Teach Me How to Drive a Manual Car

From LoveToKnow Cars

If you've ever found yourself wanting to say to someone, "Please teach me how to drive a manual car," but you were too nervous or embarrassed to admit that you can't drive a stick shift, you've come to the right place. Print out this step-by-step guide, study it carefully and then take it with you as you make your first attempt at driving a car with a manual transmission.

Please Teach Me How to Drive a Manual Car!

Manual transmissions are fairly simple compared to its automatic counterpart. A basic manual transmission consists of a series of gears and a simple gear selector mechanism with dogteeth that engage or disengage the holes of the gear that you want to select. The difficult part of shifting for many people is the fact that while it's more intuitive the just press the clutch, switch gears and then release the clutch - a manual transmission doesn't always work that way. Driving a manual car requires a basic understanding of what you're actually telling the transmission to do, and how the transmission behaves or responds to your actions.

The Embarrassing "Lurch" of Acceleration

If you ask someone, "Teach me to drive a manual car," most experienced drivers will focus on how to shift while you're accelerating from a stop, because this is when most people have problems. If you've ever watched someone first learn how to drive a stick shift, you've probably seen the lurches and grinding sound that accompanies the effort. Thankfully, your own first effort doesn't have to be this way if you understand how and why the car acts the way it does when you're trying to shift. The following procedure outlines what happens inside a manual transmission when you shift gears.

  • When you press the clutch pedal, the "dog clutch" wheel disengages the previous gear (if one was engaged).
  • When you shift, the dog clutch moves adjacent to the main shaft gear that you've just selected.
  • When you release the clutch pedal, the dog clutch moves against the selected main shaft gear and the row of teeth along its collar insert into the holes in the main shaft gear.

While the process sounds quick and easy, the difficulty comes from the moment where the "teeth" and "holes" are supposed to insert and lock. When the teeth can't properly insert into the gear holes, you get that horrible grinding noise. When the clutch engages a gear when the engine isn't at revved to an RPM level that's correct, you get lurching and sometimes stalling.

So What's The "Right" Way to Drive a Standard?

Thankfully, newer cars and trucks have "synchromesh" gears that allow shifting even when the dug clutch and the gear are rotating at different speeds. Without these gears, and on new or used cars that don't have it, you still need to match the engine rev (RPMs) with the wheel speed. Larger trucks have what's called a "double-clutching" system where drivers press the clutch once to put the vehicle in neutral so that they can adjust the accelerator to the right engine revs before pressing the clutch again to shift into gear. On the majority of cars and trucks however, drivers don't double-clutch, the simply "pause" in the middle of releasing the clutch. The process works as follows.

  1. Press the clutch all the way to the floor (your foot will remain on the gas pedal)
  2. Shift into the gear you want
  3. Adjust your gas pedal so that the engine revs up or down depending which direction your shifting gears
  4. Release the clutch about halfway and pause while adjusting the gas pedal slightly if needed
  5. Release the clutch completely

This pause allows the two rotating shafts to "synch" so that the teeth and holes more easily line up and "lock."

Shifting When You Start, Speed Up and Stop

Follow the procedure below to accelerate or decelerate when necessary.

  • From a full stop, don't even touch the gas pedal. Press the clutch in all the way, switch to first gear, and as you slowly release the clutch you will press the accelerator at the same time to bring the RPMs just above idle. Slowly release the clutch as you maintain the "above-idle" RPM level. The small clutch "pause" described above can also help. Practice shifting into first gear like this over and over until you feel like you can do it smoothly.
  • When you're ready to go faster, accelerate up to a higher RPM for the next gear. Press the clutch in completely and release the gas pedal in the same motion. Switch to the next gear, then release the clutch slowly about halfway as you press the gas pedal to keep the RPMs from dropping too far.
  • If you need to slow down, press in the clutch and shift to a lower gear. Release the accelerator so the RPMs are just above idle and release the clutch slowly and pausing until you feel it engage before releasing the clutch completely.
  • When you need to stop, release the gas pedal until your engine RPMs are slightly over the idling level. Press in the clutch all the way and shift to neutral. Fully release the clutch and brake to a complete stop.

Driving a car with a manual transmission doesn't have to be scary. In fact, many people enjoy the increased feel of being in control of the vehicle that comes with driving a standard. Other people prefer the fact that with a manual transmission, you decide when the car needs to shift to a different gear, instead of relying on a computer system that may not always get it exactly right.

For more information and guides on driving a manual car, check out the following articles.

Retrieved from "http://cars.lovetoknow.com/Teach_Me_How_to_Drive_a_Manual_Car"

 


Comment on Teach Me How to Drive a Manual Car



(Displayed with your comment)                        (Will not be displayed)
Verification Code:   
    

Cars Categories
LoveToKnow Tools
More Articles