Clutches

That's a 'how long is a piece of string?' type of question. A manual car that lives its life on a motorway will last forever & a day on a clutch. One that lives its life in town with someone that rides the clutch won't last long. And will this manual have a dmf? That's a whole new ball game.

Agree with MM. Some drivers simply lack mechanical sympathy and will wear out a clutch in 10,000 miles irrespective of towing or not. In 40 years of averaging 20k miles a year I have never had to replace a clutch, and that includes some cars with over 150k miles on the clock. DMF can be a problem and are not restricted to diesels or cars with manual gearbox.....

Also, there are "autos" and there are "autos" with different technology of clutches used.

For anyone with a hangup with clutches, then a correctly specified and cooled torque converter auto is IMO the way to go.

You mean there are automated manuals & there are 'proper' autos 😉

2 pedals good ..... 3 pedals bad 😉

I was out last night with a few mates for a Christmas Beer & Curry, One of them picked me up in his Diesel Estate Audi with CVT gearbox, it's on its second one now, first one changed at 65K under warranty . 

The cars not used for towing anything, he says Diesels and CVT's don't work well together from what he has been told by the dealer.

Throw any real amount of towing into the equation and for boxes designed for use in domestic cars, that will quickly find the fragility of clutch systems. These are optimised for domestic car use, not lumbered with near twice the mass to get moving.

Before the days of electrickery, if you wanted a variable speed output in industry, a CVT/rubber band drive was usually the answer. They're horrible things which is why they've been replaced with electronic inverter control. 

Or in more critical application the very reliable Kopp Variators we extensively used.

However, towing with a "car" [sub 3500kg GVM] then for me its a torque converter in a vehicle getting close to that GVM, every time over a manual clutch or any mechanically clutched auto.

I towed an 1800kg caravan with a Lexus with CVT for 7 years without a problem.

Ooh, I think I remember them, but plant operators use to try turning the adjustment wheel whilst stationary and break them.