I have a driver’s licence but no car, and have only ever driven cars with an automatic transmission. I don’t need a car often enough to make buying and maintaining one worthwhile, so I’m thinking of joining a local car sharing scheme. However, it’s a virtual certainty that all the cars available in this scheme (the only one operating in my community) have manual transmission. So I imagine I’d need some practice and/or lessons for driving manual before signing up.
So my question is directed to all those who, once upon a time, learned to drive manual long after driving automatic: how long did it take you before you felt comfortable enough to do ordinary city and highway driving on your own, and how did you learn (lessons from a professional driving instructor, informal tuition from a friend, self-learning, etc.)?
I learnt on a manual. But I taught my sister to drive a manual after she learnt on an automatic. There is a learning curve and the few people I know who have transitioned are always more comfortable on manuals. But it can be done.
I learned on an automatic, but only had access to a manual to drive back and forth to school a year later. I had one “lesson” with my boyfriend where he showed me the point at which you are half on the gas and half on the clutch where the car doesn’t stall. (I don’t even know if this is a good way to teach someone, but that’s what we did…). After I figured that out, it was easy to shift. Somewhat harder to get started on a hill - that took some practice but it came fairly soon.
There is nothing like a trial by fire. I think I stalled twice at intersections just due to “holy crap, someone behind me wants me to move now and god that is so much pressure…” but it didn’t take long to be very comfortable. I prefer manual now.
Like Coffeecat, I bought a car with a manual after driving automatics for 9 years or so. My boyfriend actually test drove the car for me (Geo Tracker - not a hard car to learn stick on) and I bought it. I was forced to learn to drive it or not go anywhere. I would say it took 3-4 days of driving it to work and back home (~9 miles one way) before I was shifting smoothly and not stalling it.
The biggest issue with manual is learning not to ride your clutch. A friend replace two burned out clutches in three years. He never could get the hang of not keeping the clutch partially pressed in. Thats a bigger issue in traffic.
I like driving manual in rural areas. It would be challenging in the city with 14 traffic lights between my house and a restaurant I visit regularly.
I learned on an automatic. This was back in the 1946 - 1947 time frame, on a 1941 Oldsmobile hydramatic. We sold the car in 1949, getting a Pontiac with a stick shift on the steering column. Don’t remember many problems with the transition. Have driven manual shift cars ever since.
BTW, that old Pontiac was a real dog. Acres of sheet metal, a huge straight-eight engine with almost no power, and getting 13 mpg.
Since you don’t have a manual car, I think taking lessons is probably your best bet. You need time to practice to get used to what you’re doing with your feet and arm, and when to shift and how to start up on hills and stuff.
For what it’s worth, I think learning to drive a manual car is a great idea.
I learned on a slushbox, but didn’t drive my first stick until I was about 23. It didn’t take all that long to get the basics down. I was basically out driving it in traffic within 30 minutes of playing around with it. That said, those first few times in traffic I stalled getting it from neutral to first a lot. I learned on an old 1980 diesel Mercedes 240D with a pretty heavy clutch that didn’t seem to have a lot of slip to it. It took me about a week or so of driving in traffic before I really started to feel comfortable with the manual gearbox.
The more modern manuals are pretty darned easy to learn. My now-wife, when we were dating, had to drive my manual Mazda 3 about two miles or so back from a bar after I had overindulged a bit. She had never driven one before, but managed to get it home (at about 3 a.m., to be fair, so there wasn’t much traffic) only stalling it out twice at lights. I sure as hell was impressed.
That said, YMMV. I’ve known a couple people who are just adamant that they’ve tried learning a stick repeatedly, but simply cannot get the hang of it.
Prety much my experience, but I had some experience with a small tractor first.
My best teaching experiences have been with:
Find a large empty parking lot (school or church at the right day of the week)
Practice starting and stopping in first gear. You need to master the series of : clutch down, shift to neutral, start engine, shift to first, clutch up/gas down, foot off clutch, cruise in first, clutch down/brake/shift to neutral, stop.
The clutch up/gas down without stalling is the key thing to master. Learning that smoothly and what a ‘lugging’ engine feels like is important.
After mastering 2), move on to shifting into second etc.
I learned on an automatic and then switched to a manual. I think I has a lesson or two to learn how to start up without stalling, but the rest came easy.
It shouldn’t be hard to learn not to ride the clutch, any more so than learning not to ride the brake. If this is for some reason hard to master, I suggest getting somebody large and unpleasant to ride with you, and hit you whenever you do it, and say “Don’t do that!” in an intimidating voice. No need to be nuanced on this point in any way.
Learning can be hard on the clutch, nevertheless. Applying too much gas and not letting the clutch out soon enough will have the engine spinning very fast while the clutch slips under load, and that dissipates a lot of energy in the clutch itself, burning it and wearing it away. My darling stepdaughter made my little Honda smoke a couple of times while I was teaching her, leaving me to wonder how many thousands of miles of normal driving corresponds to one noisy, smoky, pedestrian-head-turning start from a standstill pointed uphill.
Experienced manual transmission drivers can try driving with broken clutch linkage for extra credit. Starting from a non-downhill standstill is the hard part. I had a funny experience with this - my wife called me when her clutch linkage broke, deserting her car in the left turn lane of a busy intersection (fortunately I was just a couple minutes away). It was a dark and stormy night, just to help out. So I drove up behind her abandoned car (leaving plenty of room for misadventure) and got her into my driver’s seat, and got into her car and waited for the light to change so she could follow me through the intersection. Then I realized there wasn’t room to meet after the intersection where I planned to, so I jumped out and ran back to my car with her in it, and started banging on the window for her to roll it down so I could talk to her.
And it turned out that somebody else with a car like mine had somehow pulled ahead of her and between us, and I was banging on the window of a stranger’s car and yelling at this poor woman and putting her into fear for her life. Her expression haunts me to this day.
Same with me. I drove nothing but automatics for the first 15 years of driving, but then had the opportunity to buy at a good price from a trusted friend a small pickup truck that was perfect in every way…except it was a standard.
Luckily I was living in Newport News, a very flat area, at the time, but I had to drive it up to DC the first weekend I owned it, and managed OK.
A few years later, my wife, who’d been driving for 10 years on nothing but automatics, had the opportunity to buy a slightly used Honda Accord at a good price, and damned if that Accord wasn’t perfect in every way…except it was a standard. So with a modest amount of tutoring from me, and a lot of practice on her own, she learned to drive it, and except when driving rental cars, didn’t drive another automatic for nearly 20 years.
Our latest Accord, which is her car, is an automatic, and you can tell she hasn’t quite made the shift mentally, because after 3 years of this car, she still drives with her hand on the gearshift, even in highway driving.
I drove an automatic for my first seven years of driving. I decided my new car should be manual, even though I’d never driven manual before. I knew the car I wanted and had checked out the automatic. Then, when my car arrived, I did one test drive (salesman was with me), and I knew I would be good. The first day or two were herky-jerky, but then I was good. The pressure of having to figure it out is a strong motivator to avoid stalling in traffic.
The guy who sold me my first manual showed me how to drive it in a snowy dark parking lot and I drove it home. I’ve been driving manuals ever since. 16-26 auto, 26-36 manual…10 years of each.
Starting on hills took a little while to do smoothly but no biggie.
I learned to drive in the early '80s in Switzerland, in a car with a manual transmission and a choke. Most Americans I know have never even heard of a choke. Later, when I came back to the States, the first and every car I’ve owned since had a standard manual transmission.
My wife, when I met her, had no familiarity with manual transmissions, having learned on an automatic. We had little money in those days and couldn’t afford a second car, so with no car of her own, her choices were to continue to have me ferry her around, or learn to drive my car.
Contrary to others’ experience in this thread, learning to drive a car with a manual transmission was quite a challenge for my wife. It took a few lessons over the course of approximately a week before she could maneuver the car without stalling. First and second gears were the toughest for her, and even after she “got it”, if she spent more than a few days without time behind the wheel, it was almost like starting all over again.
I think it took my wife almost a month with approximately 4 hours a week behind the wheel, before she was able to drive the car confidently, and without fear of causing, or getting in to an accident. However, it took her probably 3 to 4 months to master and be comfortable with it. It didn’t help that during this period from time to time she borrowed friend’s cars who only drove automatics.
It’s been over 20 years since my wife learned to drive a manual transmission vehicle, and every car she’s owned since then has been manual. She says she will never go back to automatics, which makes me very happy because the few times in my life that I’ve driven automatics have been white-knuckle experiences I hope never to have to repeat again.
When I was in my early 20s a boyfriend tried to teach me to drive a manual. But the parking lot was too small and it was like a $40k BMW and he is a fucking asshole so I was just too scared. I kept stalling and nearly running in to parking dividers.
having lessons from a professional or a friend is always the best.
If that is not an option I would suggest you
Go learn how a manual transmission works. I think it’s important to know what is happening when you depress a clutch and shift a gear.
2) I note that there are lots of videos on youtube and other places on how to watch videos now. I just googled “how to drive manual” and found a bunch. I didn’t watch any of them.
I recommend the left foot only method to start. That is, you do nothing but shift into first, and clutch up VERY slowly until you can get the car moving. No Gas. It will take a while to get the clutch fully up without stalling the car. What this teaches you is where the clutch catch point is in your car.
After you can do this reliably you move onto phase II. Phase II is you add the right foot. You add gas to the mix so that you can start and get moving quickly.
Learned to drive on an automatic, but the first car I bought (several years later) was a manual. My dad went with me to pick it up, drove it to a big mall parking lot, and coached me for about half an hour.
Then I drove it home, and immediately started a new job delivering pizza! Within a few weeks, I was shifting like a champ. That’s also the month that I got really good at parallel parking.
I learned mostly on automatics, with one or two brief, failed lessons on my mom’s stick. Fast forward 20 years or so, and I bought a stick shift truck from a co-worker. Part of the sales deal was he had to give me a stick-driving lesson or four. He gave me two lessons. After that, I practiced driving around my neighborhood, first on flat streets, then gradually increasing the distance to find inclines and finally, I graduated myself to steep hills. I’d say it probably took me all of a week to get the hang of it. When I had to take my primary car (an automatic) to the shop for about three weeks, by the end of the three weeks, I was a stick-drivin’ fool.
