I would say leave it until it shows signs of slipping; they don't often fail
completely and leave you stranded.

Give it a test welly to see if it's slipping at all.

Si

I've had over 190000m out of a clutch before now. So it could well last  
for ages.

Escort 1.8TD. 170,000+ miles. Original clutch!

Stop worrying.

Clutch wear depends so much on driving style and usage that it's more or
less pointless to try and predict a service life. From under 50k miles to
over 200k miles are equally possible. Wear only takes place during gear
changes or starting from rest. A car that does mainly motorway miles will
have almost zero clutch wear compared to one that does a lot of town
driving. Also the ability of the driver to match rpm during gear changes,
not apply power until the clutch is fully engaged again and not slip the
clutch unduly from rest will have a big impact.

On upchanges the rpm should drop by the right amount to match engine speed
to road speed in the new gear which you can see by watching the revcounter
as the clutch is engaged again. On downchanges you can double declutch and
blip the throttle ala days before synchromesh. I doubt many people bother to
nowadays though.

Put the car in a high gear with the handbrake on and let the clutch out
slowly with plenty of throttle. If it doesn't slip and if the pedal engages
at a normal point i.e. not too close to the floor then it's fine.

A few years ago there was some dratted woman living across the road who used
to wake me up by setting off each morning in her little hatchback doing
about 4000 rpm with the clutch only partly engaged. You could hear her all
the way up the street because the engine was screaming. She'd never learned
how to engage the clutch fully from rest without stalling the car. I imagine
her clutch life was measurable in hours of use rather than tens of thousands
of miles.

Don't bother. I've always found clutches on the way out give plenty of
warning (slipping on uphill roads in a high gear etc) and none have ever
failed totally and left me stranded. Have always squeezed at least 1000
miles out of a slipping clutch before getting it replaced :-)

75k for a clutch is a reasonable lifetime. Don't think I've every had one
fail before then. I think my old BMW clutch must be getting on for 120k
miles now. I thought about replacing it a few years ago, but figured I'd
wait until it packed up. Still waiting :-)

Al.

OP here.  Many thanks for all the helpful replies!  Seems I am worring
unnecessarily!

Cheers!

Pete

If it ain't broke....

The clutch itself gives plenty of warning but the thrust bearing on my W
 reg car (95,000 miles) collapsed leaving me stranded.

The clutch itself gives plenty of warning but the thrust bearing on my W
 reg car (95,000 miles) collapsed leaving me stranded.