[fiat_tarun]

In such situations, a diesel has an inherent advantage due to the availability of low end torque, whereas a petrol needs to be revved a little and this is where inexperienced drivers tend to overdo it resulting in overslipping the clutch.

When I got stuck here a couple of year ago, I was in my Figo diesel and the low end torque really helped navigate the jam with minimal clutch slip.

I am sure most of those cars that have stopped there will be petrol manuals.

[itspatra]

Originally Posted by nvn

Saw this on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mohitjaswani91/s...OU1ZICkhg&s=19

As a relatively new driver ~7000km what would be the best course of action to prevent this? I assume the slope is gentle (just enough to cause rollback) and spread over a long distance of 1-2 km. Please elaborate how to reduce clutch burn for each type of transmission manual, auto-clutch manual, amt, cvt, dct , etc. It would be helpful for newbies like me. Assuming I only move if I have more than a cars length of distance in front of me is free, other cars would simply cut into my line and prevent me from going anywhere. Also are hybrids and EVs less prone to this as the battery could be used for such slow speed stop and go traffic?

Thanks!

[satish.gawai]

Last Saturday I was traveling from Pune to Kashid Beach for a small holiday with friends in Tata Nexon through the express highway. Just before Lonavala, there was a huge traffic Jam.

When enquired, we came to know that the authority has blocked the road for some construction work and it will open after 40-50 min (which took an hour).

While coming back on Sunday, we took the express highway from Panvel (not checking the traffic on Gmap; biggest mistake). There was a huge traffic jam in Lonavala ghat.

The same sight of many vehicles standing on the side of the road with open bonnets. Most of them were Marutis and a couple of Tatas (I saw one Harrier). Surprised to see Honda and Hyundais too.

There was a continuous announcement at the toll Plaza about "the jam due to the Christmas holiday and many vehicles are stalled in the ghat area"

It took us to reach home at 9.30 at night while we left Kashid at 12.00 noon.

What a painful holiday..(:

The Mumbai - Pune Expressway has become a nightmare nowadays.

[sunilg33]

I feel that not all of them have had a breakdown, some may have just parked there opened the hood, and allowed the engine to cool down just to be safe.

[Gamemaztr]

Originally Posted by itspatra

As a relatively new driver ~7000km what would be the best course of action to prevent this? I assume the slope is gentle (just enough to cause rollback) and spread over a long distance of 1-2 km.

In such situations, I mostly wait for the car in the front to substantially move ahead before making a move to go ahead. Before you learn the ability to manage the clutch well in such situations, use the handbrake. No need to keep up with bumper-to-bumper traffic.

The handbrake technique is very simple. Pull the handbrake 3-4 notches, keep the clutch depressed, slot in the gear, and rev a little. Once you feel that the car is eager to move ahead, release the handbrake and go ahead. My emphasis on revving a little is critical as you may end up in the boot of the car in the front.

Generally as well, whatever transmission your car may have, never feel shy to use the Neutral Gear + handbrake/parking brake when the traffic is very slow. Never keep the clutch pedal depressed unless and until there is a need to change the gear. Even in City traffic or a signal stop, make a habit of shifting to neutral and pulling up the handbrake. The only work a clutch should be delegated to is when there is a need to change the gear.

These techniques have helped me so far to keep my clutches from frying (7 years and 3 cars so far) and save a ton of money and time. This technique is personal to me and other more experienced ones here may have a more sophisticated technique which may help.

[alphamike_1612]

Just so that we have it clearly defined. Is slipping the clutch not advisable?

I was taught to use clutch control on uphills/bridges especially with stop and go traffic and avoid using the brakes especially in B2B traffic, because the few milliseconds it takes moving from the brake to the accelerator will result in the car rolling back.

The way I have been doing it for these many years is to hold the clutch at the biting point such that the car neither moves forward nor backward, as and when traffic inches forward, the clutch is let out, with a slight accelerator input. If the traffic buildup is longer than a few minutes, I put the car in neutral and the handbrake on. Moving from this position is usually more difficult and requires a larger accelerator input with the clutch halfway.

I have always believed that the clutch wears out faster on the 2nd type.

I'm really confused. I've always thought myself to be an average driver at the least, but it now appears I maybe a noob.

[Fx14]

Originally Posted by sukhbirST

I had a flat tyre.
Noticed a truck with flat tyre and came to know from the driver that, there were 3 more flat tyres of other vehicles within 45 min. Lucky to find a small shop who opened after a long wait in the cold.

Lucky or part of planned sabotage?

In your case, the sequence of events seem too coincidental.

In the 80's-90's, my Dad who was well versed with the highways used to advise all never to permit complementary top up of the radiators offered by strangers at the restaurants / stopovers before the Khandala / Kasara ghats. The cars topped up would invariably sputter to a stop on the climb and a friendly mechanic would invariably be "luckily just around the corner" to help out for a hefty charge by draining the radiator and refilling it afresh to solve the problem.

[GautamJ]

We travelled from Mumbai to Lonavala on 24th, the scene was sad with lot of traffic and cars cooling off.

We were rerouted via Old Mumbai-Pune Highway and steep ghats. Clutch burn at some point is necessary for that kind of moving traffic and the inclines.

Our DQ200 equipped car too threw some juddering but, with no warning or malfunction light. Parked it on the side for 15 minutes to let the gearbox cool. The car was stuck in D1 for more than an hour on incline driving, even shifting to N as and when the situation permitted did not help .

[venkyhere]

Theory :

One or more or all of :

- Petrol manuals that have poor low end torque commensurate to the weight of the car
- Noob drivers who crawl the car upslope with 5% clutch and 90% accelerator (instead of 50% clutch and 10% accelerator)
- Herd mentality, if these two are doing it to cool the engine, let me cool my engine also, even if there is no warning on my cluster, they can't be doing it without reason (a burnt clutch cannot be 'recovered' any more by opening the bonnet than with a closed bonnet, while keeping it disengaged/vehicle-off)

[Gaur]

I returned home today morning from a Mumbai -Pune-Mumbai trip and was one of those who were stuck in this jam on Saturday afternoon/evening.

Started on Saturday from Mumbai (Western suburbs) at around 11am and reached Pune (viman nagar) at around 7pm, a total of around 180kms took me almost 8hrs with a small break of around 20 mins at khalapur food mall.

My misery started from vashi toll plaza itself which took around 20-25 mins to clear, khalapur toll took another 30 mins.

The traffic started to pile up soon after khalapur food mall itself. It took almost 2hrs to reach lonavla exit point post which it was smooth sailing. So basically it took 2hrs to cover around 13kms on an express way.

I did see a lot of vehicles breaking down on the ghat section, I can roughly remember around 15 vehicle that I had noticed of which I can distinctly remember a Harrier (not new gen), Hyundai venue and a maruti Baleno because all of these looked to be quite new vehicles.

What surprised me more was there were relatively fewer heavy vehicles which had broken down.

My understanding of the situation is as follows.

: drivers not well versed to handle ghat section burning down the clutch.
: some poorly maintained vehicles.
: Small engines/C.N.G/AMT vehicles not able to cope such demanding situation even if vehicle is new.
: Almost all vehicle which had broken down were fully loaded with passengers and holiday luggage adding to load on engine/transmission.

Fortunately my Scorpio N didn't give any trouble, was constantly checking the temperature and it was just above the half mark. Made sure I don't revv the engine unnecessarily or slip the clutch, used auto start/stop and I feel it helped in improving fuel efficiency and avoid overheating of engine.

[RGK]

Originally Posted by Gamemaztr

The handbrake technique is very simple.

Originally Posted by SmartCat

This can happen only if -
- Car has manual transmission
- Drivers are noobs

Originally Posted by venkyhere

- Noob drivers who crawl the car upslope with 5% clutch and 90% accelerator (instead of 50% clutch and 10% accelerator)

Absolutely....

One needs to utilize Hand/Parking brake widely in this sort of circumstances. Sabarimala and Ooty see immense measure of traffic during their pinnacle season and some of the experienced drivers use hand brake.

The ratio of the clutch press and accelerator must be optimum. The slope causes half-baked drivers to rev harder to avoid the fear of stalling the engine.

I observed a driver using the hand brake meticulously on a Tempo Traveler to prevent clutch wear. Because of the slanted place of the vehicle, the heap in the grip is more than in the ordinary times.

NB: One can observe the odor of burning clutches during all holiday weekends in Kodaikanal

[ArTigor]

As someone who does at least 2 visits to Pune from Navi Mumbai in a month, this is a regular sight now a days. There are 2 choke points, Amrutanjan & Lonavala Exit and the Amrutanjan point being the worse as the incline just before the bridge point is steep. No wonder the mechanics know that and are always positioned at this strategic location.

On a holiday, due to the sheer volume of vehicles the number of breakdowns are compounded.

Majority of the breakdowns are due to clutch burnouts, but a few are also due to engine overheating. Yes I have seen quite a few cars having steam coming out of their bonnet. Guess these are mostly the poorly serviced cars.

Generally on long weekends the Expressway is filled up with cars and drivers which venture out occasionally, who are primarily city drivers and have very less or no experience of how to mitigate stop and go traffic on steep inclines, generally half clutch and burning the clutch is what most resort to rather than making an efficient usage of handbrake + clutch & acceleration. Surprisingly I have seen many driving school instructors also advocating for the half clutch hold method, rather than teaching the handbrake hold method for countering inclines. Not saying that expert and experienced drivers can not stall their cars in this stretch of expressway, even they do.

Some might question that why do the clutch burn doesn't bother so much in a city like Mumbai where stop and go traffic is much worse and most drivers resort to half clutch. It is to be noted that the forces acting on a clutch is much more on an incline when once uses the clutch slipping as an anti roll back measure.

Add to that if one has the habit of not pulling the hand brake and engaging to neutral between stops, the clutch plates are bound to overheat.

Another factor is that many of the cars which head out of Mumbai and take the ghats are overloaded, I have seen strangely 7 people packed in a ritz once! this is another recipe for disaster on inclines.

My father used to drive a 1962 fiat in the 90s on the old Mumbai Pune road and not once we were stranded, for those who don't know that old highway was a narrow road which used to have notoriously steep inclines and if at all you encounter traffic you could spend at least 3 hours just clearing the ghat section. He taught me how to efficiently use a combination of brakes and acceleration on inclines and also to not be lazy and engage neutral in stop and go. But then he also stalled our Ertiga some years back, more on it later.

So coming back to current situation, here are few precautions I take while driving my 87000km run Tigor diesel on the expressway ghat section:-

• Take a halt for snacks and rest room at the food court just before the ghat commences, this helps the engine cool down after the initial expressway run.
• I generally switch off the AC if my car is fully loaded with passengers and bags, I switch the AC off just at the point where the Pune-wards arm of Old highway comes and connects to the Expressway.
• In case of stop and go traffic I make sure that the car is in neutral during halts and handbrake is engaged, as well as AC is turned off, Yes the discomfort for 10-15 minutes is a fair trade off rather than being stranded.
• Near Amrutanjan bridge hair pin bend if at all that traffic in all lanes is moving slow, I prefer to keep my car behind a LCV or a bus rather than keeping it in the lane of cars which do Jerky Sprints on the incline, The reason being most of the LCV or Buses are fairly disciplined on the inclines they engage and ride at a constant speed utilizing the diesel torque at the lowest gear thus negating repetitive clutch actions in a short span, One place where I love my small diesel engine on the Tigor is the torque and pull in such situations, while not a lot on paper, it is very comfortable puller, so in case of a deadlock slow moving traffic on Amrutanjan section, I engage on to the first & second gear and let the diesel motor do the magic with constant uniform accelerator inputs and minimal clutch-gear changes with the revs hovering between 1.5k to 2.k rpm, this is at speeds of 10-20 kmph.
• I constantly keep an eye on the engine temperature, Tigor has 6 bars for the temperature indicator, on a normal day only one bar is lit up, On spirited drives it goes up-to 2 bars, In the ghats generally it goes up to 3 bars i.e. halfway mark. Till date it has never breached the halfway mark but if at all ever it hits 4 bars then I might stop and give it a short break(at a lay-by with the engine running) to cool down. Do remember just before Amrutanjan there is a lay by area which one can utilize if you are seeing your engine temperatures go up.
• Most important tip, avoid peak hours, early morning is generally the kind of time with low traffic, avoid the time bracket between 11pm and 3am this is when I have experienced most traffic, also avoid 12pm to 3pm the stretch is absurdly hot due to the concrete surface during these hours.
• Also before commencing the ghat section take a halt at the food court and check traffic status on Google maps. If you see congestion wait till it improves, as staying back in a restaurant for an hour is much better than being stuck between trucks in the ghats.

All of this is a learning from stalling our Ertiga Vxi back in 2015, it wasn't overloaded but there were 6 on board, but then being a petrol it really didn't have the kind of grunt diesels have and we could feel that at steep inclines there was a certain amount of 'slipping the clutch' required to move it further, The car was just 21000kms old but in a 1.5 hour traffic just as we reached the Amrutanjan point the clutch gave up, my dad who never stalled his 30 year old fiat on the old roads of the ghats, was surprised as to how did he manage to get this one stalled, as he is a very disciplined driver.

Moral of the story 'What has to go wrong, has to go wrong' but some necessary steps to avoid mistakes can help.

[StrykerEV05]

Originally Posted by itspatra

Also are hybrids and EVs less prone to this

EVs are totally immune to this because they don't have a clutch. EVs are also super smooth in this kind of stop start traffic.
While this might seem to make EV a really good fit for these uphill sections, it is not really the case. EV drivers in such situations might need to turn off the air conditioning because inclines consume a lot of charge from the batteries. EVs with bigger battery packs won't have to do the above.

P.S. I have a Nexon EV and it is very easy to drive in bumper to bumper traffic conditions

[JediKnight]

Most likely a case of drivers with low driving experience in ghats stuck in uphill bumper to bumper traffic. And ridding their clutches to destruction. Growing up in Himachal I saw many drivers from the plains holding their clutches at half clutch on steep slopes for extended periods of time. A sure way to fry your clutch in minutes.

No such issue with the locals. Use the handbrake method as several pointed out and don't over rev the engine while taking off on the slope. Some expert drivers like HRTC bus drivers can simply manage by clutch/throttle without touching the parking brake. I have seen HRTC drivers stop/start buses on steep slopes with 100 + passengers ( including on the roof ) without the bus even going a centimeter back and no half clutch riding/parking brake use.

Originally Posted by SmartCat

This problem will not be there in cars with automatic transmission. That's because ATs have creep function that greatly reduces chances of car rolling back on inclines.

This is not completely true. A DCT and AMT transmission are very prone to such failures. Such transmission internally will slip the clutch in case the crawling speed is less than the minimum speed achievable by the first gear. Only transmissions that have a fluidic coupling with the engine are less prone to this kind of failure.

[aniketi]

Not sure about what happened to cars but what I have learnt recently is not to travel on express way during long weekends or high holiday season like this (Christmas, new year, Diwali etc.) I avoid going to places like Mahabaleshwar, Lonavala, etc. In peak season. You end up wasting lots of time in traffic, wasting lots of fuel, increasing your BP & what not. Better I enjoy at home ordering some food on Swiggy or Zomato and enjoy watching OTT with family. Nowadays I plan all my holidays in off season or on odd days. Fed up of traffic jams and crowd.