I had an interesting conversation the other day about the introduction of hydraulic linkages on North American trucks and the risks of pairing them with traditional manual-adjust clutches. Certain OEMs are now offering trucks with hydraulic linkages, which require less pedal pressure while engaging or disengaging the clutch. This is great for drivers, but it also causes them to lose some of the feel they’d normally experience when a clutch begins to slip out of adjustment. Because of this, there’s some concern in the industry that drivers will not be able to identify a misadjusted clutch as they once would, leading to premature wear and potential failure.

There’s an easy fix here. Spec’ing an auto-adjust clutch will ensure that the clutch isn’t ignored when it’s out of adjustment. Self-adjusting clutches usually come standard on vehicles with hydraulic linkages, but in the aftermarket it’s not yet widely understood that a manual-adjust clutch is not ideal on trucks with hydraulic linkages. This is another reason why fleets and owner/operators should consider swapping like-for-like parts in the aftermarket. The self-adjust clutch will set you back a bit more, but the upside is that you could save as many as seven to 10 trips into the shop for clutch adjustments through its life.