Posted: 5/13/2013 4:25:37 PM EDT
| I'm going to be picking up a new vehicle in a couple days (hopefully), and it's a stick. Now, I've driven a stick a little bit before, but it was just enough to learn a bit and it was several years ago. Still remember the basics, but I know there are some tricks and subtleties that I'm not aware of. What are some things I should know that aren't necessarily readily apparent? |
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Your parking brake does more than keep your vehicle from rolling away when parked.
You can use it as a hand operated roll controll (unless you have a retarded press to release setup). WHAT you do is use the e brake on a backwards sloping incline to hold the vehicle long enough to get some clutch out and some throttle on without rolling backwards. Release the brake just as the clutch starts to dig and pull the RPM down. It's a handy trick for boat ramps and such or when A holes pull up to your bumper in traffic. Even though I've driven a stick for years and all my current vehicles are I still use this cheat periodically. Another is to use skip shifting to save fuel if the vehicle has the power. 1-3-5 or similar. I've got a question if you don't mind for the other posters responding here. When driving in a normal manner do you downshift and engine brake as you decelerate? I catch myself doing it pretty much all the time and feel really lazy if I don't. |
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Your parking brake does more than keep your vehicle from rolling away when parked. You can use it as a hand operated roll controll (unless you have a retarded press to release setup). WHAT you do is use the e brake on a backwards sloping incline to hold the vehicle long enough to get some clutch out and some throttle on without rolling backwards. Release the brake just as the clutch starts to dig and pull the RPM down. It's a handy trick for boat ramps and such or when A holes pull up to your bumper in traffic. Even though I've driven a stick for years and all my current vehicles are I still use this cheat periodically. That one I'm familiar with. There's a bitch of hill near where I live with a stop sign right at the top -- I know people who have driven sticks their entire lives, and they still use the handbrake trick there 
Another is to use skip shifting to save fuel if the vehicle has the power. 1-3-5 or similar.
Care to elaborate on that? I understand what you're saying, but how does that save on fuel (assuming it's based on keeping revs lower for a long period of time) and does it change shift points? |
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Im not sure I agree with the parking break trick at all.
I have driven manual-clutched vehicles since I was very young. Tractors, lawn tractors, fork lifts, trucks, cars, fourwheelers, dirtbikes, you name it. I have never in my life relied on the parking or "emergency" brake for holding me on a hill or a boat ramp while I release the clutch. |
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Im not sure I agree with the parking break trick at all. I have driven manual-clutched vehicles since I was very young. Tractors, lawn tractors, fork lifts, trucks, cars, fourwheelers, dirtbikes, you name it. I have never in my life relied on the parking or "emergency" brake for holding me on a hill or a boat ramp while I release the clutch. And your point is? Not everyone popped out as a regular double clutching gear jamming baby version of Red Simpson (look him up) like you. Agree or not it works and can be a handy technique. So much so a few manufacturers today are offering an automatic version of this hand foot shuffle. |
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Quoted: Drive the sound, not the gauge. This, and also by feel. You'll be able to tell when the engine is about to die eventually, and you'll know to blip the throttle some when you feel the shudder of imminent stalling. If you're staring at your tach you're gonna rear end someone one day....or roll back into them....I honestly think this is 90% of driving a stick, the other 10% is feet and hands which is really easy so long as you're not my wife . She perpetually over revs and misses shift gates all the time. I can't wait to get her, her own car so she can stop burning up and glazing my clutch.
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Ive owned and driven quite a few manual cars and I'm still not great at it. I ride the clutch at take off and low speeds (parking lots). I chalk it up to laziness on my part. I was self-taught and didn't know I was developing poor habits. That being said, I can take off on any incline and never stall in traffic. I can also eat/drink and drive, lol. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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Quoted: Ive owned and driven quite a few manual cars and I'm still not great at it. I ride the clutch at take off and low speeds (parking lots). I chalk it up to laziness on my part. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile There's nothing wrong with doing that. If you don't you aren't likely to be able to smoothly control the speed of the vehicle. |
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I forgot - take it on a snow covered parking lot this fall and practice hard shifts, up and down, in turns decelerating. They can make it skid just like excessive braking. Know the car's limits and get in the habit of using the clutch to stop the skid if you caused it by shifting.
Also practice starting in first gear on a slippery upslope. If the car has enough power, sometimes starting in second gear is the best answer to this problem. |
The best way to learn to drive a standard is to park your ass in the drivers seat and go. I own 3 vehicles and 2 of them are stick. All 3 would be if GM made a half ton with one.  Like mentioned above..drive by the sound..the engine will tell you all you need to know. |
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In the interest of extending clutch life there are a few things you can do. First, if it's a new car or new clutch set, proper break in is required and the best way to do that is to engage/disengage the clutch repeatedly at slow speeds. Basically you want to get stuck in a heavy traffic jam for a while and that will do the trick.
When coming to a stop, don't ride the clutch, and don't downshift. Try to get in the habit of putting it in neutral and use only the brakes to stop. Don'yt get me wrong...Downshifting and compression braking definitely has a purpose and place, and it is a skill set that should be learned well, but once mastered try to use it sparingly if you want to get the most life out of your clutch. Remember, brakes are a lot cheaper to replace than a clutch set. I recommend upshifting earlier than most. People love to rev cars with manual transmissions and that's all good every now and then, but in the interest of clutch life, early upshifting will help you get a lot out of the clutch. Along the same lines, someone mentioned skip shifting. That's not a bad thing, but you will have to get the engine rpm's a little higher than normal to have any throttle response in the next upper gear that's worth a shit unless you have gobs of low end torque in your motor. In city driving or places with lots of traffic lights or stop signs, I try to only use the clutch for first gear, then I just keep it engaged and change gears very early without clutching again until I stop. Saves clutch life greatly, but some say it can be detrimental to the gearbox, but I have not seen this. I regularly get 250-300K miles on my original clutch. Driven carefully, a clutch could last well over 200K miles. |
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unless you are shifting, keep your foot off the damn clutch. Resting your foot on the clutch is easy to do, but you'll be replacing the clutch before you should. It wears out the throwout brg 1st, then the pressure plate fingers.... Usually, the friction plate doesn't get hurt. Still a royal pain to fix it. |
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I try to only use the clutch for first gear, then I just keep it engaged and change gears very early without clutching again until I stop. Saves clutch life greatly, but some say it can be detrimental to the gearbox, but I have not seen this. I regularly get 250-300K miles on my original clutch. Driven carefully, a clutch could last well over 200K miles. Wore out the shift forks and the trans started jumping out of gear on my '69 4-4-2, took a couple years, but...... |
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Drive the sound, not the gauge. This, and also by feel. You'll be able to tell when the engine is about to die eventually, and you'll know to blip the throttle some when you feel the shudder of imminent stalling. If you're staring at your tach you're gonna rear end someone one day....or roll back into them....I honestly think this is 90% of driving a stick, the other 10% is feet and hands which is really easy so long as you're not my wife . She perpetually over revs and misses shift gates all the time. I can't wait to get her, her own car so she can stop burning up and glazing my clutch.Feel is not the same in every car. Some manuals nowadays are so numb that they are nearly impossible to drive. |
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Well, I made it home Only stalled about 12 times! 
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/zacheb/20130515_145818_zpse752c0f1.jpg Allow me to be the first to recommend that you not rob a bank with this vehicle.
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Well, I made it home Only stalled about 12 times!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/zacheb/20130515_145818_zpse752c0f1.jpg Allow me to be the first to recommend that you not rob a bank with this vehicle. Thankfully I didn't buy it to be inconspicuous
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So, question for y'all.
When you're working the clutch, do you keep your heel on the floor and come straight back, or do you lift your leg and let your foot follow the travel of the pedal? I noticed today that I seem to have better control of the clutch if I keep my heel on the floor, but I was a little concerned that it was also making me ride the clutch longer while releasing it than doing it the other way. |
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So, question for y'all. When you're working the clutch, do you keep your heel on the floor and come straight back, or do you lift your leg and let your foot follow the travel of the pedal? I noticed today that I seem to have better control of the clutch if I keep my heel on the floor, but I was a little concerned that it was also making me ride the clutch longer while releasing it than doing it the other way. heal off the floor, you will develop muscle memory in a few months, and it'll be just like walking. GT mustang huh, with that V8, you shouldn't need the e-brake on hills, it's got plenty of torque. you'll prolly burn the clutch a few times, but don't worry, a few times won't hurt it. |
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When coming to a stop..............and don't downshift. This. I ride with people all the time that downshift every gear when stopping. That shit wears out synchros if you don't know what you're doing, and brakes are cheaper than syncrhos. There are times when downshifting is helpful/needed, but it's not every stop. I always double clutch my downshifts, saves synchro wear and clutch wear. The last clutch I put in my truck only lost .015" of friction material in 61k miles. |
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So, question for y'all. When you're working the clutch, do you keep your heel on the floor and come straight back, or do you lift your leg and let your foot follow the travel of the pedal? I noticed today that I seem to have better control of the clutch if I keep my heel on the floor, but I was a little concerned that it was also making me ride the clutch longer while releasing it than doing it the other way. In traffic, I put my heel on the floor sometimes and moved my whole leg to shift. Not always. I kept my foot off the floor when I was driving. ETA: Quoted:
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When coming to a stop..............and don't downshift. This. I ride with people all the time that downshift every gear when stopping. That shit wears out synchros if you don't know what you're doing, and brakes are cheaper than syncrhos. There are times when downshifting is helpful/needed, but it's not every stop. I always double clutch my downshifts, saves synchro wear and clutch wear. The last clutch I put in my truck only lost .015" of friction material in 61k miles. I always downshifted my truck and the clutch was solid at 265,000 miles, never replaced. I throttled up the engine, though, didn't use it as a jake brake. |
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I've owned a LOT of manual tranny vehicles and with the possible exception of my geo metro not one had a clutch with geometry that would let me keep my heel on the floor.
During this time I've only replaced ONE clutch and that was on a jeep shortly after purchased due to a failed throwout bearing. Early throttle by wire stick shift cars were very hard to master especially our maxima with its typical Nissan "clutch switch" feeling pedal. |
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Quoted: The best way to learn to drive a standard is to park your ass in the drivers seat and go. Yep. Just keep at it. Manual transmission all the way, over here. Maybe some fancy-pants sports-tourers, rep-mobiles, and commercial vehicles have autos, but everything else is a stick. |