car talk says double clutching is bad?

[87e30]

My neighbor (who is a honda tech) told me that double clutching is worse for the clutch.

I'm not sure how it's worse. But it is unnecessary. The only thing I can come up with is teh clutch springs wear out faster b/c it is going in and house twice as much. Do clutch springs even wear out? Like I said I have no idea I'm just trying to make something up. Same reason it wears the clutch more to hold it in at a light vs. putting the car in neutral. I don't know.

[mrsleeve]

I guess. How about toe-toe? ;)

Generally around town I'll use that method, but when I'm really railing on it I'll stab the throttle with my heel. Thing about BMW's bottom-hinged gas pedal though (while I love it) is that you get less leverage on the bottom of the pedal than at the top, so if you want to effectively heel-toe you've got to stab it really hard or you've got to rotate your foot more and stab it more towards the top of the pedal.

Kind of a pain.

I have kinda wide feets so I use the ball of my foot high up on the gas pedal and the arch area of my foot on the breaks.

I double clutch all the time as well got really used to it while driving medium duty and old off road haul trucks and even some semi's. Just depends on the mood I am in and what kinda situation I am in.

[Wh33lhop]

My neighbor (who is a honda tech) told me that double clutching is worse for the clutch.

My guess? He's got no idea what he's talking about. Lots of misinformation, even among techs.

But yeah, if you fuck up a double clutch you WILL grind, fortunately that is a very rare occurrence for me, but it does happen. Double clutching is more risky than regular rev matching.

I'm not sure how it's worse. But it is unnecessary.

Well, try rev matching into first and come back. ;)

The only thing I can come up with is teh clutch springs wear out faster b/c it is going in and house twice as much. Do clutch springs even wear out? Like I said I have no idea I'm just trying to make something up.

The clutch "spring" you speak of is actually a disc, attached to the pressure plate. You replace it with the pressure plate every time you use the clutch, and no it doesn't really wear out in that way.

There's also usually a little spring on the clutch pedal, but that's a different matter.

Same reason it wears the clutch more to hold it in at a light vs. putting the car in neutral. I don't know.

That's because the throw-out bearing is used whenever the clutch is depressed. I don't think that's really applicable here.

[Wh33lhop]

I have kinda wide feets so I use the ball of my foot high up on the gas pedal and the arch area of my foot on the breaks.

Yeah, this is what I've done more and more. I haven't totally railed on the E30 yet so I don't know how easy it is to toe-toe (or whatever you want to call it) at high rpms, but in my old car, pedal placement was such that you couldn't stab the throttle enough with the regular toe-toe action and had to revert to heel-toe if you wanted to perform high-rpm downshifts.

After talking about it so much, I'm not fully sure how I do high-rpm downshifts at this point. I don't even think about it--I should go drive the car tonight and observe myself. :p

I double clutch all the time as well got really used to it while driving medium duty and old off road haul trucks and even some semi's. Just depends on the mood I am in and what kinda situation I am in.

Word. I don't double clutch out of necessity. More because I like to keep in practice--it's like an art, and who knows, I may need to use it some day.

[nando]

I guess. How about toe-toe? ;)

Generally around town I'll use that method, but when I'm really railing on it I'll stab the throttle with my heel. Thing about BMW's bottom-hinged gas pedal though (while I love it) is that you get less leverage on the bottom of the pedal than at the top, so if you want to effectively heel-toe you've got to stab it really hard or you've got to rotate your foot more and stab it more towards the top of the pedal.

Kind of a pain.

I have a foot injury that doesn't allow me to rotate my foot like that. and I have wide feet anyway.

[Wh33lhop]

I have a foot injury that doesn't allow me to rotate my foot like that. and I have wide feet anyway.

Maybe I watch too much initial D, I kinda think heel-toeing is cooler than the ball-toe method. :p

But I hear ya on the injury, what happened?

[nando]

crushed the joint that allows you to rotate your foot left/right (mountain bike accident in high school). it's essentially fused together now; the doctor took bone from my hip to rebuild it. I was told that I wouldn't be able to run anymore but I just did my first triathlon this year :)

[Wh33lhop]

crushed the joint that allows you to rotate your foot left/right (mountain bike accident in high school). it's essentially fused together now; the doctor took bone from my hip to rebuild it. I was told that I wouldn't be able to run anymore but I just did my first triathlon this year :)

Sweet, congrats man.

Yeah, sucks--you see a lot of shit in the movies but the bottom line is a lot of stuff you never fully recover from. I ate shit on a dirtbike two years ago (almost to the day, it was on July 4th '07), broke my wrist, fucked up my knee. My knee's ok besides a nice huge scar and lots of H2O2 sizzling memories, but if I try and do open-handed pushups I'll still feel pain shoot up my wrist. Something didn't heal right and it's probably pinching a nerve.

Luckily if I ball it into a fist I'm ok, it'll do until I can use the university gym again. :p

[shiftbmw]

Fast and Furious really took it's toll on American society. Fuck you Vin Diesel. You have people double clutching in BMW's. You are part of the reason the europeans withhold their driver's cars from Americans.

[daniel]

ah, now i get the 2001 thing. no, i didn't really listen to Vin there when he said "not double-clutching like you should!". and i never double-clutch when upshifting anyway, which is presumably what you do during a drag race.

if you want to get into first gear while moving over like 5mph, double-clutching is what you need. its fun to do this.

and for the record, i have size 13 feet and there is no way i can heel-toe. i care barely even fit my whole foot down there with a shoe on.

[nando]

ah, now i get the 2001 thing. no, i didn't really listen to Vin there when he said "not double-clutching like you should!". and i never double-clutch when upshifting anyway, which is presumably what you do during a drag race.

if you want to get into first gear while moving over like 5mph, double-clutching is what you need. its fun to do this.

and for the record, i have size 13 feet and there is no way i can heel-toe. i care barely even fit my whole foot down there with a shoe on.

do you wear boots when you drive or something?

try a driving shoe like puma, piloti, etc. or even a skater shoe. I'm size 13 as well, you can definitely heel toe with feet that big.

[daniel]

do you wear boots when you drive or something?

try a driving shoe like puma, piloti, etc. or even a skater shoe. I'm size 13 as well, you can definitely heel toe with feet that big.

i wear adidas sambas. i can ball-toe just fine, just not heel-toe, especially since my feet naturally point outward.

[cagedbunny]

if you want to get into first gear while moving over like 5mph, double-clutching is what you need. its fun to do this.

Quoted for un-truth. Sure, some cars are more difficult than others to blip into first gear at a roll, but if you can't do it with your E30 via a simple rev-match, then you've probably already beat-up your transmission trying to learn the useless art of double-clutching a synchro'd tranny.

[ieatpeople]

i wear boots while driving to/from work, and i sometimes have a problem heel/toeing my e28, but usually i just rev match and then use the brakes to get the correct angle on the offramps, followed by the slideways action.

[WillisE30]

Quoted for un-truth. Sure, some cars are more difficult than others to blip into first gear at a roll, but if you can't do it with your E30 via a simple rev-match, then you've probably already beat-up your transmission trying to learn the useless art of double-clutching a synchro'd tranny.

This pretty well summarizes the entire three page thread.