Don’t step on the clutch with just your toes or the ball of your foot. Push down with the entire length of your foot. It’s easier to control it that way because you’ll be lifting/depressing the pedal with your knee movement instead of ankle.
Also, don’t ride the clutch, even if you think you’re just resting your foot over it lightly. That still puts pressure on the pedal. Rest your foot on the dead pedal when not shifting.
Don’t rest your hand on the shifter (applies to automatics too).
Use engine braking to your advantage.
To add on, if your left ankle is on the ground when working the clutch you’ll have trouble controlling it.
Like scytale says, use your whole foot so the action is at the knee. This means lifting your ankle up off the floor.
If you release the clutch slow enough, in most cars you can get moving just with idle engine.
Practice in a parking lot if you can, and just do that over and over until you understand the friction point.
Getting moving from a dead stop in first or reverse is really the only hard part of driving a manual, shifting up through the gears from there is trivial.
Learn to shift based off the sound of the engine, dont stare at the tachometer.
If you already know how to drive, learning manual isnt so hard. You are going to stall it out, you arent hurting anything but your pride when you do.
We made our kids go to a church parking lot and drive without the gas pedal. There was much bitching and screaming, but they both learned pretty quickly. Backing up through the circle drive without hitting the curb took much much longer.
In my experience, releasing the clutch without adding throttle will only get you moving in a diesel car.
Gasoline engines will stall much faster, which is part of the reason learning vehicles are all diesel.
I’ve never driven a car that couldn’t do this, and I’ve driven at least a dozen manual transmission cars and trucks, all gas. Hell my beater right now doesn’t have first gear, and I have no problems starting in second just idling. You just need to be really slow and attentive to your rpms. Not that you should always start rolling like this, but I agree with the comment above that it’s an excellent learning exercise. I always start with this one when I teach other people how to drive stick with great success, and I wish that I started with this exercise when I was learning.
Works I’m my 1L petrol car. You just need to be gentle.
I’m guess that you don’t live in the US? Almost all cars in the US–whether training vehicles or not–are gasoline, and it’s mostly larger pickup trucks that are diesel. VW is one of the few companies that sells consumer cars that are diesel, and I’m not sure that they do anymore, not after there was that huge scandal about intentionally cheating EPA emissions standards with their diesel cars a decade back.
A point on stalling: don’t panic! You’re gonna stall first in line at the stop light and you’re gonna look in the mirror at that long line of cars behind you, but don’t panic! Take a breath, clutch in and start the engine back up.
Learn to shift based off the sound of the engine, don’t stare at the tachometer.
Unless you’re like my grandpa who had his engine replaced at 20k miles because he revved the engine until he could hear it running before putting it into gear. Between quieter modern engines, and his hearing not being as good as it once was, that meant he redlined it in the driveway every time he started the engine.
He only got a couple more years out of the new engine, but that was because he couldn’t turn his head very well either so he didn’t bother looking before changing lanes.
The advice is more meant for changing through gears, not starting from a stop. As mentioned, you don’t really need much gas to get going.
Looking at the tach is so useful through. You can learn how your car can go into gear at different speeds depending on if you’re going uphill, downhill, or flat.
Learn to shift based off the sound of the engine, dont stare at the tachometer.
Do not do this.
Every engine has a different redline. The redline is based mostly on piston mass, which doesn’t necessarily correlate directly to engine displacement, given that it’s common to have 4, 6, or 8 cylinders in a car. If you’re shifting primarily based on engine sound, you can be shifting too low in one car, and then too high in another. The tachometer is a much more reliable way of learning where you should shift in any given vehicle.
Also, constantly running your car in the maximum power band–which tends to be close to the redline–probably isn’t great for it.
I don’t think they were saying you shouldn’t ever look at the tacho, but that you should learn to be able to pick your shift points without having to look at the tacho.
As you say you do want to figure out what revs works best for a particular vehicle (having driven/ridden vehicles with redlines between 2500 and 19000rpm there I can say there is a little bit of variability to be found out there) but it shouldn’t take long to figure out what this sounds and feels like for regular use.
Many cars and trucks don’t even have a tach. Older Ford focus’s don’t, they just have a shift light. I used to drive a 70s Ford ranger that had neither. Don’t get me wrong I wish it did, but it’s only a nice-to-have for regular driving. Shifting off sound is fine, but it’s not just sound, it’s the vibrations in your seat, how the engine reacts to gas pedal inputs, etc. I only look at the tach when I need to downshift to pass.
I learned on a 2000 Kia Sephia. Five speed, little four cylinder engine, that shit did not have a tachometer. I had to learn by the sound.
Even when I got into my Vr6 Jetta, or the Nissan spec-v (which had 6 gears) I was able to adjust my driving to the car easily because I first learned with sound. You learn the engine.
Probably try learning using both tbh
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.
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.
Agree with the other posters about clutch work. A small hill or parking lot with an incline may also help with clutch feel / practice.
That is what helped me get a better feel for using a clutch.
VROOOoooOOOMMM! Hee hee! I got a hybrid standard, and I will drive it until it literally falls apart (or I do.)
Hopefully the vehicle falls apart first, haha!
Thank you, that was very nice! But I do love my car, too.
practice letting off the clutch by going to an empty parking lot and try to release the clutch in 1st gear without stalling and without gas
then remember that your clutch foot and the gas foot are a 50 / 50 team
so for all the force you put on one, you need to take from the other
dont be afraid to use the parking brake on hills to help you get into 1st when your at a stop
Hill starts. Pedal timing for take off from standing. There’s a little dance to learn, @[email protected] hill start advice should see you learning it.
Parked or driving, you’ve got to be able to take off while facing uphill without rolling back. You don’t want to roll back into the person behind you. Also a good reason not to pull up too close behind others on a hill.
This is what I was going to say. Practice hills.
Practice taking off from being parked uphill.
Practice taking off from being stopped downhill.
People will park/pull up almost to your bumper and give you very little wiggle room.
Just remembered another thing he taught me which should help with standing starts.
Doing a hill start, you pop it into first gear with the clutch down while still on the hand brake.
Give it some revs (not a huge amount, and how much exactly will come with practice) and slowly start to come off the clutch. What you’re looking at is the front of the bonnet. As you get to the biting point the bonnet of the car will lift slightly. At that point you should be able to take it off the hand brake without rolling back.
Same thing if you need to do a standing reverse start on a slope, only this time you’re looking for the bonnet to dip a little.
The hardest part will be learning how to properly feather in the clutch. Find an empty parking lot and practice stopping fully then starting out with someone who has driven stick before and can give you feed back.
Don’t money shift it, pay attention to the road.
Everything has been said here
I just wanted to say welcome to the club! Driving will be fun again :)
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.
That’s a skill that won’t apply for much longer. If possible, don’t learn.
People will be annoyed with you and honk at you when you stall at a traffic light or something. Know and accept that fact. Do not mind them. Take your time to do things right. With time you’ll gain muscle memory and you won’t have to think about it at all. Until then, don’t mind the impatient drivers.
I watched my ex drive a manual for over a year. I intently focused on when he was shifting and what not. When I got the car finally for myself, I just got in and went. I had a friend show me how to reverse in the parking lot. I called my supervisor and told her, “I’m driving the kia in today myself, I might be late” and I took my first ride. Made it to work on time, but stalled everywhere I went for two weeks until I got the hang of it. Took a bit longer to get the hang of downshifting.
Dont panic when you stall! You’re just rebooting, keep going!
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.
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.
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!
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%.
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.
