Jamaicanyouth

Hi guys, I just got my first manual car, its a TSX. I can drive it ok, but I have some trouble with rough shifts, starting from a stop in 1st then shifting to 2nd and finally starting off from a hill. I would like some tips from fellow TSX manual owners.

nj2pa2nc

the more you do it the easier it gets. I first got the hang of it in a empty parking lot and then went of to tackle traffic.

CiViCKiDD

Yup, it's all practice. It can be frustrating at first but before you know it everything becomes second nature (it's weird how I don't think about shifting unless I purposely pay attention).

I just decided to drive through rush hour traffic to work on the first day I had the car, it was nerve racking being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on a steep hill on my first day of driving stick, but I think that's what helped me get the hang of it quickly.

(You're lucky you started on this, my last few cars were NOT dbw so I feel like I had to "relearn" how to drive stick smoothly..I switched jobs where I work right after I bought this car, and my old car was stolen days later, so when I drove coworkers around in the TSX they thought I was just starting to drive stick because of the jerky shifts lol.)

aaronng

Keep practising and always try to minimize the amount of time that you are in the clutch biting point in order to reduce clutch wear. It will take a while, but you'll become smooth eventually.

dlee74

The best way to learn to drive stick is to own a car with a stick. I remember getting a Honda Del Sol with stick but not knowing how to drive one. The sales person taught me how drive stick after the purchase. It was a struggle driving it home but one night, I took it out on an empty parking lot late at night and learned it at that moment. Your next learning agenda will be to learn to downshift that would save gas and be in gear which is a good thing if you want to accelerate at any point in time while driving. I have been driving stick so long now that I am now learning to put the stick in gear when parked. I always had it on neutral when parked. I thought to myself, you never know when the parking brake would fail on you. I was wondering if anyone here had the parking brake fail on stick. There are a lot of threads about not lugging the engine which you should definitely not do. Watch for the redline since there is no safety mechanism for stick. Good luck practicing and hear the vtech roar.

dlee74

I meant downshifting saves the brakes not gas. Just correcting what I said in the previous post.

SoCaliTrojan

I can drive older cars with manual transmission more easily than in my TSX. In fact, in high school, friends who would normally sit in the back seat would be surprised when they found out that my car was a stick.

Even after driving my TSX for almost 3 years, I still have rough shifts from time to time. With Drive-By-Wire, Acura's implementation of the system is not as smooth as it is in other manufacturer's vehicles. You have to kinda learn how the computer will interpret certain conditions (your rpm, the load on the engine, etc). (Drive-By-Wire basically means that the pedal is no longer connected directly to the transmission...it's more like of a switch that sends information to the computer, which then does the shift for you.)

One person mentioned that if you only let up the gas pedal 95% of the way (e.g., you're still giving it some gas), the computer will shift the transmission smoothly for you. I've trained my foot to pretty much 99.5% of the way up (e.g., I can let go of the gas, but not so quickly that my foot leaves the pedal for a split second), and those shifts are pretty much flawless. My only problem is that I remember it only when I'm alone in the car...when I drive other people, I tend to fall back on my old habits.

aaronng

We had one incident here in Australia. Hot brake pads, car on a very very slight incline, and the car rolled down, hitting something. So yes, it is a good idea to put it in 1st or reverse when you park the car.

lcrazyaznl

iTrader: (1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B59-p...layer_embedded

someone posted this on the other forum i watched the video, now i'm not expert but i've driven a few cars stick and with enough experience through my friends.

I think he forgets to mention to take your foot off the accelerator when shifting and pushing the clutch in during shifting to other gears.

I guess its a natural thing, but the video is pretty helpful.

dlee74

Nice video on shifting. This is useful for people who want to learn how to drive stick. Just show them this video. Now, if he can show us how to drift. hahaha

SoCaliTrojan

There are drifting videos out there to teach you. I've watched a few of them.

I wonder how the OP has been doing with his issue. He needed tips for shifting a TSX, which is different from shifting in another car (which others have been chiming in on).

dlee74

Drifting would be cool but too much tire wear and car wear. hehehe

Hey Jamaicanyouth,
What is your response with all the tips we gave you?

Aman

Always clutch when starting
Learn the friction point between the flywheel and clutch
don't give it too much gas if the clutch is partly engaged
and just learn the car.

tmnhs81

I would love to have a stick shift but it scares me when I think about going uphill. I think that I am going to roll back..lol

dlee74

It's not that bad. Check out the video that was posted on this thread on learning how to start from an incline. I used to peel out my tires but not anymore since I got the hang of it. It's really not that bad. It just take little more confidence in shifting and pressing the accelerator.

goddsmack

That's one thing I really hate about the newer honda/acura's manuals of the DTW, I've learned to be smooth with it, but if the car has been sitting a while and I hop into it, I resort to my old habits too. Then I get on my motorcycle and have to try to resort to my old habits because it obviously doesn't have that DTW compensation.

Still I've never ever stalled unintentionally in the TSX because of the DTW and I really believe to know how to drive a stick, you need to have stalled quite a few times before you get the hang of the friction point.

I tried teach a friend of mine the concept of the fricition point by having him basically move the car on a level surface using only the clutch. So I had him basically slowly lift his foot off the clutch until it started moving and then told him to push it back in. He basically got the hang of the friction point at that time and then I incorporated the gas with it later, telling him, once he felt the car start moving give the car gas and further lift your foot off the clutch.

For some reason, I'm actually pretty quick in catching the gas for a hill start and I typically don't roll back (or at least I don't feel it). It's only in the steep incline hills of San Francisco roads that I roll back a few inches.

DELIRIOUS_09

Hi, i recently just got my 6MT TSX and having some problems with the clutch. I am fairly new to manuals but I have driven my friends cars (mx-6, s2k, 240sx, and rsx to name a few) and had no problems with starting from a dead stop. But with the TSX, I am actually stalling quite a bit and my transitions to 2nd gear aren't all that smooth.

I noticed when I was letting the clutch out slowly to get a feel for the friction point, the RPMs drop about 1000. Is this normal?

Compared to some other cars, is the friction point higher or lower? (generally speaking)

CinciTSX

1st to 2nd in the TSX is by far the hardest, took me a good 6 months to perfect it. You've gotta be on the gas at the exact point of release or it's jerky.

CinciTSX

I also had the joy of learning while living on a hill (see icon).

transit6404

For going from 1st to 2nd gear, I found out that by letting go the clutch slower and also give it some gas (almost like dealing with first gear) worked the best (being the smoothest shifting I got). However I am worry about that I am wearing down the clutch by doing so.

If anybody know how to shift faster and better, please enlighten me.

LukeaTron

Where you wear down the clutch is when the engine speed does not match the wheel speed and you ease them together with the clutch. This makes a lot of friction and heat and eats the clutch material up. If you get your engine speed matched to the wheels and then taper the clutch release, there's not a lot of slipping happening. Basically, as long the car is not lurching forward (too much gas) or backwards (not enough) when you let out the clutch, don't worry too much about wearing it out. In that case you're just using it for what it was designed to do.

davidspalding

I was lucky enough to learn stick on my first car, a '77 or '78 MGB, which had a friction point that you could feel like dog jumping up on you. My drving instructor took me to the shipyards of San Francisco to learn it for an hour or two, and his technique is still with me. Ease off clutch, feel the friction point, depress the gas, and do an even "see-saw" of your feet rolling off the clutch while you give it more gas.

I tried this on a 1981 Honda Civic wagon that a friend had just bought, and stalled it numerous times -- no friction point! You simply had to gun it and pop the clutch. Amazing.

Cars like the TSX are easy to do uphill starts, using the parking brake and letting off on it as you de-clutch and accelerate (just be sure you're depressing the button). I was very nervous doing uphill starts with my '87 Wrangler as the parking brake release was down below the left dashboard corner (stupid American car makers).

Yes, it's good to park in gear on a hill, then you won't have to clamp down so hard with the parking brake. It was recommended SOP on the Jeep to park in gear.

So ... if you're learning stick for the first time ... it can pay off to hire a good driving instructor. Friends or family can sometimes be good, but a pro adds that extra level of patience and experience.

DELIRIOUS_09

I've been doing what transit has been doing - easing off the clutch slowly but I'm also afraid that I'm prematurely wearing down the clutch.

I also tried popping the clutch but it just seems to bog or just peel out.

Another question: I noticed that if I leave it in 2nd and 3rd gear without depressing the throttle, it will cruise at around 8 and 10 mph respectively. Is this bad for the engine/transmission?

LukeaTron

It's not bad unless the engine is lugging. When this happens the piston skirts can booger up the cylinder walls.

transit6404

Thanks LukeaTron! This way I won't be feeling bad about driving my car.

Anyway, today we had a bad snow storm (like the one where your car won't even listen you even with the VSA). I decided to try engine braking whenever I came to a traffic light. What I did was I just shift down to third and second and let each time let go of the clutch slowly. Am I doing it right? and I hope this is not hurting the transmission...

LukeaTron

When down shifting you want to blip the throttle to bring the RPMs up to around where they will be when the clutch is fully engaged. I wouldn't recommend trying to teach yourself this technique in the snow however as it takes fancy footwork. Once you get it down it's very easy and you won't even have to think about it but at first it's a bit tricky. If you just let the clutch do the work of bringing the engine up to wheel speed it's not much different then holding your RPMs up around 4k and easing the clutch out until your going. In other words, it's pretty rough on the clutch.