I’m 22, and not once in my life have I gotten an opportunity to drive a stick shift. I consider this a shame, and it is something I am still concerned about. The really irritating thing about it is that when I was learning how to drive, nobody wanted to teach me how to use a stick because they were afraid my inexperience would ruin their vehicle. This is infuriating. Everyone has to start somewhere!
I have driven a dirtbike, which had a clutch, and spent some trial-and-error realizing that if I didn’t pull the throttle and release the clutch just right, the engine would cut out (real tiring on a kickstart bike). The dirtbike was a nice experiment into the wonders of manual transmissions, but I’m worried that operating a motorcycle transmission and a car transmission is an apples/oranges type thing and that it won’t benefit me any when I get behind the wheel of a stick.
When people find out I don’t know how to drive a stick their jaws drop. Its as if 95% of knowing how to drive a car is wiggling 2 pedals and a stick; I mean come on! If 90% of cars on the road are automatics, is this really a big deal? On the other hand, I still would like to learn, but it seems like its not going to happen since nobody’s going to be willing to teach me (also my car is an automatic, and it is one I plan on keeping for a while).
A friend of mine who had never driven stick before recently bought a new car with manual transmission. I had to go along when he got the car and drive it home for him because, well, his first attempt at making it go almost gave me whiplash. He picked it up fairly quickly though - he could get going without stalling most of the time by the end of the first or second day and was driving pretty smoothly within about a week. I’m sure those first few days were rough on the clutch, but I doubt it shortened the lifespan greatly. After all, my parents’ car survived both my brother and I learning to drive before the clutch needed to be replaced, and given that the car was about 10 years old at that point it probably would’ve needed a new one soon anyway.
Since I’ve never driven a dirtbike, I can’t say how transferrable that skill is, but it certainly won’t hurt.
And if you’re looking for advice on how to actually drive stick, you’ll have to wait for someone else to come along. I can’t even describe it well in real life when I can use hand gestures, let alone try to type out something coherent!
if you’ve ridden a bike with gears, you’ll be fine. A friend of mine went from being able to ride a bike to a stick-shift car in one day, never having driven a car before. You just need to get the hand/foot technique right. I refer you to my (and other) comments in this thread.
Don’t know where you’re located, Incubus, but if there’s a driving school in your area that offers stick-shift lessons, and you can afford it, then go there. I did so about two years ago, when I was planning a trip to Israel and had reserved a stick-shift rental car (automatics are insanely expensive there); cost me $105 for three 45-minute lessons, which was good enough to at least get me started. (Although once in Israel, I did rattle my wife quite often the first few days by stalling all the time…)
I’m surprised your friends are surprised; sticks are rarely seen in the US nowadays and most people know only automatics.
The only trick to them is getting started. You seem to have that experience with the dirt bike. The key is to slowly lift up on the clutch and then hold your foot in the position where you first start to feel the car begin to move. Most beginners lift up entirely on the clutch (good practice generally), which stalls the engine. You need to hold your foot at the friction point as the car begins to move, and slowly let it up as you begin to get going.
I learned by just getting in the car and teaching myself. Probably the best way to do it. Of course the difficult part is finding the car to do it on.
As for burning out the clutch- my first stick had a weird clutch. I learned to drive on it. I even taught some of my friends to drive on it. When I got rid of the car six years later it was perfectly fine (well, at least the clutch was).
I’ve found that many people don’t know how to drive a stick. What bothers me is their refusal to learn. I just don’t understand how it would hurt to at least attempt to drive a manual. It could actually help. They might even find that they prefer it, especially driving in rough weather where you can maintain more control over your car.
I tried to teach my 16 year old son to drive a stick and failed. He kept “hopping” and stalling. Finally his dad, never known for patience, took him out. Two hours later they’re back and the kid can drive the stick. How’d you do it??? Dad I think responds (maybe kid tells me) "the first time he “hopped/stalled” I punched him in the shoulder. Then told him I’ld hit him harder with each succesive “hop/stall”.
I eventually taught 16 year old daughter to drive a stick, no punching required. The one very nice thing about kids who drive a stick, no one can borrow their car, hehehe
Soooooo Incubus my hubby is available if you’re still looking for lessons.
People worried about you ruining their car are just being dorks. A couple of hours worth of slipping the clutch too much sometimes and too little other times isn’t going to do noticable damage to anyone’s clutch, on a normal low-horsepower vehicle.
As others have mentioned, driving a stick shift normally is very simple. It boils down to:
Know Thy Engagement Point (when the clutch engages. Slip the clutch quickly to the engagement point, giving it sufficent throttle, and then release the clutch)
and
Learn About Bad Habits (there a couple of things you can do to really screw up a clutch. Don’t do them)
There are, of course, other cool things you can do with a stick that are more difficult (clutchless up and downshift, double clutching, heel-toe, etc.).
Tell your friends to stop being cowards and let you learn in their car. Heck, if you’re in the Denver area, c’mon over, and I’ll teach you.
I learned to drive a stick shift by buying one. I too had dirt bikes. It is the same principal. I jumped in and drove it away. Yep, it was a little jerky at first and I burnt out the first clutch and pressure plate in…I don’t know, maybe 9 months but so what, it was an $800 car. Not a great loss. Can you afford to just buy a beater car? It’s not that hard, you already know the principal from the bike.
Heym here is a thought…look around for a rent a wreck that will rent a stick shift! Then if you grind the clutch, it isn’t your car!
I didn’t know how to drive a stick until I was older than you are. My then-girlfriend forced me to learn so I could drive her car when she needed me to. It was probably the most useful thing I learned in college. I, too, could ride a bike but not drive a manual; they aren’t completely dissimilar. Not apples and oranges, more like pink ladies and fujis. Lastly, I too thought that if I didn’t know how by 22 I never would, but there turned out to be a lot nice things in my future I didn’t know would happen when I was 22.
Practice on an old VW if you have one at your disposal. You couldn’t burn-out the clutch if you tried.
Pay no heed to downshifting until you’ve mastered shifting / driving. (In other words, instead of feeling the need to downshift during the learning process - pop it in neutral and use the brakes like you would in a A/T for the first week or so).
I’ll agree with most everyone here. If you already know the feel of releasing a clutch while adding some gass, then all you need to learn is how to do it with your feet instead of your hands.
As a newbie trick, I always used to press the gas just a little high as I slowly released the clutch. I do that on any car that I wasnt familiar with. It saves me the neck sprains and whiplash and the ka-chug-chug stalls. Asfter I get the feel for the machine, its real easy to get used to just releasing the clutch to the exact point where the plates come in contact while adding just the right amount of gas.
One tip, stay away from hills while learning. You dont ever want to be stopped at the top of the hill trying to engage the clutch and stepping on the gas and praying you aint sliding backwards.
Don’t know where you are located Incubus, but if you are in Ontario, you’re welcome to take my old truck out. It taught me to drive a stick, it’s a pretty tough piece of work.
And I have to second what ** X~Slayer(ALE)** said, hills terrifed me when I first learned to drive (I started out with the standard, it’s just lately I have started driving an auto, and I’m finding it slightly boring). Nothing worse than stalling the darn thing and starting to roll backwards.
After driving a stick since I got my license, I bought my first automatic. Well I got in the car stepped on the gas and as the auto trans prepared to switch gears I instintively went to press in a clutch with my left foot…problem is the only pedal I had left to step on was the brake. If I didn’t have a seatbelt on I would hit my face on the wheel.
I’m reasonably certain that I got laid once because I could drive a stick shift. That might be going too far…presumably my chances were good anyway with this girl…but hopping in and driving her manual transmission car was definitely a few marks on the good side of the tally sheet for me. It also made certain I got her sitting next to me with everyone else in the backseat so I could work it some more. I don’t know where the notion that not being able to drive a manual transmission car is somehow weird in the US. In my experience it is by FAR the norm and more often than not people don’t know how to drive one.
I also found that cars in Europe are much more likely to be manual transmission if you rent one (as was mentioned earlier about Israel) which again kept me in the drivers seat (where I preferred to be anyway) than in the backseat as a passenger.
Find a big open spot, parking lot or some such. 90 percent of stick driving is just getting off of the starting block. Ignore the fact that you have a 1st gear. Get the vehicle moving from a dead stop using only 2nd gear. It’s going to be a royal pain in the ass at first. You’ll stall. You’ll jerk around like Jeff Gordon with a severe disorder of the central nervous system. Keep at it. Be patient.
There will come a moment when you can smoothly get the car rolling from a dead stop using 2nd gear. After that, switch back to using 1st gear to get started. It’ll be a cake walk from there.
I learned how to drive stick 2 years ago.(i’m 23) The way my dad taught me was basically just taking off and going into second gear. When I reached that he’d tell me to stop and do it over again and again and again and again. Thats all I did for the first few days. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. After that it was pretty easy.
