Close. In my case, it was releasing the clutch too quickly. If I gave it a lot of gas, the car would rocket forward. Took me a few hours to get that delicate balance right. That 240D had a very unforgiving clutch, not a lot of slip to it at all. I had no problems with stalling in first with the Mercedes G-Wagen (which, now that I think about it, is actually the first vehicle I drove stick). That vehicle had so much torque on it you really had to try to stall it.
With the stick I drive now (2004 Mazda 3), you don’t need to give it any gas to get it into first, but, as above, you have to be smooth with the clutch.
But I don’t drive much anyway, the last time I owned a car was about a decade ago. That is why I prefer living in large cities with ample public transportation.
(Bolding Mine) - For hilly driving a manual is both safer, and offers better performance. Going up steep slopes you should aways select the appropriate gear before starting - a manual allows this, and going down you should use exhaust / compression braking. Which a manual also allows.
Just a further note - an automatic transmission saps up to 10% more engine power than a manual, because of this (al other things being equal) a manual is more efficient than an auto.
One other little known point - in a fuel injected car, when you are coasting in a manual the fuel supply is actually 100% cut off, this doesn’t happen in an auto, which is one reason why a manual is more efficient.
I could swear that I read somewhere that modern automatics are as, if not more, efficient (as measured by fuel economy) than their manual counterparts.
1.) Yes, my father made me learn on both simultaneously and my first two cars ( covering ten years ) were sticks.
2.) USA
3.) 41
I’ve since given up on them, though - I find them occasionally tedious to drive in my particular area ( traffic plus topography ).
Also I’ve never really liked driving “strange” manuals, i.e. those other than my own. I can, but I am always more comfortable after I’ve spent a few days getting used to new clutch action. So I’d probably always spend the extra cash on an auto rental in Europe, just for the ease of it.
I’m not sure it’s fair to make that point using luxury cars. First, wouldn’t a luxury car with a manual transmission be geared towards (literally in this case) performance? You don’t go with the manual option in a Lexus or BMW in order to save money. Secondly the fact that these are all luxury cars would leave one wondering if automatic transmissions that are capable of gas-mileage parity with manual transmissions are too expensive for cheaper makes?
I’m not saying that I know this to be true, but it’s a question that comes to mind when A) this hasn’t normally been the case in the past, B) New technology is normally expensive at first, and C) It only seems to be true for high-tech luxury cars.
I don’t claim to understand automatic transmissions 100%, but an engine’s ECU determines fuel shutoff by monitoring the throttle position and the engine speed, and I can think of no reason why automatics would not also shut off fuel on decceleration.
The MPG “rating” of a car is influenced by a number of other factors, not just transmission choice.
The “rating” is based on a fixed set of driving parameters. A carmaker can always engineer the car around them.
Aside from the additional driveline drag of the automatic torque converter, which in modern cars is probably much less than what they use to be, basically, there’s nothing you can do in an AT car that you can’t do in a MT car. Is the AT shifitng up earlier to save fuel? You can do that with the manual too. Hell, you can up shift even earlier with a manual if maximum fuel economy is the goal, and in that way the manual should out-economize the auto.
I can drive a stick, and actually prefer it to an automatic. Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t, and doesn’t want to learn, so both of our cars are automatics so that we both can drive them.
(1) I drove one for a few years so I’m pretty comfortable, although I had a Suburu which is an easier stick to drive. It’s been a few years, so I might be rusty
(2) USA (New York)
(3) 38
Yes. We currently own 2 cars, both of them manual transmission
USA (California)
43
I learned to drive on an automatic, because that’s the car we had at the time. Not too much later, my brother taught me to drive a stick on his old VW bug.
We need a smiley emoticon that looks like a zombie.