Clutch?

[dingos]

With the transmission designed the way it is, what would you guy's think the avg. Life will be on the clutch?

I have a little over 28K on mine. Car's in the past I could get atleast 75k out of the clutches a few a little more. The smart, makes me think! When the time will be for this to be changed.

How does the transmission react when a clutch is starting to slip? I would think the compuTARD would go crazy

[Carl242]

dunno, but I drove my former car (a torquey VW Golf TDI) 130,000 + miles before trading it for my smart, and the clutch was fine for the duration. And I live in SF, which can be a burden on clutches.

[Karl Roth]

Originally Posted by dingos

With the transmission designed the way it is, what would you guy's think the avg. Life will be on the clutch?

I have a little over 28K on mine. Car's in the past I could get atleast 75k out of the clutches a few a little more. The smart, makes me think! When the time will be for this to be changed.

How does the transmission react when a clutch is starting to slip? I would think the compuTARD would go crazy

life of the car
karl

[sunnyokanagan]

Keep the actuator well lubed and properly adjusted, both mechanically and digitally and, in normal use, it ought to last the life of your car.

B

[dingos]

so when the clutch goes so does the car?

[headless]

As it is a manual clutch, it does not last the life of the car as previously stated.
I have heard of roadster and 450 clutches needing replaced at 30,000miles, but that is not the norm, they should be as long lasting as a standard manual car clutch, and in britain cost of replacement is about £300, so it is not too bad an expense.
If you want to know if your clutch is on the way out, take your car onto the freeway and be doing highway speed in top gear, then plant your foot and if the engine revs rise without the speed rising the clutch is slipping.
If the gearbox kicks down this is not clutch slippage, the car should stay in the same gear, if it does'nt go faster before planting foot and hopefully it won't kickdown, or go down a gear first so it does'nt kickdown.
As you guys have only had your cars about a year at most, don't worry about the clutch just yet, my roadster is coming up on 5 years old with the original clutch, get the dealers to do a clutch relearn and as stated above keep the actuator lubed ask for this with your service for longer life, and it stops that judder when pulling away as well.
Hope this helps you guys.
Ellis

[Karl Roth]

As previously stated it is a dry plate clutch and you have every right to expect it to last as long as you own the car. is it possible to wear it out prematurely yes is this somthing you need to obsess about no.
karl

[a2jack]

Good clutches in well designed, city driven cars will last 100-125 miles if driven with reasonable care.

I expect our Smarts will run about the same. A2Jack

[rfernatt]

Regarding the clutch, did anyone else notice this in the SCOA newsletter article about fuel economy:

The Smart knows what to do to give you the best economy possible. It moves you up through first gear, stops delivering fuel to the engine (even though your pedal's down), gives the engine just a little fuel to match the revs for the next gear, smoothly engages the teeth, then brings the power up to your pedal setting and repeats the process through all five gears.

If I'm interpreting that statement correctly and within the context of the big rig comparison made by the author, it sounds like the clutch is not used when changing gears in the smart - just on take off. That would make the clutch longer lasting. It would also explain the speed of the shifts to a degree, as you're not relying on synchros to handle engine speed difference from the gear selected like you would in a normal manual transmission. The engine MUST be running at the right RPM before changing gears and you have to wait for that to happen.

I knew it was doing rev matching, but I didn't know that it was avoiding clutch use.

Any other interpretations?

[PerryA]

I've had manual transmissions almost exclusively and have never replaced or repaired a clutch. The cars where I remember the mileage include a Toyota 98,000 miles, VW 165,000 and a Toyota 155,000. The non-human "foot" engaging and disengaging the clutch should preclude any bad habits we have when driving, so I'd lean towards believing the "lifetime" clutch. If the car had no history, I might hedge that bet.