When I was a teenager, trying to learn to drive for the first time, my mom’s car (hence, the car I was learning on) was a stick. I just could not do it. It was one thing more to pay attention to, which was enough to put me over my limit of how many things I could pay attention to at once. Maybe after I learned an automatic, and all of those other things became routine to me, I could go back and add one more thing, but not all at once.
It’s definity come in handy for me in locations abroad where stick is still standard. In fact, that’s why I learned it first, because something like 90% of cars were manual when I lived in Hungary, and it was a pain finding an auto to rent.
I suspect it will die out eventually, but I do still find it a useful skill to know, but by the time my kids are of driving age, I doubt I will be teaching it to them unless they show a particular interest in learning.
My parent’s cars were manual, so that’s what I learned on. I have never had an issue, and still prefer manual transmissions, but they are harder and harder to find.
I was put into a situation once, back in high school, where I was to sneak over to a friend of my dad’s while my family was at a Christmas Eve party. My dad was buying my little sister a used snowmobile from his friend, and I was tasked with using his friend’s pick up to get it home and put a bow on it for Christmas morning. This was in the mid 1980’s. When I got in the truck, which I recall to be a mid sixties Dodge, I discovered three pedals on the floor and a shifter sticking out of the steering column. Of course, I had heard of a “three on the tree,” but I had never seen one outside of a car show, and certainly never driven one. It was only a few miles back to our house, and I had the shift pattern figured out pretty quickly. With the snowmobile unloaded, on the way back to dad’s friend’s house, I wondered why they ever did away with column shift. It seems to make much more sense, especially in a vehicle with a bench seat designed to seat three across.
Column shifted manuals were available until 1986 for Ford trucks, and '87 for Chevy and GMC.
Airman will only drive a stick, because he’s a man’s man who takes pride in the fact that he can, because it makes his car theft-proof, and because I can’t, so I can’t wreck it. (I can drive it short distances down straight, flat roads, but anything more than that, forget it.)
However, the sprog is now 16 and in possession of a valid learner’s permit. :o He wants to learn to drive a stick, which means that Airman has to teach him. This could get really interesting.
I learned in a real hurry my senior year in college, when my parents bought a used “car” from “friends” (an old Fiat, hence the quotes); prior to that I’d driven one precisely once when helping a friend move her car to another parking lot. By preference, we bought manual transmissions for many years after that because why pay more for poorer mileage - and of course theft resistance. I actually taught my husband how to drive manual.
Our son is now driving my husband’s 18-year-old Civic, which is manual. He did NOT like the learning process and avoided it - but when my husband had a knee injury earlier this year and had to take my car, Dweezil had to either use the Civic or do without. He definitely struggled but now handles it perfectly competently.
One piece of advice my husband gave him was “when in doubt, put the clutch pedal down first”.
There were, of course, quite a few stalls along the way that had him very, very frustrated - but he did learn when he had no alternative.
Our last 2 new cars were a Dodge Caravan (manual not even an option) and my CR/V - ditto, I think. As we age, handling the clutch in heavy traffic is more of a burden, so I think we’re done with manual now.
This was a while ago now, but FtGKid2 bought a used Acura as a first car. Didn’t know how to drive a stick. So I drove it home from the purchase then took the kid out in the neighborhood for lessons. Terrible at it. The curves and hills didn’t help.
Then I came home and found the kid and the car gone. Taken it off to work. Said there were some stalls here and there, but that was it. No problem from then on. (Well, until the timing chain broke.)
One “trick” I tried to pass along. When starting off keep your hand on the shifter, not just for shifting later but to “feel” how the engine is doing. If it feels rough, e.g., give it more gas.
I had some early experience first on tractors and then on old beater pickups. Those are a lot more forgiving.
Huh. I was explicitly taught by somebody who knows a hell of a lot more about cars than me to not do that. I assume these are the reasons why. Probably not a big deal, but I don’t do it. And I’m not sure what kind of feedback the gear shift gives you that you don’t feel throughout the car anyway.
One factor that makes it less useful to know how to drive a stick is that the gas mileage advantage has pretty well disappeared (some automatic transmission models are actually rated more gas-efficient compared to the same car offered with manual transmission).
Sure there is - it’s a great theft deterrent. Hard to steal a car you can’t drive away.
Stops the stupid car thieves. The really cool car thieves only steal cars with a stick.
DH says that “driving” an automatic isn’t driving, it’s steering. I think he’s right. All our cars together have been manuals until I had to get this little automatic, because I just couldn’t find anything else.
This is the way of things today. What’s funny is that super and hyper cars (Ferraris, Lamborghinis, etc) have all abandoned manuals altogether in favor of dual clutch 9, 10, etc speed trannys that shift FAR faster than a human can, making the cars even more ridiculously fast than they already were. Of course, this avoids the simple point that driving a manual is a visceral experience, especially in a sports car, as your hand is constantly on “the cock” of the car. There’s not much more fun to be had driving than blasting through an apex of a turn in a lower gear and shifting through the turn at full throttle with a manual as the rear end of the car kicks out a little and you bring it back in by steering. I miss my Mustang GT for this reason.
It’s a vanishing skill because in the North American market manuals represent such a small percentage of overall car sales for “normal” (ie, non-sports cars) vehicles that most manufacturers just don’t bother with them. It makes me a sad Panda. Honda used to have one of the best manual trannys in the business. A friend used to have a V-6 Accord coupe with a manual and that thing was sweet to drive. Now both the tranny and the V-6 are gone from that car. SAD!
Generally speaking, that’s because many of them have hill ascent assist of some kind that engages a feature on the car that prevents rollback for 1-2 seconds to allow the driver the chance to engage the tranny and get moving up the hill.
These days, this is mostly true. But there are PLENTY of auto trannys on fast cars that have paddle shifters and the newer trannys with those are VERY responsive. I know it isn’t quite the same, but that option does exist.
This is the funny thing to me. It’s absolutely true that manuals sell better abroad than in the North American market, and that many of the cars over there are much smaller and even more fuel efficient than ours.
Yeah, the MPG bonus for manuals has been engineered away with newer cars. It is what it is.
It might be that for some. Cars are actually harder to steal these days than they have ever been. Smart keyfobs, GPS locators, etc are pretty theft-deterrent.
I’ve always like manual transmissions - have owned four speeds, five speeds, 3 on the tree, etc. But they’re not fun on the Dan Ryan during rush hour.
Somehow, I’ve never gotten to that point yet. I’ve been driving pretty much exclusively manuals for the last twenty years, and I still haven’t gotten to the point where it annoys me in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I like it because it at least gives me something to do. Plus the clutch on today’s manuals are so light they barely require any effort. (Not like the 1979 Mercedes W123 I learned on which was a workout!) Even when I replaced my 2004 Mazda 3 with a 2014 Mazda 3, I couldn’t believe how much lighter the clutch was, and I had thought the 2004 had a fairly easy clutch.
Good point. I haven’t driven a manual in some time, and the ones I drove had pretty stiff clutches. I first leaned on a Mercedes 300 SL. Took a lot of pressure.
I much prefer to drive a manual. I feel that I have much more control over both speed and handling. But, they are a pain if you have lots kids or pets in the car and if you experience stop and go traffic daily. If you want to drive a car while vacationing in Europe, know that most cars are manual transmissions and you will pay more for an automatic.
My current vehicle is an automatic and it drives me buggy, except that I have to deal with the aforementioned stop and go traffic. I wanted the bigger enging in my 2014 Mazda CX-5 and in order to get that, I had to give up the thought of a manual transmission. I needed a car ASAP and wasn’t in a position to quibble.
That was an advantage when I lent my manual Echo to my daughter for her nursing school rotations… none of her friends would even ask to borrow her car!
Note the context: Beginner driver. Never said to always do this plus a beginner isn’t going to be so attuned to the engine sounds, etc.
Think about it: compare the amount of damage a beginner is going to do to a transmission by not noting how the engine is doing vs. the amount of damage done leaving the hand on the shifter a bit longer in those few days.
I know which one I’d pick.
Like I said, probably not a big deal, but, also, I’m not sure what kind of feedback putting my hand on the stick gives me. Like I really don’t feel anything through the stick.
This!
MT cars (manual trans) are fun to drive, too.
My three kids all learned. Two sons and a daughter. The girl, the youngest, at first didn’t want to learn. My reply, “You don’t have to like it, but I want you to at least know how to drive one. After that, if you never want an MT, you can always go with an AT.”
She didn’t like it, but she learned. FF to 2 years later and she’s in college. She needs a car and so we loan her mine, an MT. She became proficient with it. My wife then swaps her car with the girl, because her MT is better than mine (my clutch take-up was pretty high). So for a year the girl is driving MT. And she likes my wife’s car better than mine.
And then FF some more to later when the girl buys her first car, and it’s an MT! And so is her second car too. And the boys, they own MT.
I’m glad they like MTs and are proficient with them.