Life of a clutch
 

I'm amazed that, after 167,000 miles, including one teenage driver (my oldest son), the clutch on my 2000 Max is still going strong. I started feeling noises when the car was cold and I depressed the clutch, so thinking the throwout bearing was going bad, I took it to my mechanic who said that the noise we were hearing was motor mounts, and his recommendation was to just leave them alone; he said the clutch was just fine, including the throwout bearing. Do others see such long life from their clutch? Most of my driving is on the highway, and I'm not a guy that's into burnouts or speed-shifts.

I just bought my 2000 SE from a guy who was the second owner of the car, and he said he never replaced the clutch while he owned the car. It still works great! He bought the car at 60k miles, and now it has 165k. So it could still be the original clutch. And if it isn't, it's lasted somewhere between 165k miles and 105k miles. Pretty great either way.

Let me drive your cars. I can wear one out in under 50k mi from DD :D

Good lord man, what causes you to put so much wear on a clutch? You hardly need it for 98% of driving. I even know people who don't use their clutch at all (past getting into 1st) so that they can make their clutch last as long as humanly possible. Personally I don't like that, but 50k sounds pretty quick. Unless maybe aftermarket clutch's don't last as long as OEM.

I also have a 2000 SE. I replaced the stock clutch after it hit the 200K mark - about 40,000 miles ago. Then again, I don't downshift to slow down unless some jerk is following too close.

You should be fine for at least another 35,000 miles with proper transmission maintenance.

Other than changing fluid, what maintenance do you recommend? So far, I've changed the fluid twice, probably coming up on doing it again pretty soon.

Copper spark plugs,fuel filter,and add a catch can to the pcv sys,:mardi:

Your transmission has spark plugs??????? And a fuel filter?????

It's a mod.

Oh lawd! You one of those peeps....:slap: Sorry i thought you were referring to general maintenance .... But im eager to see all the options for maintaining a tranny :nod:

Redline shifting all day. There's only one pedal position for accelerating. That's how you have fun and beat all the lights (since they're timed to get you stuck). You have to speed and I'm sure it's not a coincidence.

You should see the flywheel lol

Fluid is really the main thing. I put redline in mine. When I changed the axles last year due to some bad cv joints, I had to drain some of it and it was still as pretty as the day I put it in there.

The Maxima is a beast. If you treat her right, she's built to last.

You might be very surprised to read the mileage on my original clutch; 228,309. Previous owner (brother) used it as daily driver, to/from work, 98% interstate miles give or take. I doubt he 'got on it' all that much but he did buy the SE version for a reason...

My driving is quite boring, mostly shifting 1-3-5 (skipping gears) in stop and go traffic and then a lot of interstate/highway miles too. I do intermittent bouts of highly spirited driving as well. You practically have to with a manual trans.

That's the good stuff.

I was always told the yellow light ment "step on it jack, the red one is coming":nod:

Who's Jack?
Mr. Hoff?

Not hoff but Marston!:nod:

Close!:lol: but i was talking about Jr...