Life span of clutch cables?

[G-reg]

About a year and a half ago I had a clutch cable brake on me, pedal to the floor...practicing my rev matching and clutch-less shifting in order to get off a main road. I bought and installed a new Subaru-original cable assembly and it too has recently snapped. Both cables seemed to snap in the middle of the housing, not at one of the ends-which you would think would be the weak link. So I have another on order, a rigged in bicycle brake cable has been doing the job for a few weeks. I’m guessing I just had a bad replacement part, and the first one had so many miles on it so it gets the benefit of the doubt. But has anyone else dealt with this, or am I just unlucky?

[entirelyturbo]

Thoroughly check the entire length of the cable. There is a point where it's got a kink or bend or rubbing up against something.

I had my clutch cable replaced by the dealer soon after I got the car. When a cable starts to wear out, it gets stiff and maybe has a bit of a gritty feeling, possibly from fraying inside. I've had that cable since...

[G-reg]

The cable takes a few bends on its way to the tranny, but nothing that would be called a kink or anything more than 90 bend even . The outer housing on both was in fine condition, and neither had any contamination really. It looks like it slowly frayed until there was one strand left, and eventually that failed. I don't remember where the first broke exactly, but the most recent broke in a place that was straight. I'd imagine that Subaru original part had sat coiled on a shelf for some years, which may have weakened it? It just hurts to spend $30.00 on a 3ft cable . My $1.25(actually it was lying around in my “box ‘O’ Crap”) bicycle brake cable is working really well btw. If I didn’t know I spent 45min cursing and rigging it in I wouldn’t know it wasn’t the proper cable. It is about ¼ the diameter of the real one, so it’s got to give up sometime soon. Does not have to last too long though.