My last manual transmission was either my 86 Ranger or my 85 Honda Prelude. Can’t remember which one I sold last or what year but probably around late 2000. I have a motorcycle with a 5 speed transmission so I still get to manually (pedally?) shift some gears now and then.
I learned to drive a stick on an old VW Bug in Driver’s Ed, back in the Late Stone Age. As a high school sophomore you took a semester of Driver’s Ed and a semester of Health. I drove a stick-equipped Nissan Frontier as my primary vehicle from 1979 - 2014. I’ll still reflexively reach for the shift knob and press my left foot to the floorboards if I’m a bit distracted.
My first car was a Dodge Omni, which I acquired at the age of 25. We had no money to speak and a child on the way, and the lease payments were advertised as $99/month for a brand new car. I assumed the car would be automatic, which was all I had ever driven except once (and it hadn’t gone well). Well, no, as it turned out the quoted price was for standard.
Oh, I said. How much would it be for automatic?
They looked it up. It was an extra $300, I think. Well, that wasn’t terrible. Okay, I said.
Only, they said, you can’t just get automatic. You can only get automatic if you get I-don’t-remember-what, but it was another thousand bucks of options. It was sold as a paqckage, they explained.
Oh, I said, and decided to get the manual.
I got the hang of it eventually, but like kenobi_65 it took me quite a while. For me I think the hardest part was the coordination involved in getting the car started. I stalled out a lot.
But I drive in North America, so why is it such an important skill?
And when I’ve driven in the UK and Ireland, I’ve rented an automatic, so it wasn’t a needed skill.
Sure, dead easy once you get it moving, but lots of jerking and stalling out while you figure out how to let out the clutch and add power.
This.
I hated the sensation of rolling backward while trying to get the car moving forward in hills. And the jerking as you attempt to ease off the clutch and accelerate. The learning curve was too steep.
On my one vacation to Ireland, in 1995, it was substantially more expensive to rent a car with an automatic transmission than one with a stick; it was explained to us that automatics weren’t common there. As all of us in the group were comfortable with driving a manual transmission, that’s what we went with.
24 years later, that may well no longer be the case, however; I have no idea.
Agree, agree, agree. I considered renting a manual in those countries, but I figured I had enough to worry about with driving on the wrong side of the road and sitting on the wrong side of the vehicle, without adding clutches to the mix.
We had no trouble finding an automatic to rent, and the price difference was minor at best.
Theft deterrent and slick roads have been mentioned, but being able to push start a manual transmission is also an important advantage especially for someone like me that tends to keep their vehicles for a long time. Four or five years go by and then one day (usually in the middle of nowhere), the battery dies. If you’re not lucky enough to be on a down slope, you will need help pushing, but at least you’ll be able to get your vehicle started.
I really learned by the “seat of my pants”. I was 16 and might have heard about there being another type of transmission, but neither of my parents nor any one I had ever been driving around with had a stick. I had been watching this Chevy Van in the classified section for weeks while I saved my paychecks to hopefully buy it before anyone else did.
I finally got the $900. together and my mom drove me over to the dealer. “You know its a manual transmission?” he said. I thought, “Oh shit!”, but I said, “No problem”. The guy was kind enough to spend about ten minutes showing me the basics and allowed me to practice in the large (empty) parking lot, but that ride home was a nightmare. I was miles from home and would normally take the freeway, but decided to take my chances on the surface streets. So I not only didn’t know how to drive the van, but I also didn’t know where the hell I was.
I’m on my third stick shift in a row (1984 BMW 528e, 2001 Audi A4, 2012 VW Passat). There’s nothing with automatics, my wife’s car is an auto (even though she can drive stick just fine) and I don’t mind driving it at all. I just enjoy the experience of driving stick since I don’t have much stop-and-go traffic in my life.
I learned to drive a standard transmission in 1971 in a Ford pickup, delivering newspapers on a 60-mile motor route in Arlington, Texas. It was is a crash [as it were] course in driving, due to MUCH starting and stopping, backing up, turning around in people’s driveways, zipping across busy streets, etc. A week of that, and you’re an expert.
I bought my first automatic in ten years back in August. Mainly, I wanted a big sedan with some power for the N. GA mountains and also for easier stop and go traffic around Atlanta. I learned stick in a '73 Pinto wagon. It was a fun little car!
I’m curious- how many people who have only ever driven automatics are SIZE=“1”[/SIZE] two-foot drivers?
Before moving to the US two years ago I had never owned an automatic.
I have 3 cars, 2 trucks, and 3 motorcycles. The only automatic out of the bunch is an old Cadillac, and a stick shift Cadillac just wouldn’t be right (unless it’s a lot older than mine).
It’s been over 2 decades since I drove stick, but I have put on over 150K miles on various manual cars over the years, over all kinds of streets/roads. I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
Getting into first gear without stalling the car took some training. I would say it took me a couple weeks before I felt comfortable, and it wasn’t until I went driving through the Alps a few weeks later that I really felt I had stick down.
To be honest, with today’s manuals, getting into first is pretty easy, and they allow a lot of slop. I learned on a 1979 diesel Mercecdes W123, and that sucker had a heavy-ass clutch, and a very finicky bite point. I was constantly either stalling it or lurching it. I still can’t believe I had enough courage to drive that through the streets of Budapest when I was learning – every stop I worried about whether I would be able to get it into first without stalling it and the cross-traffic t-boning me. While I never got t-boned, I did stall it a shitton the first two weeks. Once in first, though, I was golden.
I mean, it’s as easy as breathing now, but I remember there being a bit of a learning curve to it, especially with the vehicle I was using. It’s completely understandable to me how some people simply get frustrated with it and don’t learn. I know some people who simply can’t seem to get it down. I think it’s more that they get tense and just give up, as anybody can learn it with practice, but some of my friends simply state flat out they cannot learn to drive stick.
I know how to drive manual. But I did not understand a single thing you just said.
As per the article linked above Audi has discontinued manuals in the U.S. as of 2019 ;).
I wonder if they’ll ever truly go away, as just like vinyl records there remains a dedicated base of aficionados. But I’d put money on them one day becoming a pricey premium package only found on expensive cars.
3-on-the-tree is a 3-speed manual transmission where the shifter is on the column. Anything with that is pretty old and uncommon. A “tank slapper” is actually a type of motorcycle incident, so I assume he means a jockey shifter, which is a motorcycle shifter operated by hand rather than by foot. Synchromesh is a system that synchronizes the input speed to the output speed automatically so you don’t grind your gears. When it fails you have to match the revs yourself or the shifts will be loud and possibly damaging.
There’s your explanation.
I cannot. After several lessons I can “drive” a stick shift as long as I only need to be in first or second gear and make no turns. I have only subjected myself to trying to learn to please my parents - I’m sure that finding it both stressful and pointless has not helped.