iamhomin

I admit, I'm a newbie when it comes to driving stick.
I've been driving stick for around a week now. Not even.

I know the basic steps and concepts, yet I still haven't grasped the full essence and comprehension of driving stick...

..which leads me to this question:

What are some things I should always keep in mind when driving stick, and how would you explain the function of it? Also, how would you explain how to drive a stick for newbies like me? Or to those that have just started to drive stick?

Answers such as "Don't worry, you'll learn within days", or "Practice makes perfect", are irrelevant.

buffalo-tsx

but its true i didnt know how to drive stick then a guy from the dealer was liek here ill take u out after 5 mins of him driving i told him to get out and hey guess what first week was ruff but u will get it it just takes time and practice, and if you are having problems stalling out just rev it up a lil more and slowly relese the clutch untill you fell more comfortable

Dan Martin

An empty parking lot is your best friend. Come to a complete stop and try to get the car rolling using only the clutch. Don't touch the gas. This will teach you where the engagement point is on the clutch.

Once you've mastered this, try giving a little gas as the clutch starts to grab. You won't need much and once the clutch is fully engaged you can lean into that throttle and see what makes the TSX so great!

bowersan

Remember that shifting should be slow and fluid. Don't try to shift too quickly- its all about linking one action smoothly to another.
I hate to say it, but you'll learn.. Everyone remembers the sound of grinding the gears, it happens to all of us... once you've heard that, you'll do everything in your power not to do it again... And youll experiment with different shifts, you'll see whats the smoothest...

Hardest part about driving stick is starting from a standstill on an incline.

If you can find a street with an incline, practice starting from a stopped position. Rolling backwards is fun! But soon you'll learn how to start without rolling back, and without overrevving the engine.

Best of luck!

J.

buffalo-tsx

MMMM THE BURNT SMELL OF MY CLUTCH HA I REMEMBER THAT ADN ALSO GRINDING GEARS I STILL SOMETIMES DO IT FROM TIME TO TIME USALLY 1ST TO 2ND BUT HEY GOOD LUCK AND YEA THE INCLINE THING DEF GET GOOD AT THAT DONT WANNA ROLE INTO ANY CARS

majormojo

I second the empty parking lot idea. Even better is one that is really snowy/icy if possible (I know, a bit early for that still), it minimizes the severity of your mistakes as the car won't stall as easy and the wheels will just spin instead of the car lurching around like a bucking horse. At the very least, it's easier on your passenger if you have one. I taught several people to drive a stick that way before moving onto real roads with real traction. Saved my neck from whiplash.

Practice getting the feel of it all so you don't have to think about it - you want it to just happen. Like a golf swing, thinking about it too much actually makes it harder.

It might also help you to go to http://howstuffworks.com and read up on how a manual transmission works, if you're not familiar with the actual mechanical function.

STC

iTrader: (1)

Actually w/ the TSX, learing should be really easy.
The clutch is soft, the shifter is smooth.

My fiances Evo is exactly the opposite. Clutch is so tight, and shifting is notchy.

Enjoy the TSX

iamhomin

yeah, I heard inclines were the hardest. some even suggested practicing with the handbreaks on?

There is an open lot at a place near my house and i'm planning to practice there for about a good hour to two everyday until I can stop and go as naturally as possible.

Anyways, what sucked most about today was how I attempted to drive out of a very narrow exit, but ended up reversing and stalling for couple of minutes to get it just right, pretty embarassing.

people behind me didn't appreciate it much either ;D

Ozzman

Maybe one of those "Drivers Training" stickers would help.

Seriously though, I agree with Dan Martin about trying to drive it without the gas at first. Finding the engagement point is the key, and why first gear is often harder than the other gears. Once you get that down and are comfortable on the streets, work on things like downshifting to second or third when taking turns. I was teaching my girlfriend to drive my tsx and she got the parking lot part down pat, but took a quiet neighborhood turn at about 40 because she was scared to downshift. I'm glad the TSX hadle's well.

Lung Fu Mo Shi

Actually, from time to time I do that if I'm stopped on a really steep hill (or a parking garage). I pull the e-brake, rev the engine and half-way release the clutch (slipping) until the car starts to pull, then drop the e-brake.

I feel bad for the clutch slipping, but it works.

DjElucid

Check out this thread, it's pretty long....

http://www.acura-tsx.com/forums/show...&threadid=1425

I had trouble when I first got my MT. I'm fine now, except for my launches. You'll learn from what you do wrong in everyday driving and you'll perfect it sooner or later.

Good Luck!

This might be helpful too:

http://www.acura-tsx.com/forums/show...&threadid=1443

majormojo

I've been driving sticks for about 25 yrs. Today I went to back up to the gas pump, nailed 6th instead of reverse and stalled it. That was not the first time I've done that. So hey, welcome to the club. Even oldtimers make embarrasing mistakes now and then.

iamhomin

Hey thanks.

I only slept a total of 5 hours today, why? I missed my TSX

rb1

This might also be helpful (knowing how it works might be useful)

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/clutch.htm

You can also get to the link that describes how your transmission works, which explains what happens when you are shifting and what the clutch does during this time, etc.

gmen

Hey,

I am and was in the same boat as you. I took 2 hours worth of lessons with a friend of mine at work. Then I bought my 6MT TSX. After I bought the car, for the next three days I kept going to the local high school parking lot each evening and practiced for about another 3 hours. After 3 days of practice I drove the car to work in really bad traffic (NJ GSP). Sure I stalled it a few times but that was ok. After two days of driving to work, the light bulb went off and I realized exactly what I was doing wrong. When you are in traffic and when you are starting you need to "ride" the clutch out, this is where I was screwing up. I was letting go of the clutch as soon as I stepped on the gas, thats not good!
Anyway, not to brag, but since that first week when i drove it to work I have not stalled once since that week. I drive the car now like i have been driving a stick for years.
A friend of mine thought it would take me a while and thought it was a bad idea for me to buy a stick. Today, he says he cant beleive how quickly I learned to drive a stick.
Anyway, as a lot of people have suggested, go to a empty parking lot and just practice the launches. That is the hardest part, thats all I practiced when I went to the high school parking lot.
Good luck!

chrisalberts

Many great suggestions already. Learning the bite point in a parking lot; learning how the clutch and transmission work so you can visualize what you're doing; practice.

Two additional points. The way to ensure that you aren't trying to rush a shift is to make it two specific movements of your hand. Rev pretty high in the lower gear (so you have lots of time), then depress your clutch, then put the car into neutral. Take your hand off the knob for a second and then put it back on, put the shifter into the next gear and let your clutch out.

Second point. Please make sure you basically learn to drive stick on a parking lot NOT on the real roads. If you stall trying to set off from a stop when it counts, you could cause an accident.

C.

rb1

I agree with the first point, but I think the second is a bad plan. Unless you are in 3rd gear, the Neutral position is out of alignment with the next gear and increases the possibility of error.

Instead, I would shift straight into the next with gentle to moderate pressure (2 finger shifts are a piece of cake in my car and I've done them in a TSX on test drives too) and let the synchros do their job in a more leisurely fashion.

The "rushed shift" is more a consequence of taking your foot off the clutch too soon than anything going on with the shifter. Time your clutch release so that the RPM's at the release are what they should be in the next gear after the shift, and no one in the car will even feel the shift. This timing comes with practice, and, as you noted, is easier if you rev to slightly higher RPM in lower gears, especially 1st.

Spud

I repeat some advice and add more:

1) go to a large empty parking lot

2) find a reasonable incline. Position the car upwards on the incline (so that the nose is facing up the hill) and practice balancing the car with the clutch in first gear. Make the car creep up the hill by balancing the clutch and the throttle. With this, you'll master the contact point of the clutch. Don't make a habit of this. After a few attempts you should have a pretty good feel for how 1st gear engages.

3) the key to smooth downshifting is to ease off the clutch slowly when settling into the lower gear. If you're downshifting from higher speeds, you may want to give a little love to the break pedal to ensure the lower gear doesn't bite too much. If you're downshifting to accelerate aggressively, still ease into the lower gear while aggressively applying the throttle. Too fast off the clutch and you'll bog the engine and lose momentum -- the opposite of what your trying to achieve...

4) the above requires more use of the clutch than you might have been taught. Still try to use the clutch sparingly, but USE the clutch. It is your friend.

Hope this helps...

rb1

This is true, but only to a point. Sure, don't pop your foot off the clutch as soon as you touch the gas, but the amount of time you spend letting the clutch "slip" as you release it should be kept as short as possible, like 1-2 seconds.

("Riding" the clutch typically refers to leaving your foot on it with clutch fully or partially released when you aren't actually shifting, and is one of the fastest ways to wear out the clutch lining)

Brad

Ahhh, you remind me of my first car, a Datsun 2-door. I knew the concepts of manual shifting, but I had very very little practice until I got that first car.

I drove it out of the dealer lot (new) with my father coaching me. We immediate took the first turn-off into a quiet residential street, and practiced, practiced, practiced. That car was extremely prone to rolling back when starting from a stop on an incline. I've never had that problem with my Hondas.

Keep an positive attitude, and let us know how you progress! Cheers! Here's to shifting!!!

majormojo

Hey, I learned on an old Datsun too! 1974 B210, I was about 12 or 13 at the time. A lot like this one, but an ugly orange/gold colour:



I'd learned the basics on a farm tractor as a kid, so the Datsun seemed quite sophisticated by comparison. I think my Dad had that car for about 15 yrs. Good little car, took a lot of abuse. I drove it through high school. Styling was embarrasing even when it was new. Girls definitely didn't go out with me because of my cool wheels.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread...

Brad

Mine was a 1976 B210 4-speed with manual tranny. . It was a dear and reliable car, but it had no guts. 0-60mph in 60 seconds. (OK, prolly 30 seconds with a good tailwind!) I hate to think what a auto tranny in that car must have been like.

I did drive a tractor-like car once on holiday when I reserved a budget "compact" car and ended up with a 4-wheel drive AMC Eagle or Hornet or Concord or something like that but in wagon form. (The rental agency ran out of budget compacts, so I got a free upgrade to a gas-guzzling tractor-like car.)

So now I've come full circle with the TSX in that only my B210 and my TSX had naugahyde-like artificial leather interiors.

Ooops. Topic? Hijacking. Oooops! Me guilty! Me bad.

For all the years I have been driving MT cars, the TSX's 6MT required the most getting-used-to with short (low) and frequent shifting. It took only a couple days to settle in, tho. With the other cars, I never had to "think" which gear I was in. That is, it's not intuitive for me to count and track which gear I'm in.

iamhomin

NJ GSP? Where in NJ are you from?

iamhomin

By the way. What are the adverse effects of stalling and jerking? Anything serious, serious?

Because.. today, I jerked and stalled like there's no tomorrow. And the thing is, my TSX is still a baby, only 30 miles are on it -_-;

ClutchPerformer

If you stall too much the car won't start again b/c the battery will get drained. But that's not serious serious....The jerking's not a huge deal either, unless it's VERY harsh jerking.

Don't be afraid to use a little gas when you're starting from a stop. I usually rev it up to about 1500 RPM and let the clutch action drag it down to 1000 (i.e. by that time, the clutch pedal is fully out). As long as you keep it above ~700 RPM, you won't get any jerking/shuddering. You'll get it soon. Give it another two weeks.

majormojo

Whiplash. Make sure your headrest is properly adjusted.

tsxster

You have been getting some good advice. I have driven stick for a while and the only thing that is different in this car that I noticed is to give it more gas before engaging the clutch. Practice makes perfect. Empty parking lot is a great teacher.

gmen

I am in Edison NJ, where in NJ r u?

iamhomin

Ahh, bergen county, near Fort Lee.

tsxorg35?

I have one thing to add, never sit at a light or in traffic with your foot on the clutch. It cooks the release (or throw out) bearing in the tranny. Stay in neutral and off the clutch till your ready to move.

Brad

Amen! And I would like to add that the clutch is NOT a foot rest. I've known a couple of people whose left foot you would swear was permanently attached to the clutch. Nuts!

mrdoug

One thing no one has specifically focused on is downshifting, which is something those who are used to A/Ts really don't comprehend, because when they need to "slow down" as they are coming into a turn/curve, slowing down due to slower traffic ahead, or picking up speed going downhill, they apply the brakes. One of the joys/pride/fun of MT is downshifting to control your speed rather than applying the brake. Of course, this doesn't make the brake obsolete - there are plenty of time you still have to use it, but fewer. So, for example, if you are on a country road that has some straightaways but also some good curves (you know, they are preceded by the yellow signs with the curved arrow and the "suggested" lesser speed), you will learn that just as you are entering the curve, when you would normally apply the brakes to slow down about 15 mph in an A/T, with a M/T you will simply downshift into (usually) the next lower gear (for example, 5th into 4th, or 4th into 3rd) and you will feel the tug/drag of the lower gear on the car accompanied by the higher revs. You typically try to make such a shift smoothly without just popping the clutch out, but once you get the hang of it, you will enjoy the feel of it, and you will learn to then "push" the car through the turn by accelerating in the lower gear. This is a much more enjoyable way of going through curves than applying the brakes to slow yourself. Then toward the end of the curve, just as you are returning to straightaway, you will accelerate more and shift back into the higher gear. Believe me, if you make it a practice to try to minimize use of the brakes in these situations and slow yourself instead by downshifting smoothly, accelerating through the turn, and then shifting back up, you will find driving an A/T to be very boring and cumbersome by comparison. Depending upon how long you have in front of you to slow down/stop, downshifting can also be used to simply slow your car gradually as you come to a stopped line of cars in front of you, for example, at a red light, or to slow your car gradually in the right lane of a highway as you wait for a car in the left lane to pass you on the left, at which point you stay in the lower (e.g., 5th) gear to accelerate into the left lane, pass the vehicle that had been in front of you in the right lane, and shift back up to 6th. Of course, all practiced MT drivers will read this and say, "but of course," as if none of this needed to be said. But I have found that to drivers used to A/T and new to M/T, this stuff doesn't come naturally. They tend to retain their "bad, lazy" overuse of the brakes from their A/T days, and miss half the fun and zest of driving a M/T.
So, I hope I didn't bore too many with this long post, and I hope you'll give the above a try.

Brad

Mr Doug: You have touched on one of my pet peeves. What peeves me is when I'm behind someone going downhill on a highway and that person ahead of me seems to ride their brakes, brakes, brakes. Even worse, is the so-and-so on level highway who rides their brakes. I didn't understand why they did that until I went on a business trip to Albuquerque, where I rented a Ford Tempo (I think?), which of course had an AT. The Tempo's AT drove me ~~NUTS~~!! Not only did it frequently waffle/osillate between gears, it would speed up greatly on the slightless decline with my foot off the accelerator. NUTS! I had to do the damn braking. I felt so stupid driving a stupid car.

vwong

That is one of the reasons why I HATE driving any AT car.

DEVO

chances are you will probably burn out the clutch... so i would practice on a car you don't care about. one of the biggest newbie mistakes is riding the clutch for long periods just to make a smooth transition. it's hard to grasp but once you can get the car going forward without it jumping and with minimal clutch engagement... you will be doing great.

mrdoug

Brad, I hear you and I know exactly what you're saying. My last car, a Mazda 626 A/T that I "inherited" from my wife, wasn't a bad car EXCEPT for the transmission which sucked (I've mentioned this in other threads). It did the same kind of waffling between gears when it appeared there was no reason to, or it would upshift when I wanted it to stay in the lower gear, and it pissed me off. One of the things I hate about A/T's is it's some engineer who designed the thing that determine what gear you're gonna be in and when based on their data/input/experience with designing such things, as opposed to you, the driver, making that decision based upon the conditions you are encountering and you're own mood. Some days I'm more laid back and on other days I'm ramping the RPM's up more, downshifting more to give myself greater control, etc. I enjoy having the option to do it the way I want to do it, not the way Joe Engineer in Japan or wherever wants me to do it.