I drive one on a daily basis. **Rhiannon8404 **and I both have manual transmission cars. Hopefully we’ll still be able to find one the next time we are in need of a “new” car.
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you need to know how to drive a stick because you never know when you’re going to have to jump aboard a runaway 18 wheeler that has lost its brakes and is hurtling towards a Girl Guide/Boy Scout jamboree and you have to gear down to make the hairpin turn just ahead. I bet this happens to Stranger on a Train every couple of months, although he might just shoot the tires out instead. Blindfolded.
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in a few years, all 18 wheelers will be automatic, so if you’re lucky you can probably be the person who yells, “I’ll call 911” and coast until then
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if you can drive a stick, how confident are you that you could jump into any manual car or pickup truck and drive off without a learning curve? How steep would that curve be?
Myself, I take the opportunity to bite my toenails.
A while ago I borrowed a friend’s manual pickup to move a couch. Even though I hadn’t driven stick for some time, I drove it without any trouble. One stick shift is pretty much like any other, ime.
I drove sticks exclusively from 1993 to 2000. Since then, I’ve only driven a stick once, driving my friend’s old car home from work while he drove the new car. That was 13 years ago.
I voted “Yes” above, but I wouldn’t want to jump in and drive a stick today. 19 years out of practice is a bit much.
Pretty much, assuming a synchomesh manual transmission. There really isn’t much of a learning curve to standard synchromesh manual transmissions. Some may have a heavier clutch, and they will “bite” at different points, but you can figure out and get a feel for it within a few gear shifts. For a non-synchronized transmission, I’m fairly sure I can manage it, but there’d be much more of a learning curve. I know how to double-clutch and rev-match, but it would definitely be bumpy for while, I think.
Always a stick shift, and wouldn’t buy anything else. Most people still drive stick shift here - we think automatics are for cripples and people who can’t drive properly.
Learned to drive in Texas on a late '70s Datsun, then inherited a '66 VW Bug. Drove that through high school and college
I agree with this. The shifting end of things is pretty much universal (other than figuring out what particular bit of legerdemain gets you into reverse gear); the learning curve for a particular vehicle is largely getting a feel for its clutch.
I grew up outside the US and learned to drive on a manual when I was about 10. However, I’ve lived here since I was 13 and virtually all of my on-road driving has been done here. So I selected “other.” I’m also no longer very good at it since I haven’t done it in so long. I borrowed a friend’s manual Cherokee a few years ago, and while I didn’t need any help (and didn’t stall it), I probably took some life off his clutch.
Yeah, reverse can be confusing, depending on how many versions of reverse you’ve run into. Some have R on the top left, to the left of first; some on the bottom right. Some require you to push the stick down before shifting into reverse; some have a little collar around the stick you have to lift. I think that’s all the combinations I’ve come across. It shows you on the stick where “R” is, but sometimes you have to also add the additional input I mentioned above (pushing the stick or pulling up a collar) to shift it into R, which you don’t have to do for any other gear.Actually, now that I think about it, I think I’ve come across a car where first was on the bottom left and R was directly above it. Can’t remember where, though, as that is quite uncommon. (1 is almost always on the top left of the forward gears, although sometimes you’ll have an R gear to the left of it, like in my car.)
I learned to drive manual perforce in 1981 when my ex and I were on a road trip to Canada and New England in her Chevette. Midway in the journey she got too sick to drive, and it was up to me to take us from Boston back to St. Louis. That’s what I mean by “perforce.” I had to learn it promptly all at once, and by golly I did. It helped that it was almost all interstate freeways. I drove her Chevettes until we split in '83 and I got a bicycle.
- I needed a car and my sister gave me her Subaru. I went right back to driving manual as though I’d never stopped. It is like learning to operate a bicycle. Drawbacks I discovered were: 1) Developing painful strain in my left ankle, 2) Discovering just how unfeasible it is to operate a stick while eating an ice cream cone. :eek: (Extremely unfeasible.)
Then circa 1992 my other ex wanted to learn to drive, but refused to learn on a stick, so we got an automatic. Haven’t touched it since I gave up my Subaru in '93, but I have confidence I could resume it at a moment’s notice. Not that I expect that’ll ever happen again.
Yeah, but did you also occasionally stomp on the brake with both feet?
I was, for a short time. When I was a teen my father taught me to drive with 2 feet on an automatic; he learned to drive on a Model A Ford when he was 14, in the 1930s. I didn’t get my license until years later, and when my boyfriend taught me again, he was horrified when he realized that I was driving with 2 feet.
I’ve never had my left foot fall asleep, even on a long highway drive. It doesn’t just sit there–I tap it if I’m listening to music, or if I’m braking with the right foot.
Do you ever drive on the equivalent of an interstate highway? In the US, when I’ve had manual cars, I can drive dozens of miles at a shot without shifting once. My left foot doesn’t fall asleep under those circumstances–does yours?
I can’t speak for Roderick Femm, but I personally have never, ever, stomped on the brake with both feet.
(I usually stomp my left foot on the floor instead, then frantically search around with my foot trying to find the non-existent clutch pedal before my brain finally kicks in and reminds me that there isn’t one)
Most of my driving miles have been in a manual. Maybe the cars I’ve been in just sucked, but I haven’t yet been in an automatic that:
- Didn’t hunt for gears on a long hill
- Had more than two “modes”–grandma mode and redline-all-the-time mode. With a manual, it’s much easier to drive in a spirited fashion, but not all the way to max performance.
- Could predict gearshifts in advance, such as preparing for a curve.
That said, I don’t anticipate driving a manual or automatic again as a daily driver. My current car has one gear and all of the advantages of both manuals and automatics.
I took driving lessons in 1975, on an automatic. I was nevertheless taught to use my right foot for both accelerator and brake, and to reserve the left foot for the clutch in case I ever drove manual. Do they still teach that nowadays, though?
I recently drove a Volkswagen Vanagon minibus which was an extreme pain in the ass to put in reverse. The stick had to be pushed in (as in, downwards pressure towards the direction of the floor) and also rotated all the way over to the left. The diagram on the knob did not remotely convey the procedure that was required. It was a long-ass old school floor shifter, a regular mop handle, and was so loose it actually had to be held in gear or else it would slip out.
I like a shifter to be just the right size, not too long, not too short, not too angled, but also not too vertical. The one in my Nissan 300ZX is perfect. I like the shifters in Japanese cars from the 80s and 90s. I also like the one in the BMW M3. I drove a 2013 Mustang GT recently that had a shifter which was stubby, nearly vertical, and shaped like a billiard ball. NOT a fan at all.
Yeah. A jockey shifter is also known as a suicide shifter, mainly because it requires you to take a hand off the bars to shift.
Sycromesh is a godsend to manual drivers. It allows you to push in the clutch and go from gear A to Nuetral to gear B in one step. Without sycros, you have to double clutch; press in clutch, shift to neutral and release clutch. Press in clutch again and shift to new gear.
Unless you’re into boating and need an anchor ;). First Honda I drove was a 77 CVCC Civic with a Hondamatic.
I learned to drive in an old Beetle that needed to be double clutched. It turned me off manuals for years. When a friend let me drive his new Dodge Stealth with a stick, he was confused because he never had to know about double clutching. Had a lot more fun when I found out you didn’t have to drive most sticks that way.
I have nothing against slushboxes, and have a daily 2015 Ford Focus. My project car is a 99 Civic with a 5-speed and, for smiles per hour, won’t give up rowing my own.