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Recently, my youngest daughter has shown an interest in learning how to drive my Saturn SC2, which has a 5 speed manual transmission. Yesterday, I showed her the beginning step of how the clutch pedal works when it engages/disengages and how the return spring feels. This evening I took her out to the park where we reviewed yesterday’s lesson and then I let her try working the clutch in first gear (like I did for my oldest daughter in the same car). Tomorrow, we will review today’s lesson and maybe she’ll graduate to second gear B) (My dad had taught me how to drive a manual trans at an early age. I am so grateful he did.)
Anyone have similar stories or tips to share?
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When I was first teaching my son to drive, we had two cars, a Civic and an Odyssey. Needless to say, he had no interest in learning to drive a minivan, so his only option was to learn to drive with a stick right off the bat. He took to it immediately, and passed his driver’s test with flying colors. Ten years later, he’s never driven anything but a manual.
With my daughter, it was a whole different story. She never took to the manual. She was fine in the parking lot, and seemed to find the engagement point easily, but once we got out on the road, it was a completely different story. She was much more nervous and easily became confused about when to push the clutch pedal in, which gear to shift into, when she need to give it more gas, etc. Then she went off to college and never gained enough experience to become comfortable with the manual. So when she graduated, I bought her a Civic with an automatic.
It’s such a shame because my son’s first car was an 05 Corolla with a 5-spd, extremely well cared for and running beautifully. She could have had that car for a song when he upgraded to a newer vehicle.
I’ve taught a bunch of people to drive stick shift, and the first thing I start with is getting them able to take off without using the accelerator pedal. Then I get them using the accelerator gradually to learn to take off more and more quickly. To get them to understand the idea of when/why to shift gears, I compare to a multi speed bicycle (lower gears are easier to pedal but your legs move too fast (just like engine RPM) as you gain speed so you shift to higher gears). Even people without any natural driving ability can learn pretty well with that approach, unless they don’t know how to ride a multi-speed bicycle. In those cases, it’s very hard to teach a non-mechanical person about gear ratio principles.
[quote=”lar1969″ post=141602]Recently, my youngest daughter has shown an interest in learning how to drive my Saturn SC2, which has a 5 speed manual transmission. Yesterday, I showed her the beginning step of how the clutch pedal works when it engages/disengages and how the return spring feels. This evening I took her out to the park where we reviewed yesterday’s lesson and then I let her try working the clutch in first gear (like I did for my oldest daughter in the same car). Tomorrow, we will review today’s lesson and maybe she’ll graduate to second gear B) (My dad had taught me how to drive a manual trans at an early age. I am so grateful he did.)
Anyone have similar stories or tips to share?[/quote]
After a review of yesterday’s (Sunday’s) lesson, second gear was achieved this evening. Go Girl! 🙂
Wednesday, our goal will be third gear.I’m with Fopeano, Learn how to get it moving without killing it by letting out the clutch. That way they get to know the spot they will need to let it out to before the gas catches. Another thing to learn which can cause panic (I know as I had no idea until I was in it) is how to take off on a hill. Its the same principle of letting the clutch out to the catch point then giving it the gas. Let the kid practice both a lot before letting them face traffic. My old man just screamed at me, it was no fun.
I may be describing this poorly but I think other standard drivers know what I mean.[quote=”94newtome” post=141690]My old man just screamed at me, it was no fun.[/quote]
My mom taught me to drive on her 87 Civic hatch, and that’s what I took my driving test on. I will never forget the very first time, in my high school parking lot. I was not being smooth with the clutch, and the car was jerking violently. This exchange, in the midst of me violently bucking the car, was priceless:
Mom: “Feather the clutch!”
Me: “What does that mean?!”
Mom: “I don’t know!!!”I had no understanding of what a clutch was and no internet, so I was just shooting from the hip, getting in the car and trying.
I grew up watching every member of my family drive stick shift, raking through the gears back and forth. I remember being in my single digits and not understanding the rare moments I noticed I was riding in a automatic car, barely able to comprehend the that the car was being driven too easily. A little later into my single years I saw a TV show with a dramatization of a situation where a toddler was left alone in a running car, and they inadvertently knocked the column shifter into reverse and went for a little ride. I remember thinking “That’s not how cars work. This must be fake”.
I still to this day cannot shake the idea that driving an automatic is fake driving. I’ve been driving my first automatic for a year now. It has its nice moments, but I really don’t like it. At least it’s a Honda, and has kind of like a automatically controlled manual trans (clutch drums where the synchronizers/shift hubs would be), but it still drives like an automatic. I really only bought it because I needed a car and still needed solid experience rebuilding auto trans. It was a steal on Craigslist when I suddenly needed a new daily driver, $800 for a great condition Accord with a blown tranny, but that’s a story for another time…
Wednesday evening, my daughter graduated to manual 3rd gear.
She was having a little trouble getting started…kept stalling. We were on a very slight incline but I didn’t think anything of it at first. Then after a couple of tries she was about to give up. I told her I would turn it around so she could have an advantage of a slight decline. Well, she got it up to third gear by the time we reached the Stop sign at the end of our street. She was so proud of herself. Come to think of it, I was pretty proud of her too.
Later that evening, she admitted to almost giving up. She said, “Mom, had you not persuaded me to try one more time, I wouldn’t have gotten up to third gear.”
I replied, “Sometime you have to push yourself to keep going, even when you don’t want to.”
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