Don’t money shift it. That’s when you feel like racing and you slam it into second from first, then from second into what you think is third but is actually first again.
To bypass that I always just let shifter go back to the middle and then I change the speed.
Yes it takes avay 0.3 seconds to do but allowed me to never money shift and be able to overtake cars without doing it either.
Keep the radio/music off. It’s much easier to hear the engine and how the clutch engaged while you are getting used to your new clutch
I find it interesting how those of us having learned with manuals just know when to shift after a while, even if the music is blaring.
You sort of just feel it.You’ll get there soon, OP, just keep practicing!
You literally feel it in the seat of your pants, after a while.
I have 2 cvt scooters (no real defensible reason), and it makes me uncomfortable having RPMs go up or down without direct relationship to speed
Hehe yeah I feel you mate.
I ride motorcycles and struggle getting used to scooters. The almost digital feeling throttle control (on/off, speed will come eventually) is not for me.Enjoy your scooters this summer!
If you stall and everypne starts getting angry, ignore them and do your thing slowly and safely.
Yup. Once you recover from a stall a few times you can get pretty fast at it, but don’t worry about going slow and methodical.
Safety first!
You’re going to drive it without lessons? Is that legal where you live? I’m confused about the question
I was just asking for general tips tbh, I have experience driving and rode a motorcycle for several years, I just never had a manual car before. If that makes more sense?
If you’re used to a motorcycle clutch, you’ll take to a manual car very quickly.
When you start the car on uphill roads, press release the clutch slowly and press the accelerator at the same time. Balance it.
Pffft thats not the fun way, the fun way is to redline the engine then slam off the handbrake.
Try not to cruise in neutral. Better to be in gear whenever possible to reduce brake wear/make it easier to brake and ensure you have power to the wheels when you need it (e.g. an emergency situation).
Also, as fun as popping the clutch is, it’ll eventually kill your car.
Some advanced stuff since everybody else probably already covered the beginner stuff:
When you get the hang of driving stick, which you will pretty quickly, you can try matching revs on downshifts to smooth things out and then you can try heel toe with matching revs.
When you get really good you can shift gears without engaging the clutch just by rev matching, but don’t try that til wayyyy later. Can mess up the gears.
When you get the hang of driving stick, which you will pretty quickly, you can try matching revs on downshifts to smooth things out and then you can try heel toe with matching revs.
This I definitely do recommend once someone is comfortable with the basics, particularly the rev matching on downshifts. It both makes driving smoother and makes clutch wear once moving negligible so in the long run you save money too. I consider rev matching an early intermediate level skill - not something I’d trouble a raw beginner with due to information overload but something that should be learnt before they start thinking it’s too hard (because while it is not hard an unfortunate number of people will tell others it is).
Heel toe shifting can wait until people are comfortable with driving in general but I think is something one should learn if one enjoys driving - if only because it’s just plain satisfying to do. Again this is a technique made out to be difficult but it’s really not that hard (though how much foot manoeuvring is required does vary between vehicles).
When you get really good you can shift gears without engaging the clutch just by rev matching, but don’t try that til wayyyy later. Can mess up the gears.
This one however I recommend people keep in mind is possible (in case one ever loses clutch movement) but keep to a bare minimum on synchro boxes. Try it a couple of times to show yourself it works but you do have to be very familiar with the car to do this without putting wear on the synchros (keep in mind that if it didn’t slip in like butter you didn’t get it quite right and the synchros had to pick up the slack for you). It’s more easily done with a non-synchro box as these both give obvious auditory/tactile feedback when you’re doing it wrong and tend to have wider engagement points for the gear dogs to slip into. Motorbikes for example run non-synchronised gearboxes and are typically very easy to clutchless shift as long as you’re upshifting while accelerating and downshifting while decelerating.
Why would someone “cruise in neutral”?
Save gas, don’t have to shift through gears when coming to a stop, laziness.
Cruising in neutral doesn’t save gas at all, the engine still has to run so gas is injected. When cruising with a gear, the wheels make the engine run so it doesn’t need gas (not true for carburetors though if I’m not wrong)
True, but living in a country where the majority of cars are still manual I can tell you that that myth still stands.
We have electronic injection engines, you can stop with that neutral crap now.
Yeah, plus even carburetors engines don’t burn more fuel being on a gear than on neutral so there’s literally never an advantage to do that.
People should just remember that cruising in neutral is not good, period.
Driving is complex. Knowing what to pay attention to when takes time to learn.
I recommend not trying to drive a manual until you’ve already learned the basics in an automatic. In my opinion, learning to drive AND learning how to handle a manual transmission is too much at once.
Lol, where I love we still lern to drive on manuals since 99% of cars owned here are manuals and I literally don’t see how learning to drive and a manual at the same time is such a problem.
It’s virtually the opposite here. Most cars are automatics. Lots of drivers never learn how to operate a manual transmission, because they simply don’t have to.
I’m just biased by my own experience, I guess. I was relieved to already be familiar with the basics of operating a car. It made easier to concentrate on shifting when I already knew the “feel” of driving.
Except one short mention about riding the clutch, I haven’t seen this yet… Get into the habit of completely removing your foot from the clutch pedal whenever possible. Even just lightly resting your foot against the pedal can wear your clutch out prematurely. Cruising on the highway: remove your foot from the clutch pedal and rest it on the floor. Sitting at the lights: put the car in neutral and release the clutch. Put your foot on the floor until you’re ready to go. Also, it’s ok to coast to a stop with the clutch pedal depressed, but you have much more control if you downshift to a stop and you will extend the life of your brakes, too.
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Your driving instructor was wrong, and not even in the realm of correct. You keep your foot on the break pedal at a light, not put the parking brake up. In no world is sitting a light in neutral with your foot on the brake any more dangerous than Any. Single. Automatic that does the exact same thing if you were to be rear ended, roll forward. Except in this case, with your foot off the brake, the vehicle with an auto is going to roll slightly faster, because it’s having torque applied.
Edit: oh ya, if you’re putting your handbrake up while at a light, it makes you slower to react to changing circumstances. I’ll give a scenario that I saw 3 times today: You’re a new and inexperienced driver and a emergency vehicle comes from around a corner behind you while you’re sitting at a light, and you’re in the outermost lane which currently has the least traffic in it, and you have to move for it to get past. Which outcome seems more likely, A) the new and inexperienced driver smoothly releases the handbrake, applies the clutch and throttle equally while having slidden the shifter expertly into 1st gear, or 2) they shift into 3rd because its probably not the smoothest gearbox for their first manual and then dump the clutch with no throttle, stall, try to fire it up, remember they need to apply the clutch, start it and then stall into 3rd, then same thing after shifting into 1st but the handbrake is still up?
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You wouldn’t just use the foot brake if you’re in neutral?
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Accidentally stopping the engine is no shame. Whatever anybody thinks. Focus on not making collisions. You can always just start the engine again. Nothing bad happened. Collisions are the real headache and what is important.
There’s already plenty of good advice here. The one that I think is missing is that the clutch pedal probably has like 10 inches of travel, but it only cares about 1 inch of it. All the rest is just slop. You need to figure out where that zone is, and get good at hitting the start of that spot quickly.
Once you can get to the start of that zone reliably, then you can start working on how fast you release the clutch through that zone. The more power you’re applying with the throttle pedal, the faster you can release the clutch through this zone.
That depends greatly on the age/design of the car/truck. I’ve driven some that barely let you shift with the pedal in the floor, or like my new car, you barely even touch it and the clutch is slipping. My first car was somewhere in the middle; a few inches to fully disengage, with a couple to spare.
As with most things that you have to actually interact with, you have to get a feel for it before you’ll have perfect stop/starts.
When approaching a light or stop sign, smoothly press down the clutch and break pedal together. If it’s a red light where you might be for a while, pop the gear into neutral and let go of the clutch.
I was taught (rightfully or not) that holding down the clutch too long can damage it.
Really all you would wear out is the throw out bearing doing that and the clutch plate will go before that does. They are like $10 so they always get replaced with a clutch job. The pressure plate can be reused generally for 3 clutches
Honestly, my advice, unpopular as it might be, is that unless you plan on riding a motorcycle you should probably get an automatic transmission car instead of learning on a manual transmission. Manual transmissions–in the US, anyways–are largely relegated to performance vehicles where people want them. But the hard truth is that automatic transmissions do a better job at driving efficiently and keeping the engine at a safe and ideal load than any driver with a manual. And it’s a lot less hassle for most of the driving that people tend to actually do. For instance, it’s uncommon to have a cruise control on a manual transmission car, which makes long drives more tiring, and stop-and-go traffic puts less wear on an automatic transmission.
If you plan on riding a motorcycle though, you must learn to use a clutch, because all non-electric motorcycles use a clutch (usually a wet clutch, but Ducati uses a dry clutch); manual transmissions are lighter and more compact, and weight matters a lot on a motorcycle.
I say this as someone that learned to drive on manual transmissions, and exclusively had cars with manual transmissions up through about 2022.
It’s fun. Thats good enough reason to learn a manual car.
I also prefer them in snow. Being able to slow your car down without hitting the breaks is awesome when you have to drive in snow.
I’m going to have to kindly disagree on some points about manuals.
- Manuals are still popular in Europe and many parts of the world, on all levels of cars.
- I have a friend with a cheap(ish) Suzuki Swift that comes with manual transmission and adaptive cruise. Yeah it won’t change your gears, but still makes interstate trips much more comfortable.
I myself now prefer to drive auto, after moving to a city known for its traffic jam, and I am inherently lazy. So that’s one good argument from me.
Another is that if you injure one of your foot, there’s a 50% you can still drive your auto. Which was really handy that one time I dislocated my left ankle. In a manual, that chance is 0%.
Every manual transmission car I’ve owned made in the last 25 years has had cruise control. Is stop and go traffic a pain? Sure, but not enough of a pain for me to give up my manual.
The only feature that I kinda wish I had was radar assist- manuals definitely don’t have that from what I’ve seen.
Do you mean the adaptive cruise that’s matches cars speed in front of you? Toyota did a damn good job with it in their tacoma. It’ll brake as you’re coming up on a slow car and you can shift just fine without turning off cruise. It kills the throttle when you push in the clutch and letting the clutch back out after your shift feels very natural and cruise takes back over the throttle.
Yeah exactly- that’s why they don’t do it on manuals, no way to disengage the gear on slowdown. I’ve used it a few times in a Subaru and was really impressed.
No, I’m telling you that’s with a manual transmission. It’d just brake until the engine stalled if the driver forgot they were driving a manual. Adaptive cruise works great on a manual, Toyotas implementation at least.
No way!! I hadn’t seen that yet. Well you learn something every day!
Keep at it.
Nothing really to it, you just need time and lots of practice to build up the “muscle memory” for it, until it becomes little more than a reflex.
Most modern cars have hill assist, but it might still be a help to use the handbrake when starting on a hill, or at least know how to do it.
Lots of people talking about clutch work so I’ll mention something else - how to use the gearstick. Sounds a bit of a silly thing to talk about but how you do it can actually help.
I’ve seen various inexperienced drivers shift by grabbing the gearstick tightly and pulling it around in that same tight grip until it’s where they think the next gear should be. This usually works for getting around but it makes it hard to know what gear you’re actually shifting into and when it’s properly engaged - particularly on boxes that don’t give much feeling through the gearstick. One person in particular was repeatedly struggling with hitting the wrong gears (particularly when other things were happening) until I suggested they change this behaviour.
I recommend instead keeping a relatively loose grip on the shifter and considering changing gear a quick three part motion instead of a single one. Say for example that you’re shifting from second to third in a typical 5 speed H pattern - the three parts are you pushing up to move out of second (which you don’t need a tight grip for as it’s just pushing the shifter with your palm), centring the gearstick to below third (where you only need a loose side grip - there’s minimal force involved and keeping loose lets you feel the springs pull it where you want to be), and pushing upwards into third. Your grip should be changing a bit depending on what part of the shift you’re in and what gears you’re moving in/out of, I find this does help with improving feel and accuracy.
…also, jiggle it to check if you’re in neutral, then jiggle it again just to be sure: ooh, now you’re stopped at a light, better jiggle it…
(okay, that’s an easy tease, but as a compulsive habit it really does help cultivate kinesthetic proficiency through tactile feeback)
This isn’t bad advice and is similar to advice given to me when I first started. It’s bad form to leave your hand always on the shifter. I was told it can wear out the linkage faster as your always putting pressure on it.
