Does holding the clutch in do anything bad?
 

When at a stop light or just stopped for awhile in general, will keeping the clutch pedal pressed in do any damage to the clutch or transmission? Sometimes I just leave everything in neutral with the pedal out, but there are times where I keep it in gear with the clutch pedal pressed down the whole time I'm stopped, which can be 2 or 3 minutes at a time.

It does wear out the throwout bearing.

The opposite. This TOB is spinning with the clutch engaged unless a monkey just hit me over the head. Also the voices in the back of my head are going on about a thrust bearing in the bottom of the engine taking unnecessary wear but I may just need more sleep.

TOB spins when you depress the pedal. Not really a big deal though. A decent TOB will last longer than the clutch.

I had a throwout/release bearing fall to bits on me about a month ago.. I have always tried to leave it in neutral at stop lights. Did the first clutch at like 60k miles, and I'm at 116k right now.



When it broke I was doing like 5mph in a parking lot and when I put the pedal in there was a bug crunch,

(a guy told me once pushing the clutch pedal down fast is bad? I have a habit of pushing it down fast, leaving no time to stop pressing the pedal to the floor after the crunch)

shifted to 2nd, the pedal came up with no weight/pressure, and it slipped like a bastard after that..

I only used the clutch to take off and shift to 2nd most of the way home



I do run 3rd right to redline before shifting just about daily, and a fair amount of stop and go traffic too..



The centerforce throwout bearing is a bit beefier I think..

I'm gonna try and push the clutch pedal down a little slower now and not really bang gears so much with this Chinese clutch/ pressure plate from autozone and my reused eBay xtd flywheel lol.



Still wanna go to the drag strip up the road, weighed the car at 2500lbs the other day, woo hoo 15's in the 1/4 mile haha

I've heard that keeping the clutch pushed in will destroy the TOB quickly also. I leave my car in neutral as much as possible when I'm not moving.