vsuchd1

I'm going to buy a 06 TL with navi but right now i bought a 89 prelude to learn how to ride a clutch. I've been at it for about a month now. Just wondering for all those manual owners, how long did it take you to fully learn to drive a 6sp? Also, how did you learn, just by practicing, reading information online? Any advice on the learning process? thanx in advace..

Veeno

Pro Stock John

It took me about two weeks to get to a point where I was not riding the clutch or stalling the car alot. I learned on a Corolla in college.

sparky57

How long did it take? I don't remember as it was a looonng time ago. I was 13 when I learned to drive a clutch on the forklift at my Dad's office.

Here are a couple of recommendations:

1. It's easier on the engine and clutch to give more power than necessary as you ease the clutch out rather than the other way around. Racing the engine a bit more than necessary will sound louder, but not hurt anything. Dropping the clutch and stalling the engine is hard on it.

2. The most challenging situation is accelerating from a downhill position. Seemingly, you need three feet to hold the hill with the brake while accelerating and easing out the clutch. Use the hand brake instead to hold the hill! I usually rest my clutch foot in neutral with fresh reds that way as well. Gradually let it out as the car starts accelerating. DO NOT hold the hill by "rocking" the clutch and gas. You'll burn out a clutch in no time at all that way.

3. Don't rest your foot on the clutch when not needed. A gradual slip can likewise smoke a clutch rapidly. That's what the dead pedal is for.

Good luck!!

rw

mn2trance

Took me 2 weeks to master the TL's clutch, too. And I had learned to drive a clutch on an '83 Nissan pick-up and then an '89 Toyota Corolla GT-S.

ndx2

Same here. It took me about 2 weeks to get somewhat comfortable with the TL. I knew the concept of driving an MT, and drove friends' cars a few times as well driving the "demos" at the dealership, but I really learned on my TL. I had the car for a little over 2 months now, and I'm now comfortable in any given everyday driving situation. Of course, I still have to pay attention when I need to downshift or start up on a steep hill, but no stalling! You'll do just fine, buddy.

Adobeman

I've been driving a manual since "ever" and it took a few weeks to get used to the TL clutch. Only stalled once or twice but I did slip it a bit too much a few times. After about 1000 miles I seemed to get more familiar and things seemed to get less "catchy" as well. Even now after about 6 weeks I still find myself in the wrong gear on the highway. After over 20 years of 4 and 5 speeds the sixth gear just isn't second nature yet.

I'm convinced that driving a manual is more a state of mind than an action. Shifting will become so second nature you will wonder why anyone (able bodied) ever wants an automatic. That is until you get into your first really bad traffic jam and have to shift several hundred times on a commute that normally has 20 or so gear changes. One thing I have also learned to do is use all 3 pedals at the same time. I can brake and throttle simultaniously with my right foot. Invaluable for starting on hills. Also good for matching revs while downshifting and braking into a turn. Some call it "heel and toe" but for me it is more like left side of my foot (brake), right side of my foot (gas)

So practice, read up and think more about "becoming one with the gears" as cheesy as that sounds. The results are definitely worth it.

mg7726

3 days - learned it on a new 93 integra GSR.

it will take you a little bit to master heel-toe shifting (do this in a parking lot, before you kill yourself and possibly others).

SouthernBoy

Here's a collection of postings I did on another gearhead website. Hope it helps.

================================================== ============



Note: As it says, this is a collage of various postings I have made over the past one and a half years on the altimas.net website. So you are likely to see redundancy as well as a few other items of disarray. But enjoy and I hope you learn something.




PROPER MANUAL TRANSMISSION DRIVING TECHNIQUES

What follows is a collection of writings which I have posted at various times on this website in an effort to help answer some questions regarding the proper manner in which a manual transmission should be operated. While there are certainly many ways to drive a car with a manual transmission, there is really only one correct way. I was most fortunate to have learned these techniques while I was still in my teenage years. In so doing, I was able to avoid developing entrenched habits before they became really bad habits and difficult to correct. It is my hope that this helps you learn what I have learned and perfected over the years. If you do, you will reap the rewards, both financial and in the knowledge that you have mastered a technique that few do in their lifetimes. Have fun!

Under normal driving situations (not racing), when you start out from a standing start, you do so with the lowest possible RPMs, get the clutch out to full engagement as soon as you can while adding throttle. If you do this correctly, the transition will be smooth and seamless, and the wear on your clutch disk, pressure plate, release bearing, and flywheel will be minimized.

If properly designed (sufficient size and clamping pressure, etc.), and properly installed with no defects (correct torque, non-faulty equipment, alignment, etc.), then the next, and most important, factor to the life of the clutch assembly is the operator.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY A CLUTCH CANNOT LAST THE LIFE OF THE ENGINE UNDER NORMAL DRIVING CONDITIONS.

When I speak of engine life here, I am referring to life before a serious teardown or part replacement such as a timing chain (200,000+ miles) or headwork. If you cannot get at least 100,000 miles out of a clutch, you are doing something terribly wrong. Obviously, racing and other extreme conditions such as towing constitute a whole different approach and, as such, do not come under this.


Don'ts:

Do not use any more engine speed (RPMs) than absolutely necessary to get the car rolling in first gear.
Do not hold the car on a hill with the clutch.

Do not wait for a traffic light to turn green with the transmission in gear and the clutch depressed.

Do not rest your foot on the clutch while driving.


Do not ride the clutch in any gear (obviously you will to a small degree in first to start off).

Do not down shift by just removing your foot from the gas, moving the shifter into a lower gear, then releasing the clutch slowly.


Do's

Start off smoothly and with low engine speed, and shift in such a manner that if you had a passenger on board, they would not even notice the shifts.

Hold the car on hills with the brakes.. that's what brakes are for. NEVER hold a car on a hill with the clutch. The amount of heat generated by doing this is incredible.

While waiting for a light to change or while sitting in heavy traffic, put the transmission in neutral and get your foot completely off of the clutch petal. Leaving it in gear for extended periods heats up and shortens the life of the release bearing. The normal condition of a clutch is fully engaged so it stands to reason that's where it should be most of the time.

Resting your foot on the clutch petal while driving engages the release bearing.. see above.

Avoid riding the clutch as much as is humanly possible. You will extend its life significantly.

If you do not know how to properly downshift, DON’T. Use the brakes (should do this anyway), and avoid downshifting any more than necessary. Improper downshifting is analogous to riding the clutch because that is what you are actually doing. Learn how to properly downshift first and save yourself the frustration of premature clutch failure.

Clutches are wear items, heavily affected by heat caused by friction. In a front wheel drive car, they are costly to replace, so unless you like shelling out a lot of money periodically for the replacement of these components, learn the correct way. Learn it until it becomes second nature like breathing.



I spent some time teaching a lady with whom I worked 10 years ago these techniques when she purchased a new '92 Honda Accord LX. When I last spoke with her, she had well over 140,000 miles on the original clutch with no signs of slippage. So I'm not jerking anyone's chain here. Learn to operate a manual transmission correctly and you will reap the rewards by saving a lot of money. Plus you will be one of the few who know how to do this right.

I don't mean to set myself up here as some kind of guru because I am not. But I have been driving vehicles with manual transmissions for over 40 years. I have spent the time to perfect the process into an art form because when done correctly, that’s what it is. When I sold my '88 Mustang LX 302CID, it was 6 years old and had 77,000 miles on it. When the buyer drove it, he asked me when I replaced the clutch because to him, it felt very positive. I told him that I had never replaced it and that it was the original unit. I added that it wouldn't make any sense to replace a clutch after only 77,000 miles since that is not very much wear. He had a little bit of a hard time believing this, but he did buy the car. Three months later, he called me up to let me know how much he liked the car and to tell me had had not wrapped it around a tree. He again asked about the clutch and I again told him that it was the original clutch.

I used to own a 1966 Chevelle SS396/360HP. I was the original owner of the car. For a period of about 2 years, I was street racing the car frequently on the weekends. At 83,000 miles when I sold it, it would still break traction in all four gears and the clutch had no slippage. It was tight and strong. Now granted, American cars have traditionally had stronger clutches than Japanese cars. This is changing because the Japanese are putting larger and stronger (torque) engines in their cars.



Downshifting

Ah yes, downshifting. If I had to name just one facet of manual transmission errors-of-operation, this would probably be it.

To understand how to operate a manual transmission, you have to know how the clutch assembly and transmission work, and I am going to take the assumption that most do on this forum. I will only clarify synchronizers. They serve to match the speed of the gears in the transmission as the shifter is moved to a given gear. Now for downshifting.

Let's say you are in fourth gear and you are approaching a stop sign, so you decide to downshift from fourth gear into third. What most people do is just remove their foot from the throttle, depress the clutch while moving the shifter from fourth to third, then start releasing the clutch slowly until they achieve full engagement. If you do this, what you are actually doing is riding the clutch in third gear. After all, the engine has returned to idle (or close to it), you get into third, then just ease the clutch out which pulls the engine from idle up to the RPM's at which it will operate at whatever speed you are traveling in third gear. Here is the correct way to do this in steps that I will break down in a moment.

Raise your foot off of the throttle.

Depress the clutch.

Start the shifter up into third.

As you pass through the neutral gate, let the clutch out a bit (doesn't have to be all the way) while at the same time blipping the throttle to increase engine speed BEYOND that which it will operate in the chosen lower gear.

Depress the clutch again.

Engage the chosen lower gear.

Let the clutch out while adding throttle.

As the engine RPM's decrease they will be met by the engaging clutch and opening throttle.

This should be a simple, smooth, fluid motion and you will know you've done it right if there is no jerking as the clutch comes out in the last step. Now for some details.

As you move into the neutral gate with your foot off of the throttle, the engine RPM's will be returning to idle. This is the point at which you want to blip the throttle a bit while at the same time engaging the clutch some. You want to get the engine turning faster than it will when you are in the lower gear you have chosen. The reason is that you want to spin the gears up to a speed that equals that at which they will be operating when you finally release the clutch in your downshift. If you do this right, there is no clutch slippage because the engine and the gears in the transmission will be spinning at the same or nearly the same RPM's. No slippage means you will get into gear with full engagement of the clutch sooner and with virtually no wear. To best understand this, you really need to know how a clutch assembly and transmission work together to deliver power from the engine to the drive wheels.

This takes a lot of practice, but if you get it down, you will be heads and shoulders above just about anyone else who drives a car with a manual transmission. You will begin to notice the mistakes other are making when they drive. Learn from their mistakes and it will both save you money and make you a far better driver.

So it's in with the clutch, start the shifter into the chosen lower gear, while passing through the neutral gate, blip the throttle and at the same time engage the clutch a bit to spin up the gears, then back in with the clutch as you get into the chosen gear, then finally release the clutch in one smooth operation.

Here's another little tip. Say you are waiting at a light for the green and your transmission is in neutral like it should be with your foot completely off of the clutch petal. When the light turns green, instead of just depressing the clutch and pushing the shifter up into first, pull the shifter partially into a higher gear first, such as second or third. The gears in those selections are not spinning as fast as the gears in first. By starting the shifter into a higher gear before you go to into first gear, you will cause less wear on the synchronizers and they will last far longer because they do not have to stop gears which are spinning at a higher speed. For cars which do not have synchronized reverse, definitely do this and you will not experience the grinding affect when shifting into reverse.

Say you are driving normally, shifting up through the gears to the one in which you wish to be for cruising. As you disengage the clutch and move the shifter to the next higher gear, you might notice a slight resistance just before you finish the shift. What you feel is the synchronizer for that gear forcing the drive gear(s) from the input shaft and the gears selected to "mesh". That is to say, their speeds are forced to equalize so that as they engage, there is no grinding and no damage to the gear teeth. That said, we can move to double clutching.

Double clutching was a technique that came about when earlier manual transmissions did not have synchronizers. If you did not double clutch, you would experience some serious gear grinding when shifting.

If you did not have synchronizers in your transmission, you would have had two choices when shifting gears: (1) put up with some really serious grinding and damage/breakage to gear teeth, or (2) manually match the speed of the gears in each selected shift so that you would eliminate the problems just mentioned in #1.

Suppose you are traveling in second gear, the engine is turning at 2500 RPM, and you are getting ready to shift to third. At the road speed you are going, let's say that once in third, your engine would be turning at 1800 RPM. When you remove your foot from the gas, the engine is going to loose RPMs quickly and by the time you get into third, the engine might only be turning 1200 RPM. Without synchronizers, you would need to raise the engine back up to 1800 RPM in order for the gears to mesh. By blipping the throttle and at the same time letting the clutch out some when you are passing through the neutral gate, you will both increase engine RPM and increase gear speed. As the engine RPMs fall back off, they will reach a point at which you will be able to complete the shift.

Since for years, manual transmissions have been fully synchronized, there is no need whatsoever to double clutch when upshifting and I definitely recommend against this practice.

Now downshifting is much like this, only in reverse. In other words, you are going from a higher gear to a lower gear so if your engine was turning at 2500 RPM and you wanted to shift to second, You would want to blip the throttle enough to raise engine speed to perhaps around 3200 - 3500 RPM.

When you are upshifting, the RPMs fall off and most people find it pretty easy to adjust to this and to add throttle at the right time so that when the clutch comes back out, they have the proper RPM's for the gear selection/road speed.

However, most people downshift by (1) removing their foot from the throttle, (2) moving the shifter into the next lower (or chosen) gear, then (3) slowly releasing the clutch while adding little or no throttle. This is NOT the proper manner in which to downshift. What you are doing in effect, is riding the clutch in reverse. In other words, you probably wouldn't dare attempt to start your car off in third gear because you would have to add a lot of throttle and really slip the clutch to get the car moving. When you downshift like the example I just gave, you are doing something similar to starting off in a higher gear, though it does take more energy to get a car moving from a dead start. Now if you double clutch during the downshift, you are spinning up the gears and the transition to the next gear will be quite smooth.


Junkyard asked a question about the concept of “passing through the neutral gate”. You don’t stop or stay in neutral. You are just passing through, so to speak. In your second question, you said I had mentioned to put the car in neutral when downshifting. Not exactly. Try this with the engine off.

Put the car in fourth. Depress the clutch and shift to third and let the clutch out. Now do the same thing, only this time as you pass through the neutral gate, let the clutch out some or a good deal and blip the throttle, then clutch back in, get into third, clutch comes out for the final time. That is the movement you want.

Incidentally, blipping the throttle is just a little stab at the petal, enough to raise RPMs to the desired level. You do not want to be on the throttle long because you will be in the process of shifting. Yes, this does take a lot of practice and may not come easily for many, but it is the best way, in fact the only proper way, to downshift because it very significantly reduces clutch and synchronizer wear (especially clutch), and once you get the hang of it, you will be able to do it quite fast.

The bottom line to all of this folks is to match engine speed to wheel speed in a given gear, and to do it in such a manner as to eliminate undue trauma to your drive train. I do this all of the time and have been downshifting like this since my late teens. I actually learned it from a magazine article (as I can best recall). If you know how a manual transmission and clutch assembly operate, all of the components and how they perform together, you will understand the beauty of the process.

Oh the grinding noise Junkyard hears when he starts letting up the clutch too quickly is most likely due to not having fully engaged the gear teeth and they separate (pop out of gear). That or he actually begins engaging the gear teeth before the clutch is fully depress so there is still some flywheel/disk/pressure plate contact.


One of the things I noticed right off the bat on my SE was that the clutch began to engage much too close to the floor for me (a contributor to the problem Junkyard has had). It was starting to engage about 1 inch from the floor, so I adjusted it out to 2 inches and it is fine. If you do this, just make sure you have the required toeplay, otherwise you will prematurely wear out your release bearing.

The purpose of letting the clutch out some as you pass through the neutral gate is to spin the gears up in preparation for the speed at which they must be at for the lower gear selection. This will allow you to get into that gear very easily. When you depress the clutch, you disengage the crankshaft from the transmission. The gears in the transmission will begin to slow down. By letting out the clutch some (or completely) in the neutral gate, you once again, MOMENTARILY, engage the full drive train and get the gears spinning. Only this time since you have blipped the throttle, they'll be spinning faster. As they slow down from the higher speed, your clutch will be coming out for the final time with the transmission in gear and the mesh will be smooth.

Try it both ways. Do it first the way you do it and notice that you have to add a little bit of force to get the shifter into gear. That's because the synchronizers are doing their job of gear speed meshing. Now try it the way I outlined and if you do it right, you will have virtually no resistance as you slip the shifter into your chosen gear.

Instead of going right into first as the light starts to go green, try starting the shifter into second gear.. don't have to go all the way into gear, though it won't hurt. This slows the gears down just as though you had gone on into first, but it's much easier on the synchronizers. And you won't get the "crunch" you mentioned when you have to move quickly.


To prevent rollback; practice, practice, practice, practice.

One way to do this is to find a nice little hill someplace where you won't be a bother to anyone. Take along some masking tape and mark off two sections with the tape a foot apart. Your goal is to keep the car from coasting back more than 1 foot.. of course you do not use the clutch to hold the car.. use the brakes. As you learn to do this, find another hill a little steeper. And so on, and so on.

BukvaMan

First to second is a bitch in a TL = its nothing like on the bmw or the audi ....

Parker75

My last MT car was a 1982 Supra which I retired after 12 years and 150K miles. (Cost of engine refurb was too high.) I had zero problems with either the clutch or transmission, and it still had the original clutch when reitred. After this was an 11-year stretch with automatics until my TL in March.

To answer your question, it took me a week to get accustomed to the TL. In that time I stalled the engine 3 times. Boy is it sweet getting back to MT!

I suggest you follow the great advice from SouthernBoy above. It is an excellent post of what not to do and what to do with the 6MT. It takes practice to get it right the way he describes it but your car's MT will give you problem-free service.

Papaman677

Had my car for about 2 weeks now and I'm finally starting to drive it smoother. I went from a 99 integra LS to a TL. I've noticed if you I lazy with this car I shift like shit. Sometimes i gas it too much, sometimes not enough and it bucks all over the place.

JetJock

SouthernBoy......Sir....you are the MAN when it comes to manual transmission's and how to drive them. I thought I knew everything about shifting after owning many MT cars, but after reading your posts, I found I didn't know as much as I thought I did. Any hints about the 1st to 2nd shift with the TL's clutch? I've owned 5 cars with 4,5,and 6speeds and this is the only one I've had so much trouble mastering the first to second shift smoothly. Any tips would be really appreciated.

WdnUlik2no

This guy at work taught me the basics, I was driving it on my own in about 30 minutes. Though it did take me a few weeks to really get comfortable with it; especially on hills. All the test drives I did with manuals helped as well.

The TL clutch can be tricky, it seems a bit different from the clutch of a G35 and Mustang. In fact I stalled it a few times when I first got it, until I got used to it.

Good luck!

WdnUlik2no

Wow SouthernBoy! Thanks for all the tips! You definetely taught me some things, as well as other people on here im sure!

1995hoo

As with others, I've been driving manuals since I learned to drive, but it still took me a week or two to get used to the TL's clutch. What's interesting to me is that I still find that if I drive another car for a day or two (such as this week--I drove the RX-7 yesterday and Tuesday), I have a little trouble re-adjusting to the TL's clutch for the first couple of miles. The clutch actuation point comes up very suddenly.

As far as the learning process goes, my father taught me how to drive a manual when I was 15. Perhaps the most useful thing we did was that we went over to my old high school (guess at the time it wasn't my "old" high school), which has an enormous car park, and he put the car in front of a space and then had me use the clutch to pull into the space. Probably not the best thing for the clutch if it were done regularly, but for the one day we did that it was probably OK. It was a good way to get the sense of where the clutch actuation point is.

NoRespect

SouthernBoy

I have been driving a manual for the past 25+ years, you have taught me a few things as well. I just instructed and tested my daughter out on man tran truck. I'm going to print this and hand it to her.

thanks

TheTriads

In my 1990 Toyota Celica, it took me literally 20 mins to learn it without riding the clutch. In terms of my 6MT, I learned it in about.. 3 days.

Ania

i bought the car and managed to drive it off the lot. I drove a clutch 3 years before for a couple days.

SouthernBoy

Y'all are most welcome and thanks for the kind words.. I do appreciate them. But mostly, I am glad I was able to offer some information about techniques that will help out.


To JetJock;

How's it going up there in PA? In which part of PA do you live? As for the TL's clutch, especially when viewed from the 1-2 shift, I "feel your pain". Whenever I go from my Ranger pickup to my TL, it takes a measure of concentration.. the Ranger's clutch is far more forgiving.

The problem with the TL clutch is.. there is no problem. It's just fine. EXCEPT for a few little nuances that will bite you. The travel is short and the take-up (the point of initial engagement to full engagement) is even shorter. This, coupled with (at least with my TL) the fact that engagement starts within the first 1.5 inches from the floor makes the clutch "feel" difficult to get used to at first. Now when you consider the fact that the 1-2 shift is between the lowest gears you have which means you get maximum torque multiplication, the shifts can easily lead to jerks and stalls.

Actually, short travels and takeups are favored over longer ones (you should drive a 2002 Altima SE.. very long on both). But they require some getting used to. And there is no other way to do this other than practice and concentrate. Oh, one other thing helps to complicate the process.. it's hard to hear the engine so you can't use hearing to help with the shifting.


To NoRespect;

Long live Rodney Dangerfield, eh? You're off to a good start teaching your daughter if you're using these techniques. But you may not want to use your TL as the learning "goat".


To WdnUlink2no;

Good, I'm happy you found it useful. Now you'll probably notice the guy in the lane next to you who "holds" his car with the clutch or "plays" the clutch (you know, forward then coast back, forward then coast back). These people do not know squat about driving a manual transmission, but you will.

JoganJani

Great quote

"You can learn stick shift in a day but takes a lifetime to master it. "
- JoganJani

NoRespect

Southernboy

Not many get the connection to Rodney. My daughter driving the TL??? ahhh No (add laughter) "her" vehicle is the truck. No space for passengers. (Less distractions) Honstly, she is glad to have a vehicle to drive, and doesn't even ask to drive my TL.

SouthernBoy

To NoRespect;

Rodney was a very funny man. I loved his humor and his expressions. The world is a little poorer without his presence.

Good for your daughter. The "never look a gift horse in the mouth" axiom must hold in your household.

terse

I'm still learning on my TL..i have almost 11k miles on it.

jennarocks

But as i mentioned in a new thread.. the catch point seems to come up a bit after a few thousand miles... I have 5k miles on mine. making it much easier to drive.

Pro Stock John

Over the 7700 miles I have driven our 6MT 2005 TL, I have gotten pretty smooth. I think that it's easy to lurch the car in 1st and 2nd if you don't remember that the car is heavy and it's only a V6... and not RWD. My frame of reference is a 90 Mustant 5MT, 98 SS Camaro 6MT and a 95 Civic 5MT.

ericajackhannahjamie?

SouthernBoy, thank you for the write up. My dad owns a 1989 Ford Mustang 5.0 and to this day, he still has the original clutch. The car has about 225,000 miles and it's still as smooth as silk. I learned it from my dad and it has worked well for me too Since I turned 18, I have driven nothing but MT and your advice is exactly what some newbies need, but for someone like me. I also find it useful. My old car, 1997 Camaro SS also had original clutch at about 104,000 before I traded in for my TL. If a car is driven with care, I agree the clutch can last a life time of the car ^^

matelot

I have a problem with that - adding throttle while downshifting - dont understand it.
Doesn't make sense to me : adding throttle while trying to slow down.
anyone clarify this for me ?

goldmemberer

You're in 4th gear, doing 2500 rpm.
You want to go to 3rd gear.
What RPM will your car be doing in 3rd @ the same speed? Probably 4000-4500.
You use throttle to rev-match as you downshift.

You're confusing throttle with throttle while in gear. The latter would cause you to speed up, yes. But we're talking downshifting and rev matching here, so your RPM goes up as you drop gears.

hong615

This is a very informative thread... learned a lot after reading all the info... time to go out n practice...

1 more question: I would use the clutch to park, especially when backup into a parking space... is this wrong? but there's just not enough room to fully engage into gear...

thanks...

Legend2TL

When using reverse

1) I slowly release the clutch not all the way to get the vehicle moving. So I slip the clutch using reverse

2) After the vehicle is in motion (~5MPH) I push the clutch pedal back in and use the vehicle momentum to coast in reverse.

3) Then use the brake to control vehicle reverse speed.

I rarely release the clutch all the way since reverse speed is typically low (even though most reverse gears are geared pretty low). I've useed this technique for over 25 years with no ill effect on cluth wear.

SouthernBoy

At first I wasn't sure where you were coming from with this, but I understand your confusion. Perhaps I might have stated it better to say, "prepare to add throttle", but the results would be the same with either verbiage. Let me try to explain.

There are actually two reasons for this. In no particular order, the first reason you "prepare" to add throttle is in the event that the engine RPMs have receded below that which they should be for the next lower gear in order to make a smooth and seemless transition without having to "slip" the clutch. The second reason is for cases where the downshift is in preparation of taking the car through a corner or a turn, or for quick/rapid acceleration.

Hope this helps you.

ck123

thank southernboy. very informative. i will use your advice on my first MT car. probably an integra.

Shliff

So true about the hundreds of shifts on a commute that, without traffic, should have about 20 shifts!!

Shliff

Conceptually, you downshift to speed up, not to slow down. Use your brakes to slow down.

Shliff

SoutherBoy. Your posts, as always, are great. In your discussion about downshifting you mention letting the clutch engage a bit while blipping. Isn't that almost like double clutching?

sleepinxlionhart

i always find it hard to downshift when going down hill. it's like, you want it to slow down, but you need to engage the throttle for the clutch to catch


oh, and for like going to a stop sign, i don't downshift, i just put it in nutural and let it slide there. ahah

SouthernBoy

Thank you. Yes it is, in fact double clutching. I tend to generally avoid using that term because I suspect there are many on the site (the younger set) who may not be familiar with it. But you are correct.

SouthernBoy

Yes, downshifting while decending a hill can give one pause for sure. You really have to watch what you're doing here because, as you stated, the car is speeding up as it free wheels and in order to perform a proper downshift, you would need to blip the throttle more aggressively to raise the engine speed more than usual in order for it to match wheel speed in the lower gear. Do this carefully and use your brakes. I tend to agree with Shliff when downshifting. My take is if you are doing this as an aid to slowing down as you approach a light or stop sign, don't be too aggressive with it. What this means is don't downshift from 4th to 2nd when you are traveling 38 MPH coming up to a light. Not wise unless you're in a serious situation. I downshift from 6th to 5th and 5th to 4th for some braking affect in normal situations, but I tend not to downshift too much in the lower gears for braking simply because the speeds are low enough that there will be extremely little brake wear.

As for slipping the transmission into neutral as you approach a stop sign or light, I do not recommend this until your speed is pretty low. If traffic permits, just let the car slow down naturally in gear until you are close to idle (maybe around 1000 to 1200 RPM), then go into neutral.

SouthernBoy

Thank you. You will find that driving a good manual car is a real joy. If I had to give just one piece of advice, it would be this. Use caution when being "taught" by a family member or friend who "knows everything there is to know about driving stick". A few dead giveaways that they are not to be trusted with teaching you the finer points are this. How do the downshift? Do they how the car on a hill using the clutch while waiting for a light to change? Are their shifts smooth and seemless?

Good luck and have fun.