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Clutch control
- Find your biting point and set a little gas
- Feet still
- Tiny (fractional) movements of the clutch either up or down
Try this on a flat road
First find your biting point, if the car is creaking on the handbrake or starting to move then you’ve brought the clutch up too high. The biting point on most cars is approx. 3 or 4 cm from the floor. Once you’ve found the biting point, keep your feet still.
Once you have made sure it is safe to move, practice moving the car only a metre forwards. Do this by only bringing the clutch up a tiny amount - no more than the thickness of a pound coin. The car will start to move very slowly, resist the temptation to bring your clutch up any more, keep it steady. When you have traveled a metre push the clutch back down the same tiny amount to return it to the biting point.
If the car is still moving and you are on a flat road then you haven’t gone back to the biting point, push the clutch in a little further. To make the car move another metre forwards you should only have to bring the clutch back up a tiny amount again.
Practice this, moving a metre at a time. You can measure roughly a metre by going from one kerb stone to the next. Be careful to steer correctly - keep the car 30 cm away from the side of the road. Your instructor will demonstrate how to gauge the distance from the kerb.
Once you have the hang of this, pick a safe place about 100m up the road and try to take as long as possible to get there by using clutch control. Your aim is to take at least a minute to get there. If you are halfway there in only a few seconds then you are going much to fast and need to reduce the amount you are bringing the clutch up.
Now try it on a slight hill
When the car is at the biting point it will not roll in the opposite direction. Go ahead, try it on a slight slope, say your drive for example. If the direction you are traveling in is down a hill then you need to use your footbrake to control the speed, and this means you won’t need your clutch up at all. When using the brake, push the clutch fully to the floor.
You will need slightly more gas on a hill otherwise the car will judder and may stall. Be careful not to increase the revs too much though otherwise you will soon start to smell the clutch burn and you will damage it very quickly. Use just enough gas to remove the judder and no more.
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