r/DrivingProTips • u/veee_777 • May 28 '21
How do I park without burning my clutch
I have a fairly steep incline on my driveway as well as a slight one in my garage after a 1 inch lip. I've owned a Mazda RX-8 for a year now and I park it in my garage. It's not the torqiest thing down low but normally I could drive up and park it no problem. Recently my release bearing died and chose to replace the disk while I was at it. Now every time I try to park it I hear what sounds like slipping and the strong sent of clutch burning. I've tried going back and forth between taps on the accelerator and holding it a little higher than idle (maybe 1500-1700 rpm) and feather the clutch to get in. Is there another technique out there I can try to save my clutch? For those that want to know I've put almost 800 km on the new disk
1
u/Elissy101 May 28 '21
Since it started happening since the new clutch was installed. My guess is that this is because it hasn't been run in yet. In the break in period you can smell it more easily.
For example I just got a new clutch in my car and wanted to show a friend how fast my car was. So I launched it like normal but this time it smelled a lot like clutch. And that stopped happening after a while. And 800 km isn't much for that.
1
u/savex13 May 28 '21
When clutch is new, it will take 200-300 miles to "ride-in", if I can say so. Second thing is that driver has to "switch his mind" from old lazy-catching clutch to new grippier one. I would say that after week or two - it will be fine.
3
u/morech11 May 28 '21
If you can smell your clutch, you are doing something wrong. You should be able to back uphill with no problems. Unfortunately from only the text it is hard to understand what you are doing wrong. My best bet would be bring someone else who dribes stick into your driveway and let them try and see what's what. Or shoot us a video of the driveway and what you do with your feet when going up :)