[czar07]

Originally Posted by fistpoint

Even though I've been told this isn't technically true, it seems to have worked for me since I have a 3rd vehicle approaching the 160000 mile mark with the original clutch...but here goes:

The less time your foot is on the clutch, the longer it will last.

I'd rather make a jerky 1st gear start instead of roasting the clutch too long and having a smooth start. That translates to less time "on the clutch" and has proven successful for nearly half a million miles of manual driving for me, almost all of it(95%+) in city traffic.

Also, you don't have to push the clutch pedal to the floor to shift, except for 1st and reverse, both of those gears require the clutch pedal being all the way down. On all my Hondas, the clutch engaged at the top 1/4 or 1/3 of the overall travel so when you're shifting into any gear other than 1st or reverse, you only had to press it a little. Every clutch is different I'm sure, your job is to find out where it engages and simply let it become a "muscle memory". You'll find yourself doing it automatically in no time...but if you ever get a little lazy doing it that way, you'll get some gear grind so be careful and pay attention.

For what it's worth, I've fallen into the lazy shifting hundreds of times in the 9.5 years on my current car/clutch/tranny with hundreds of little grinds here and there and it all still works just fine at 159000+ miles. It's those loooong drawn out griiiiiiind/zzzzzzztt you want to be afraid of.

When driving alone I always have jerky starts to save the clutch, but I find when driving with someone else in the car it seems a bit rude, so I make smooth starts.