Learning to drive a stick shift

[HERVEPA]

I've been driving for 45 years, but need to learn to drive a stick shift.
Don't want to ruin my girlfriend's car, so taking a lesson from a driving school.
90 minutes in the car for the lesson. Is that long enough for a codger my age to learn?

[KG]

1. should take like 15 min.

[Seedersandleechers]

2. Just make sure you

practice stopping and starting on a steep hill with a lot of cars behind you. I like your GF, I exclusively only drive/buy 5 speeds.

[HERVEPA]

4. Don't want to only use my car on long trips,

so I figure I ought to learn. Never had a need before. Thanks for the advice.
Her driveway is steep and you have to back out onto a somewhat main road. I'm sure that will freak me out.

[jmowreader]

22. How to start on a steep hill

Gas engine or small low-torque diesel engine vehicle: Pull up the handbrake and hold it. When the light turns green, give it a LITTLE gas and start letting the clutch out. When it takes hold, slowly lower the handbrake lever and drive away.

Peterbilt, or small diesel with lots of torque: Hold down brake with right foot and clutch with left. When the light turns green, slowly let the clutch out. You'll feel the engine start to take hold. When it does, take your foot off the brake and step on the gas.

[redqueen]

3. I dunno...

I first learned to drive in a stick shift, and I didn't get smooth with shifting for a while. I guess it depends on your aptitude for such things. Timing and coordination and all that.

[HERVEPA]

5. Generally coordination is pretty good, but...

as I get older, not as good at learning new things. Oh well, it'll be her car I'm messing up, not mine. :-)

[Mopar151]

26. Warch these guys, you'll get the idea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJbxbaZQFi8&feature=related

[appal_jack]

6. Most important thing to remember:

The most important thing to remember is that the clutch is applied gradually. It is not a switch. Pay attention to how, when, and where along the clutch pedal's arc that the engine starts to engage. Move the gas pedal proportionately in order to keep engine rpm's where you need them, and you'll be golden.

I think that doing the first 90 minutes of learning on a school car instead of in your girlfriend's is an Excellent idea. Good luck,

-app

[flvegan]

7. What you really want to practice is stopping, then getting the RPMs up good and high

like in the 4500 range, and then dumping the clutch.

:evilgrin:

[HERVEPA]

9. Well thanks. I guess I didn't need the girlfriend...

She's a meateater anyhow

[Mopar151]

25. Avoid this with the g/f around

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdRz0L38UL4&feature=related:evilgrin:

[Skittles]

8. seems a little short

a friend of mine really wanted a stick shift car but didn't know how to drive it so the guy who sold her the car gave her lessons - I think she had three of them, about an hour each.....LOL, that's a dedicated salesman :D

[HERVEPA]

10. Well it's $150, so the 1.5 hours will have to do!

[Mugu]

11. The biggest mistake that I see beginners make is to "ride" the clutch.

The clutch is only used to start from a dead stop and for changing gears. The rest of the time your foot should not be touching it (you don't hold the clutch in while sitting at a stoplight.)

When you want to coast or stop place the transmission in neutral (that's what neutral is there for.) If you constantly ride the clutch you'll be replacing it shortly.

[jmowreader]

12. Not everyone uses the clutch to shift

If you can match engine speed to road speed with your gas pedal you don't need to clutch. This is called Floating the gears, and it's not outrageously hard.

[Mugu]

13. Completely agree. n/t

[Lionel Mandrake]

14. You will have no trouble learning this.

You will quickly learn exactly how far to let the clutch out, so that the car just starts to move, and the engine doesn't slow down too much.

After a while, you will know how the engine noise depends on your speed in low gear. Then you can try shifting from second gear into low while the car is moving (double clutching). If you do that just right, you won't need a new transmission. ;-)

[Capn Sunshine]

15. wow, take all the time you need.

IMO, stick shift is a survival skill.

[triguy46]

16. Do you know anyone with a VW bug, the old kind?

If so, learn on that because the clutch timing so unforgiving as to be almost irrelevant. An hour driving that and you can drive any standard.

[tigereye]

21. that's what I learned on and drove as a teen- what a pain in the ass

I was always stalling it, and it was really creepy trying to start going up hill.. newer cars and clutches are so much easier!

[Seedersandleechers]

32. not to mention

Renting an automatic in europe is twice the cost as a manual.

[MadHound]

17. One thing you need to cover

Besides the stop, start, rolling stuff. How to go from park, with parking break on, to going up the hill. It involves three operations. In addition to the usual clutch-gas maneuvar, you also have to gradually let off the hand brake at the same time. You know you've got it when you can go from parked to rolling without rolling back more than one foot.

PS, always when you park, even in gear, apply the parking break. There's nothing like that "oh shit" moment when you see your car has popped out of gear and is rolling downhill.

[hayu_lol]

18. Half hour to 45 minutes is all it will take...

My kid, before leaving for college, had to learn to drive a stick...his car was a stick. He had learned to drive with an auto. We went to a local high school on a Saturday. That great big beautiful parking lot with nothing to hit and great visibility.

Spent about 20 minutes explaining(again and again)how the clutch works and where it works. Showed him exactly where the engage point in clutch pedal travel was. Showed him what happens when you just race the engine and dump the clutch. No surprises left to demonstrate.

Start in low, get to shift point, and then stop the car--use the clutch to keep from killing the engine. Do this over and over until you are familiar to the feel of properly engaging the clutch.

Then try to start out, shift to the next higher gear and then to the next. Slow and stop. Repeat as often as necessary until your operation smoothes out. Next, try some more starts from a dead stop. Repeat the upshifting process through the gears.

By this time, you should be fairly comfortable with the procedure. Get the car moving and shift up through the gears. Next trick is downshifting(higher gear to lower gear). Not much of a problem with synchomesh trannies. But, clutch in, select next lower gear, rev engine just a bit, then smoothly release the clutch and repeat the exercise until you are comfortable with it.

Starting on a hill? A little tricky until you get the kinks out of it. You may be more comfortable setting your handbrake at first, particularly if some car comes up right behind you. Do not pick a steep hill to practice on until you are ready for it. Set your handbrake. Watch traffic/signals/ped. traffic. When ready, give the car some gas and ease the clutch out. When the engine starts to lug, release your handbrake and give the engine some gas. You will, at least the first few tries, kill your engine. Practice makes perfect. Thats why you set the handbrake--to avoid backing into the car behind.

Good luck and many safe miles of driving.

[hayu_lol]

19. Trivia I forgot to add...

On uphill starts, the 1948 Studebaker had a gizmo that was called a hill-holder. You brought your car to a stop and put your foot on the brake. Leave the clutch pedal on the floor. The 'hill-holder' held the car until you were ready to start out. You didn't have to keep your foot on the brake. This was really quite a gadget.

[Mopar151]

34. You can still buy an accesory that performs about the same way

THE ORIGINAL ROLL/CONTROL

Used primarily in drag racing to provide positive locking action to the
front wheels of race cars, reducing the chance of “Rolling the Lights”
and producing more effective “Burn Outs” for heating up the tires.
Rigorous testing has proved a 1/100,000 of a second release time and
vibration tests have seen up to 30 G’s applied without mechanical
failure. Adaptable to most domestic and import hydraulic brake systems.
1745000

often controlled with a button in the shift knob -
Equipped with a 12-volt 10
amp capacity normally open snap action switch which can be used
for activating a Roll/Control, nitrous or other accessory.

Drag racers often use a multi-stage RPM limiter (aka launch control) as well, with a switch on the clutch linkage and a latching relay - you'll see one working in the Larry Larsen video posted below (#24, 1st vid). When the car is brought to the start line, and the clutch is depressed, the relay is engaged, and the gas pedal is floored. The limiter induces a misfire above a preset RPM, until the clutch is released. In the case of Larry's car, this also helps "spool up" the turbochargers. when the clutch pedal is released, the engine goes instantly to full power. The "roll control" can be released by the same system - which makes for extremely consistent starts, as you can regulate how hard the car "hits" by the RPM selected.
I'm told some Saturns limit RPM to 1/2 of redline with the clutch pedal depressed - Hmmmm....

[Mutley]

20. Figuring out what to do is easy.

Getting used to it was something else. ;)

[MiddleFingerMom]

23. I stole a Jeep from the motor pool on a dead, lazy Sunday afternoon...

.
...and with a courageous, foolhardy intructor/friend along drove it around
post (where there was zero traffic) and ground some gears and STOP/START
stalled it out 83,724 times before -- suddenly and amazingly -- I "got it".
.
Took it out in traffic with even more courageous foolhardiness and neither
hit anybody or anything.
.
I put it right back where I found it.
.
And I was a confirmed standard-shift lover for life.
.

[Mopar151]

24. If you "get" machinery in general, you should be fine

If you need some pointers, this video should help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sefQvleDsag

This may help as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqTUcZdlfsI&feature=related

In all seriousness - if you can keep a little of your mind on how the clutch actually works, and that, for the most part, it should be either fully in, or fully out, that's pretty much the secret.
How Stuff Works - clutches
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BaECAbapRg&feature=related

[Jokerman]

27. I taught a co-worker in about 30 minutes.

The company truck I was passing on to him was a standard and he'd never driven one.

After about 20 minutes in the parking lot and 10 on the road, he had the hang of it.

[HERVEPA]

28. Thanks everyone for all the tips and help!

[Midlodemocrat]

29. It's very easy to learn how to drive a stick. Honestly.

Will become second nature in a matter of hours.

[HopeHoops]

30. I learned in about 15 seconds because my friend was too drunk to drive his own car.

AND, one of the OTHER guys had backed it into the driveway - which meant I had to get the fucker UP the steep driveway without coasting back into the car behind me. It involved leaving some rubber behind.

[Raffi Ella]

31. It's pretty easy once you get a feel for it.

I learned to drive on one.

I'm driving an old mitsubishi eclipse now. When I first got it there were some heart dropping moments in traffic because it was just so loose. Stopping on hills was especially 'fun'. But I know the car now and have no problem at all.

I think once you "feel it" you'll get it - All this great advice everyone's given you will make sense then :)

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

33. Remember the old joke

where the country boy comes to New York city and asks someone how to get to Carnegie Hall and they say 'practice,practice, practice'? :)
That's you and the stick shift. Start in mall parking lots in the early morning so you have lots of space around you and 'practice, practice, practice'

[Deep13]

35. Yes. At least you will not longer be in danger of damaging g/f's car. nt

[Taitertots]

36. I learned in a truck with a broken battery

Any time it stalled we had to push start it. Nothing like a little motivation to avoid stalling in traffic.

[lunatica]

37. Practice

Practice is what it takes, especially when you have to stop at a stop light or stop sign when going up a hill. At first you'll feel a little panic but soon you'll learn to hold both the clutch and the accelerator with both feet so the car stays put in one spot. Then when the light turns green you can accelerate slowly and ease up on the clutch slowly to go forward. It becomes quite a smooth take off when you finally get it.

Just practice. After a while it comes automatically and you'll find yourself having put the car in third or fourth gear and not remember doing it. That's when you'll know you've got it all uploaded into that computer brain of yours.