rasiel

My wife taught me how to drive a stick (and she ain't half bad neither!) and encouraged me to save on the brakes by downshifting to slow down.

So I have for months now but then a friend told me that while this does indeed save the brakes it's murder on the clutch. And it's a lot cheaper to replace brake pads than a clutch.

Sounds plausible to me but wanted to know what you guys think.

Penny wise, pound foolish?

Ras<ul><li><a href="http://www.rasiel.com">rasiel.com</a></li></ul>

Lexx

Don't do it - brake pads are far cheaper than a clutch. I do not do engine braking (on purpose)

JustJeff

Don't you listen to 'Click and Clack'? Don't do this!

smallTTs

Of course if you like to hear your (loud) aftermarket pipes rap....Jenner, are you listening? Can you still hear?

Bracketracer

Done correctly, there will be no appreciable wear on any drivetrain component.

In my case, I know first-hand what this sort of driving does to transmission internals. I've had my daily driver/weekend race car for about 5 1/2 years now. I bought it with 100k miles on it and immediately pulled the gearbox, replaced the factory clutch with a semi-race setup, and replaced all of the synchros in the transmission.

After 4 1/2 years and another 75000 miles of driving this way, I had to pull the trans again to replace a broken 3rd gear cluster and countershaft(race breakage). When I put it back together, I used the original synchros due to very little wear.

Here's the deal, when double-clutching or doing a heel-toe downshift, the only component that gets used more often is the throwout bearing. I can't remember the last time that I've seen this part go bad by itself.

Anyway, maybe more info than you need, but just my thoughts.

Levent

Engine braking never uses gas as far as I know.

hoTTflash1

Have driven individual cars for 85,000 to 125,000 miles each; like i said, never replaced a clutch yet.Have replaced many brake pads, though, even with downshifting. And how else do you slow for turns and curves? ;-)

raVen

Rasiel, Thanks for the nice wallpaper !

Jim TT

The only way to keep parts from warring out is to not drive your car, which of course you know. The clutch will not suffer very much from engine braking particularly if you are not extreme about it as in down shifting at high rpms. The clutch wears most when it slips during startup, be that a high RPM drop or a simple start. There is very little if any wear that occurs when driving as the clutch is locked up, that is the friction disk does not move in relationship to the flywheel and pressure plate friction surfaces. Some hard core drag clutches do have actual mechanical centrifugal locking arms making slip impossible and you need them if you are cranking out 2000HP. I just put a new clutch in my GSR (ricearonnie) and it went 90,000 miles and was getting down to the rivets. It also had dampener spring damage from some past high RPM launches. My point is that clutches last a long time but do wear out and there is no getting around that. Think about a day a the drag strip where a clutch can be burred down in one afternoon as a result or nine or ten clutch drops from high RPM. The same clutch will, in normal driving, last as long as my GSR clutch did. Your engine internals are under more stress at full throttle than they will ever be under 'normal' engine braking situations. I don't look at it as a case of saving brakes or clutches or Private Ryan, but a case of driving smoothly and with fluid motion. I just find that a combination of engine and 'brake' braking works best to achieve this and the wear to the machine is nill. JIM.

KOPrussia

Or rather, sitting in the Passenger seat while someone else drove, otherwise I would have stopped in.