perhaps let the engine note drop a
little bit if she was changing up or let it rise slightly if she was
changing down. Admittedly it's not as easy as in a modern car with a rev
counter, but by no means impossible even if you've only got the engine
note to go by

I never use the rev counter when changing gears.

Had she been a newly-qualified learner, I could have understood it, though
I'd have hoped her instructor might have helped her perfect the black art
of gearchanges, but she was older than me and had been driving longer than
I had. I earned a good few kudos points when she said "show me" and I
drove a little way, in a "strange car" without any of the lurches that she
thought were due to her car being clapped out. It didn't help that she was
fairly short and had small feet, so she had to lift her heel off the floor
every time she let the clutch pedal up, which makes fine control a *lot*
more difficult if you can't pivot on your heel.

Whenever I go to the supermarket and park in the car park, I hear the
tell-tale sound of a driver (usually elderly) who revs up to about 2000
rpm and then lets the clutch just kiss the flywheel as he reverses out.
The slippage and the wear and heat don't bear thinking about. I'm spoiled
in a diesel car that the engine will pull when it's barely idling, so I
can set off with my foot off the throttle, just giving the car a little
nudge and then disengaging (fully!) as I let the car roll in or out of the
parking space, without any need for a racing engine. It only requires you
to let the clutch in slightly further than you intended when you're in
first gear at 2000 rpm, and the car will lurch into the car or brick wall
ahead.

Bugger all carparks have the cars parking up to a brick wall.