FrankReynoldsCPA

Also, driving a manual forces you to pay a little more attention to the road. One less hand to text with, and you have to plan ahead a little more.

Lil4X

We raised a whole generation of drivers before the current one who hardly ever saw a stick. As far back as the mid seventies, when both my personal car and my company car were sticks, I'd often have to self-valet or drive it onto a washrack myself; the local wash-monkeys being unable to figure out how to move the car - even after a couple minutes of gear-grinding . . .

Blackraven

Ah I see.

Though I have to admit however that in countries/territories with extremely high stop-and-go traffic (i.e. like in the Philippines), managing that clutch pedal really hurts and puts pressure on the left leg and left foot.

I understand that the principle of the clutch pedal is that (as you said) acts as a device that manages the amount of power between the engine and the gears.............or something like that. The tricky part imho (and which I believe most first-time stick drivers and newbies have trouble dealing) is with "FINDING THE BALANCE" with regards to clutch modulation for 1st gear and Reverse Gears.

So in a way, the first two steps are fairly easy:
1) From full stop, fully step/press on both clutch pedal and brake pedal
2) Shift to 1st gear

However the third step gets tricky

3) Slightly step on gas/accelerator pedal while gradually releasing the clutch pedal UNTIL the car starts to move (i.e. most call this the working principle or working point..........or as my driving instructor calls it: WORKING LEVEL).

The tricky part doesn't end there because that same dilemma becomes more difficult if you have to do this procedure on a steep incline

Oh and another difficult thing is to make your car move again when coming from full-stop on an incline (i.e. on a hill). I remember when I was in the driving school car (i.e. a Corolla Altis 1.6 liter with a stick), I remember that I had an extreme difficulty on this one.

MY CAR STALLED THREE TIMES and my driving instructor told me that we need to go otherwise the traffic enforcer might charge us for obstruction of traffic.

Thing is, I was worried with how I needed to:
1) Quickly switch my right foot from brake pedal to gas/accelerator pedal
WHILE
2) Releasing my left foot WHILE making sure that I don't fully release it (otherwise my car would stall.........which happened frequently )

It's a balancing act that was extremely difficult for me. That and I had to worry to make sure that my car's rear end won't hit the car behind me.

The act of properly managing the movements of both your left foot and right foot at the same time was really challenging to me.

In the end, the only way I got out of that mess: Step hard on the gas/accel pedal and rev it to 5,000 RPM. Unfortunately, I was worried and asked my driving instructor (who was seated at the passenger seat) if I damaged the engine or the clutch. I can't remember what he said back then.

Hmm........now that I think about it:
On one note though, someone told me that Manual cars with DIESEL engines are a little bit more user-friendly to first-timers................perhaps because the high amount of low-end torque in a diesel car helps in reducing the occurrence of stalling.

Or perhaps maybe low-end torque is beneficial in this case (hence why in Top Gear, they showed how an Lancer Evo can start from standstill to motion......in 5th/6th gear and still run).

Anyways

P.S.

Haha

There was this episode of the Amazing race season 17 where one of the teams stalled their RIGHT HAND DRIVE stickshift-powered Vauxhall Insignia vehicle in the middle of traffic (on probably some road leading to the M4 motorway)




The same thing also happened to Kynt and Vixsin in season 12 where she burnt the clutch of their car (a FIAT Multipla van I think???)......... while in Italy.

FrankReynoldsCPA

I wonder how long I would last as a Jeepney driver in Manila with my screwed up left knee, lol.

link13

True and this is why my daily driver in SoCal is an automatic. However, if you're in stop and go traffic, you don't have to hold the clutch down while stopped. You can shift to neutral and let the clutch out to give your foot and leg a short rest.

Your comments on starting from a dead stop on a hill are pretty common issues for people IMO. My personal thoughts are that it is a mistake for a driving instructor to take a new stick driver to a steep hill before the learner is very comfortable starting on a fairly level road. When possible, I would suggest trying more gradual hills to start once a comfort level is there. It's been 10 years since I drove a manual transmission car daily. I can still hop in and drive them without issues.

link13

As far as whether it's ethical to drive a stick, I would question whether it's ethical to drive an eleven year old Saturn first.

FrankReynoldsCPA

What's wrong with driving an eleven year old saturn? My little sister drives one, it's a great little car.

Lil4X

A Navy buddy took delivery of a '69 hemi Roadrunner, then proceeded to mess up his back in a shipboard accident. I got to chauffeur him for a few weeks, and driving that car was a blast - until you got into traffic. The racing clutch, high-ratio rear end, and taxicab-level interior without AC or power steering was the civilian equivalent of a NASCAR stocker. (It tuned out to BE a mis-shipped stocker - giveaways were the massive brakes and the "Petty blue" paint.) Not the best combination for the bumper-to-bumper crawl of an urban freeway at rush hour. By the time we got to work each day after driving about 25 miles from our apartment to the shipyard, I was crippled up worse than he was. My much-maligned year-old 289 V8 Mustang, particularly with its auto tranny and air conditioning was looking better all the time.