blackfalcon

Alright so I was getting ready to leave the parking lot of my church thisevening, when a friend left out ahead of me riding a Triumph Daytona 675. (It was about 35 degrees out... long story but he was riding because he'd had car problems earlier in day). I accelerated fairly hard out of the parking lot in time to catch up with him as he was slowing to turn onto freeway onramp. This is a two lane onramp.

I accelerated after him and stayed with him for the most part. I shifted through the gears, basically without letting off the throttle and most of my shifts were close to redline. I went from 2nd to 3rd to 4th to 5th to 6th and carried the speed up towards to the top end of the tac in 6th gear. I let off the speed for about a mile and dropped back to forth and accelerated with him again from 4th to 5th then shifted to 6th, for approximately another mile. At this point I slowed and made the transition behind some other cars onto a second freeway. At the onramp I accelerated again from 4th to 5th and tried to shift to 6th and it would not go in, I was paying most of my attention to the tach and the road and tried shifting into 6th twice. After it wouldn't shift into 6th I noticed the warning light at the dash and looked at the nav screen and saw the warning light to pull over and allow clutch to cool.

I didn't pull over but slowed to a reasonable speed, and it now allowed me to shift into 6th and just drove nice and easy in 6th. The warning light turned off after about 6miles. But when I pulled up the first light after getting off the interstate I could smell burning clutch.

What is causing the cluthc to overheat. My shifts were all speed shifts. (ie when you don't let off the gas to shift). I would have shifted the same way with a manual. Was this the only cause for the clutch to overheat, or could I possibly have held down a paddle for too long in th emiddle of the shift point etc.? If I was driving a manual in the same manner I wouldn't have expected to burn the clutch as badly as I evidently did with the SMG? Any thoughts or inpud. And skip any flaming about perceived speeding.

vegastrashed

Most interesting. Only time I had the clutch overheat was holding the car on an incline for 30 minutes. Other than that, I've done the sort of driving you've described and never had the clutch overheat.

jet190rs

Did you use Acceleration Assist out of the parking lot? (DSC/DTS off and floor it)
AA wears out the clutch.

If not, then that would be weird based on your highway driving. You can keep the throttle planted and shift, SMG is supposed to take care of the throttle and clutch. You're not abusing SMG based on what you wrote.

Perhaps your clutch is already worn out? How many miles you got on the car?

blackfalcon

No when I left the parking lot, I didn't disengage DSC etc, and I didn't even floor it when I started from first. After that I think I only hit 2nd gear once maybe?

The car has about 35,000 miles on it. Its my wife's car and she doesn't drive it very hard, and is a very smooth shifter.

AlexFW

Happened to me too, the clutch overheating : very very traffic and I was starting in 2nd gear every 50 meters

pennetta

AlexFW's issue could cause clutch overheating, but Blackfalcon's should not. I have driven very aggressively for a long period of time and never has an overheating problem. I would get it checked out.

AlexFW

Neither going as a rocket on track the clutch can overheats .

It can overheats also on the snow climbing a snowed road .

pennetta

If you read the owners manual it say if the clutch overheats you should start off quickly. Clutch slipping is what causes heat. Using Sport mode and starting off quickly generates less heat. We don't know how agressively Blackjack was driving and maybe it was for a longer period of time than he remembers. I guess if he was keeping up with a motorcycle then he was pretty agressive.

rodybmw

This happened to me once when the car was new. At the time I had not started driving in Sport Mode full time. I was stuck in a bumper to bumper traffic on a very steep uphill road for 20 minutes or so before it happened. Once I got the warning there was no place to pull over and I had to drive until I found a side street to turn to. Let me tell you trying to accelerate from a standstill on an uphill street when the clutch is overheated causes VERY violent shaking because the SMG keeps engaging and disengaging the clutch repeatedly. It looks like your're driving a manual car for the first time.

Since then I have used the Sport mode exclusively and it has not happened again. As someone mentioned above the quicker the clutch engages the less heat will be generated, so Sport mode is better than normal mode.

It does not sound logical that driving aggressively would cause this problem on it's own. In the SoCal meets there are several of us with SMG's and we drive VERY aggressively(floor the accelerator, upshift and downshift repeatedly at speed, redline shift) and this has not happened to any of our cars.

The clutch does not get worn when it's fully engaged or when it's fully dis-engaged. It wears in the in-between stage where it slips on the plate until it fully grabs it. With the SMG in non-Sport mode this "in-between" period is longer because the car tries to shift more smoothly and engages the clutch gradually, so the clutch will likely wear faster and get hotter in non-Sport mode. I think if your wife drove the car for 35,000 miles in non-Sport mode then it would probably have worn the clutch faster than the same 35,000 miles would have in Sport mode. So the slippage and overheating could be caused not because you were driving aggressively, but because you were driving aggressivley on a worn clutch (and if the car was not in Sport mode when you were driving it aggressively it would have made the likelyhood of the clutch overheating even more).

I would recommend always driving in Sport Mode (if you don't already do so) for more reasons than one. The clutch will be less likely to overheat, there is much better throttle response and shifting speed, and it's alot more fun to drive when the SMG is in Sport Mode. Also, if you're ever stuck in traffic (especially on an uphill road), not only make sure that you're in Sport mode, but also try to push the accelerator pedal in one quick move so that the clutch if fully engaged quickly and you don't ride the clutch.

vegastrashed

Hey, I resemble that comment.