I don’t own a car and dislike driving so it’s something that I rarely do. But when I do, it’s always an automatic. When I first got my driver’s licence I did try to learn to drive a manual, but I simply could **not ** co-ordinate the various hand/foot movements, much to the consternation of my instructor, who kept yelling “just feel it”. To me, a manual car seemed basically to be taking a simple process and then complicating it unnecessarily.
mouthbreather and I both prefer manuals. He taught me how to drive one several years ago when I bought his sister’s Miata.
Learning how to drive it sucked at the time, but it’s so much fun now that I hate driving an automatic.
And, contrary to popular belief, size doesn’t matter. We just bought a Nissan Frontier (truck) with a manual.
Another one checking in. Wish I could do it more, but I got out of that game some years ago. Still, I like to think that (especially after that) there’s nothing on the road I cannot drive.
My sister, on the other hand, is limited to automatic transmissions. And she likes it that way; I have no idea why.
I love stick transmissions. So does my wife. Good for you, FilmGeek, that you learned.
You should know then that with a 5 speed stick shift, 5 is just for cruising at highway speeds, 4 is “passing gear”, and from a dead stop, if you can’t get in and out of gear while flooring it (from 1 to 4), as well as remembering to shift to higher gears :smack: , you will loose the drag race 
I see you’ve discovered your joystick!! 
That’ll be the Kangeroo Petrol[sup]tm[/sup] they put in learner’s cars.
I think being snobby about driving a manual rather than an automatic is a Merkin thing. Pretty much everyone over here learns to drive in a manual, it’s normal to drive a manual, automatics are still the exception.
When I got an automatic it took a week or two to un-learn the left hand/left foot routine. The new motor has a parking brake where the clutch would be which led to a few abrupt stops in the first few days. The weirdest thing was not having to do the handbrake/clutch co-ordination since this car has neither.
Some of you have me worried now that I may have forgotten how to (ahem) drive stick. And I do (did? eek) know how to double de-clutch, and have driven a van with a broken clutch cable - doing what danceswithcats describes, starting the engine with first gear engaged and changing up (with no clutch) and stalling the engine when stopping. That was an interesting drive home. Just as well it was ~3am
You live in Kansas. You don’t know how to drive a stick.
I learned to drive a stick in Oklahoma, very much like Kansas road wise. I drove a stick there for years. Then one day I was lucky enough to take a trip to France, where I had to drive a car through western France on the secondary highways. So every few miles a circular junction would come up. This is where I learned to drive a stick. Downshifting and then shifting up as you go through these things is real stick driving. It took me a bit but I got the hang of it.
I learned to drive a stick on a flatbed delivery truck. That was scary. I learned fast, though!
I prefer a stick and like the control it offers - especially in the mountains - but in the city or other places where you’re in stop and go traffic, automatic is the way to go, imo.
Circular junction?
Do you mean a roundabout?
The clutch is on the left in American stick-shift cars too.
Adapting to driving a LHD stick takes me about ten minutes of intense concentration, an hour of gently reminding myself, and then it’s fine. Though when I get back to Ireland I do find myself trying to open the window for a fe hours instead of changing gear.
I recently rented an automatic, and it was horrible. Like taking a bath while wearing rubber boots. I felt insulated from the vehicle and therefore distinctly less in control. Happily I found that it had a (clutchless) manual override, so I used that instead.
If you mean a roundabout, I gotcha covered. We have smallish roundabouts every three blocks or so. And a lot of stoplights at the top of hills. Grr.
OK, so it looks like I’m acquiring an automatic in a couple of weeks. (Somebody owes me money and needs to get rid of a car, so it’s an obvious deal.) How the hell to I drive it? I don’t know anybody, apart from this one person, who drives an automatic. What do I do different (other than use a clutch, obviously)?
**GorillaMan ** - I’m probably not the best person to advise since I drive so so rarely, but the beauty of an automatic is that you don’t have to *do * anything. You press the accelerator to move and the brake to stop. That’s it.
What car is it and what type of automatic transmission is it? Can you optionally change gears sequentialy?
Anyway, the basic layout of the gear selector is the (from top to bottom) P,R,N,D in that order. P is Park, R is Reverse, N is Neutral and D is Drive.
To start the car you have to put the selector to P and keep the brake pedal depressed. (some cars will start with the selector in N too) Then, while keeping the gear seclector button depressed, pull it all the way down to D. That’s it. Release the brake and the car will start rolling.
Automatics usually have 4 gears. While in D, gears change automatically (I guess that’s why they call them automatics 
). When you cruise at a steady speed, the transmission will shift up to the highest possible gear. By fully depressing the accelerator, you force the transmission to shift down. This is called kickdown.
Modern A/Ts are electronically controlled and can adapt to different driver styles.
Also, keep in mind that you have to use only your right foot. Newbies will invariably try to brake using the left foot, which has very funny results.
Automatics can be fun if some criteria are met:
- A “tight” torque converter (the equivalent of clutch in a M/T)
- A gearbox that can change gears as fast as possible, and
- At least 10% more BHP than the manual version of the car
My car is a Hyundai Santa Fe. The torque converter is not especially “tight”, but the gear changes are very fast and the engine produces 180 BHP, so it’s a rather amusing car to drive.
On the other hand, I’ve driven a VW Golf and a Fiat Punto as automatics. If your car is going to be one of these, then you will be disapointed. In fact, you’ll vow not to ride an automatic again in your life
Thanks - that pretty much makes sense. It’s the whole selector business that I am fearing. It’d have been embarassing to be handed the keys, only to ask ‘oh yeah, how do I drive this?’
One thing I can’t figure out, though - hill starts?
(And no, it’s not got any options for sequential stuff, and it’s pitifully underpowered - but hey, it’s going to be mine anyway!)
I don’t do anything special for hill starts. When I come to a stop I put on the hand-brake. I don’t change gear. I just leave it in drive (D). Then, when I want to start moving again, I release the hand-brake and simply move off.
You use the hand brake on a hill in an automatic? Why?
Park: only when parked
Reverse: reverse
Drive: whenever you’re driving, this is the gear you’re in. You never shift out of it for regular driving.
Leave it in drive whenever you drive. Lower gears are pretty much exclusively for icy conditions.
You don’t need to do anything with the handbrake (I ONLY use it for parking on hills). Brake to a stop. Hold foot on brake. Take foot off brake, hit gas. Done. The car shifts itself.
Gorillaman, are you talking about driving a manual? There is no clutch pedal in an automatic.
LOL - I meant to say “other than not use a clutch”.
Congrats, FilmGeek. 
I have never owned, nor do I plan to ever own, an automatic. When I was a kid the family car was always a manual, and that’s what I learned to drive on. Since then I’ve driven plenty of automatics (usually rentals), and I definitely prefer manuals. In fact, for most of its life my old car had a sign in the back window that read “Real Women Know How to Handle A Stick.” (My best friend at the time I thought it up was a lesbian who only knew how to drive automatics, and she assured me that she wasn’t offended by either entendre.) I’ve had my current car for almost 10 months now, but haven’t recreated the sign yet…part of me feels too “old” to be driving along with a sign like that in my back window, but another part of me misses it.
My family lived in England from '83-'85, and my folks later told me that it took them some time to adjust to shifting with their left hands. I think for them it was harder than remembering to be on the “other” side of the road, but we never had an accident or anything.
Most people I know drive automatics (and now both of my parents do, as well), and I’m always amazed when someone asks me how I keep track of all of the shifting and clutch depressing; I tell them that most of the time I’m not even thinking about it, but some don’t believe me. What was embarrassing was the first time I ever drove an automatic: I was in college, it was a friend’s dad’s car (I was driving it because I was the only sober one left), and I stalled the car in a parking lot. I got teased quite a bit for that; apparently it’s not easy to stall an automatic!
The clutch – the stick – the thing that you move around with your hand – what you change gears with. It’s got all numbers on it. When it’s on the left I’m a very scared lady.