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Shoot, that's how I motivated myself to learn to drive stick. I graduated college with a good job lined up, so I marched down to Ford and bought myself a brand new Mustang GT with a manual trans. I didn't test drive it. Salesman handed me the keys and I said "Nice, my first time driving stick!". His eyes went wide.
I knew the concept from riding motorcycles. I did ok. Didn't stall much but I did get nervious when i came to a hill and someone would pull up to my bumper and leave me no space to roll back. Within 3 days I was a pro. A month later I was drag racing it at the local drag strip perfecting my 3500RPM clutch dump launches and power-shifts.
That was 20 years ago. Since then I've done a lot of drag racing and autoX/road course racing with a stick-shift. My kids are 6 and 7 years old and I've already begun teaching them the art of driving a stick. Too bad they may not be able to buy a new car with a manual trans by the time they get older. It truly is a dying art.
ANd while i'm here, that's one of my biggest peeves when driving a stick. Stop on a hill, and someone behind me will stop 6" off my rear bumper.
Haha you should move to the UK, it definitely is not a dying art here
IMO 14 hours is not nearly enough to get it. Practice practice practice. You can do it! Don’t give up! We let both of our kids off the hook and I regret it. The promise of a gift of my Mustang GT convertible was not enough to convince them to keep trying.
Re:rolling shift. My advice is to find an empty parking lot on a steep hill and just play with engaging the clutch-inch up their hill bit by bit. Let yourself slip down the hill in a controlled manner. Practice staying stationary on the hill without using the break. Once you can do this, rolling turns on a roundabout or just a left or right turn will be easy.
Yeah, my driving instructor tells me I need at least 50. I’ve paid for about 40 so far and I really hope I improve by then because I’m spending close to all my money on driving lol
Driving tests/instructors sometimes have stupid rules like that. In North Carolina, which is where I live, I believe that the official state driver's handbook says that you have to downshift through each gear (shift from 6th to 5th, then 5th to 4th, then 4th to 3rd, etc) when coming to a stop, which needless to say is complete bull****. Just do whatever is required to pass the course. Once you have your license and don't have an instructor in the car telling you what to do, you can go back to shifting into neutral at a stop and whatever else helps make it easier for you to drive.
To be completely honest with you, I don't really care. If numbers on paper meant anything, I would have won my fantasy football league last year because I had the highest rated draft lol. I have a GTI with a six speed manual, and I can't shift as quickly as the optional DSG automatic can. But driving is boring as hell to me if the only thing I have to do is slap it into D and keep from crashing into something, and when I was carshopping a year ago, anything with an automatic was automatically removed from my list.
Omg, the STRESS of having to shift through each gear before coming to a stop, I can’t believe that’s an official rule. I prefer shifting to neutral while at a stop because it allows me to get my foot off the clutch and relax instead of having to keep it down to bite which can be kind of tiring especially when the car isn’t moving for a long time.
Haha it’s funny because I wish I could just drive an automatic car and be done with it. Seems much easier but UK driving culture is a little different and most people drive stick vs automatic, especially young people
Omg, the STRESS of having to shift through each gear before coming to a stop, I can’t believe that’s an official rule. I prefer shifting to neutral while at a stop because it allows me to get my foot off the clutch and relax instead of having to keep it down to bite which can be kind of tiring especially when the car isn’t moving for a long time.
Haha it’s funny because I wish I could just drive an automatic car and be done with it. Seems much easier but UK driving culture is a little different and most people drive stick vs automatic, especially young people
Wears out the clutch too, unless you downshift properly (rev matching). If you expect to have to accelerate within a few seconds, it's alright to stay in first with the clutch in, but yeah if you're going to be sitting for a while there's literally no point in holding the clutch in, as it will wear out your release bearing prematurely. Stupid rules written by people with no mechanical aptitude (who probably don't even drive manuals).
When you drive a manual, you are forced to involve yourself in the driving experience. Automatic provides much more opportunity to distract yourself with your phone, and due to the popularity of automatics here, distracted driving is essentially the norm. I see people weaving all over the roads, not realizing the light has changed, not moving out of the left lane, etc, every single day. Somehow I think driver behavior here would be different if more people had to learn to drive a manual.
Omg, the STRESS of having to shift through each gear before coming to a stop, I can’t believe that’s an official rule. I prefer shifting to neutral while at a stop because it allows me to get my foot off the clutch and relax instead of having to keep it down to bite which can be kind of tiring especially when the car isn’t moving for a long time.
Haha it’s funny because I wish I could just drive an automatic car and be done with it. Seems much easier but UK driving culture is a little different and most people drive stick vs automatic, especially young people
Why on earth do you downshift through the gears? Just brake until the rpms are at like 1000, push in the clutch and coast to a stop.
Yeah, my driving instructor tells me I need at least 50. I’ve paid for about 40 so far and I really hope I improve by then because I’m spending close to all my money on driving lol
You'll be fine. It just requires practice. I used to go out at night to desolate areas to practice. That's the only way to get good at it.
Watch some youtube vids on technique. Then go practice. What type of car you are driving will make a difference in technique as well. For instance, in the past with my V8 cars, I've started in 2nd gear when taking off in a low-traction situation to avoid spinning tires. It had enough power to start out in 4th gear if I needed, but that does prematurely wear the clutch.
No two people drive stick the same. Some people shift ASAP to maximize fuel economy. I've always been one to ride the gear out to higher RPM and leave it one gear lower than idea just to enjoy the responsiveness of the engine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pouringsunshine
Omg, the STRESS of having to shift through each gear before coming to a stop, I can’t believe that’s an official rule. I prefer shifting to neutral while at a stop because it allows me to get my foot off the clutch and relax instead of having to keep it down to bite which can be kind of tiring especially when the car isn’t moving for a long time.
It's not that bad. Usually I prefer to just coast in gear until 1200RPM or so and then press in the clutch, but downshifting can be pretty mindless really. Wait til RPM is around 1500 or so, clutch in, gear down, blip gas and release the gas. Takes practice but it does become one of those automatic things you just do without thinking. Since your a newbie, just coast in gear and clutch in at low RPM. 1st gear for dead stop, 2nd gear if still rolling. Just remember...never back to 1st unless you are completely stopped. Good way to find yourself kissing the windshield when engine compression slows you down unexpectedly.
You'll be fine. It just requires practice. I used to go out at night to desolate areas to practice. That's the only way to get good at it.
Watch some youtube vids on technique. Then go practice. What type of car you are driving will make a difference in technique as well. For instance, in the past with my V8 cars, I've started in 2nd gear when taking off in a low-traction situation to avoid spinning tires. It had enough power to start out in 4th gear if I needed, but that does prematurely wear the clutch.
No two people drive stick the same. Some people shift ASAP to maximize fuel economy. I've always been one to ride the gear out to higher RPM and leave it one gear lower than idea just to enjoy the responsiveness of the engine.
It's not that bad. Usually I prefer to just coast in gear until 1200RPM or so and then press in the clutch, but downshifting can be pretty mindless really. Wait til RPM is around 1500 or so, clutch in, gear down, blip gas and release the gas. Takes practice but it does become one of those automatic things you just do without thinking. Since your a newbie, just coast in gear and clutch in at low RPM. 1st gear for dead stop, 2nd gear if still rolling. Just remember...never back to 1st unless you are completely stopped. Good way to find yourself kissing the windshield when engine compression slows you down unexpectedly.
This is going so sound extremely dumb, but what is an RPM? the way my instructor has taught me to change gears is my looking at how fast I’m going. So usually he says that after 10 miles an hour I have to shift to second, after 23 to 3rd, and after 30 to 4th and yeah I haven’t really gone beyond fourth. But the thing about this RPM is that it keeps coming up in my theory test practice and I’m not sure what it even is and now you’re mentioning it as well and so have other people and I’m left wondering.
Why on earth do you downshift through the gears? Just brake until the rpms are at like 1000, push in the clutch and coast to a stop.
The thing about coasting is that my driving instructor intensely dislikes it, he says it makes the car go faster instead of slower and that it’s dangerous which is confusing to me because my fiend James tells me that coasting is a good thing when he tries to help me but then my instructor is like “no, he’s a complete idiot” so I’m confused
If your not careful when down shifting it's a little like hitting the brakes to hard slowing down too abruptly and if it's slippery can cause you to spin out. Coasting is safer. You just have to get a feel for the clutch and when it engages and at what speed you should be going for what gear. My first car that I bought was a manual and didn't know how to drive it, took a month or more to really get it figured out driving about 50 miles everyday. A little longer to really get good at starting going up hill without rolling backwards too much.
You will get it eventually.
Even though I can drive a manual car I can't seem to learn how to drive a motor bike or ATV that has a manual shift. But I haven't practiced much.
This is going so sound extremely dumb, but what is an RPM? the way my instructor has taught me to change gears is my looking at how fast I’m going. So usually he says that after 10 miles an hour I have to shift to second, after 23 to 3rd, and after 30 to 4th and yeah I haven’t really gone beyond fourth. But the thing about this RPM is that it keeps coming up in my theory test practice and I’m not sure what it even is and now you’re mentioning it as well and so have other people and I’m left wondering.
RPM literally means "revolutions per minute," but in more practical terms it is the speed at which the engine is spinning. Idle is usually around 800 rpm, and redline is generally around 6,500 rpm, although different makes and models will vary slightly. RPM will be shown on what is called a tachometer, which looks basically the same as the speedometer, but instead of saying 10 mph, 20 mph, 30 mph, etc, it will just say 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 etc (sometimes it only says 1, 2, 3, etc, and in these cases it will say "x 1000 rpm" somewhere in the middle of the tachometer). Some cars do not have tachometers for some reason, but if your car does have one, base your shifts on the tachometer, NOT the speedometer (at least, do this when your instructor isn't in the car). In my car I generally upshift at around 2,800 rpm, that way I'm not revving the crap out of my engine all the time, but I still have enough power to accelerate moderately.
Don't want to come across as a jerk, but by reading through some of the recent comments on here, I don't get the impression that your driving instructor really knows anything about how cars work. Shifting is mainly based on your car's gearing. 1st gear is pretty short in my car, so going much over about 15 mph in 1st means that my car's engine is revving like crazy. On the contrary, 1st gear in a manual 2015 Corvette Z51 reportedly tops out at 55 mph, and if you were to try to shift into 2nd at 10 mph, you'd literally just be at idle. Coasting isn't harmful for your car, and braking should be done by brakes only, NOT by downshifting. Downshifting saves very little brake wear, and does it at the expense of your clutch disk, which is much much much more difficult and expensive to replace than brake pads.
What exactly is the licensing process on your side of the pond? Am I correct in understanding that you own your own car? Are driving instructors mandatory? If you do own your car and instructors aren't mandatory (other than a final driving test or something like that), I would get with a friend who drives a manual and just let him or her teach me in a parking lot or on a back road. Do this until you feel comfortable enough to take whatever driving tests are required. Just make sure that you know the stupid "no coasting" rules and whatnot, so that you know what not to do during your actual test(s), then once you pass ignore anything nonsensical like that.
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