You may not be able to tell the difference between a bad clutch and a good clutch. Mainly if you are driving a manual gear you may experience some lag between throttle response and transmission response. This means loss of kinetic energy from flywheel to transmission.
How to recognise bad clutch/ or clutch slip
- You may hear a squeaking sound while you accelerating or decelerating.
- You may recognise lack of throttle response and transmission response.( Specially in manual transmission)
- You may smell clutch slipping odour while riding uphill or while sudden acceleration.
- If you applied hand brake firmly and engaged to a higher gear then release the clutch paddle , and your motor keeps running then there is a serious clutch slipping.
- Oil leakage from bell housing. (Where clutch is located- this may happen of crank seal failure)
- If you have parked or stopped at a steep up angle and when you have lack of clutch response when you try to move from that complete stop, that is a bad clutch.
Why clutches are getting bad or why they slip?
- Its mainly because of drivers bad habits.
- Riding the clutch - Most of drivers do not drive with fully engaged clutch. This leads to clutch slip. If clutch starts to slip it tends to slip continuously.
- Because clutch, pressure plate wear over long period of time.(This is perfectly normal)
- Loss of tension of pressure plate finger fins, springs.
- Bad master and slave clutch pumps and clutch system.
- Carrying extra weight over long period.
Always do routine check on your vehicle to confirm whether its on good condition or not. May all be able to do hypermiling!
