btidds30

Hi, my first post.

So my dad bought a 06 TL 6MT the other week and its still in it's break in period. He let me take it out for a spin however, I was not use to the clutch, much different than my 1996 Accord.

I stalled it a few times. I was wondering if stalling is really bad during the break-in period, and how bad is stalling in general?

Thanks!

triggle

You'll learn to feather it out slowly. I think it happens to most of us, even well seasoned MT drivers.

weedeater

Try not to make a habit out of it.

tejesh83

The TL was my first MT car. I probably had less than a mile of experience with a MT, when I drove my it off the lot. I got it home ok, but over the next few months I stalled it plenty of times learning my first clutch in Atlanta traffic. But its been about 8 months or 4.5k miles since, and the car seems to be doing just fine.

clausda0

same story here as tej. car is now at 2000 and fine.

bmui1561

The TL's clutch took a little while to get used to. I stalled many times within the first week and i've only owned MT cars. It takes a little while to get used to. No worries, car should be fine.

gauravp123

so I've learned how to drive stick the past 4-5 months on my friends leased 2004 330Ci with performance package.....had driven about 13-15 times before, with some drives from NYC back here to Long Island on a MT over 1 hour and did great.

Getting into first gear I feel, is very tough in the TL compared to the 330Ci or other MT cars I've driven, I'm NO expert manual/stick driver by any means, but this is what I feel...then shifiting 2-3, 3-4 4-5, 5-6 is effortless in the TL whereas shifting in the 330ci or other cars, seems like more work and not as effortless after 1st gear...

maybe more lower end torque would make it easier to shift into first on the TL?

I've probably stalled about 4-5 times and I picked up my car laast saturday, its been 6 days now about 450 miles on it...trying to drive it carefully and keep it under 3-4k RPM and under 60-65MPH with varying speeds...........

HEK

This was the only clutch that I had to re-learn to use, my tip is to put your seat as far back as your arms can reach the steering wheel and allows you to drive and shift, try that it worked for me after some frustrating times and trust me I started driving tractor trailers at 18 years old and have done my share of shifting, now at 47 it comes second hand...( I thought I had lost my touch and someone here said..."drive by wire" and I did the search, good luck)

KaMLuNg

iTrader: (5)

yeah the 3rd gen clutch does take a little getting used to... i drove a friend's 6MT and i stalled out twice the first time i drove it...

SouthernBoy

Torque has nothing to do with shifting. If you're finding it a little harder to go into first gear I have to ask.. are you doing this while the car is still moving? If so, the reason for the higher effort in the shift is due to the synchronizers having to match gear speeds of the drive and driven gears for the shift. This is a factor of three things: the final drive ratio, the first gear ratio, and the speed at which the car is traveling. The TL uses multiple cone synchronizers which do an excellent job of smoothing the shift.

SouthernBoy

For those of you who have found the clutch in the TL a bit different than others you may have owned, here is the reason.

The TL clutch pedal has a relatively short travel and an even shorter takeup. This plus the fact that from the point of initial engagement to sufficient engagement pressure to move the car is really short. And then there is the issue of early engagement in the takeup. This means that the point at which initial engagement occurs is pretty close to the bottom of the pedal travel. Now put this all together and you have a not-so-compromising clutch engagement.

Don't worry.. it's not hard to get used to this arrangement. But it is different from a lot of other cars, particularly sedans. For you newcomers to the manual world, here's something that you might find helpful. It's a collection of writings and postings I did on another gearhead website. Enjoy.


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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.

HEK

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

Uhm.....I've done that on every car I've driven and have reached 220k ( could have lasted me longer but either rott or an accident prevented it to happen ).
So I would not say that it's a good idea, imagine driving in NYC, Boston, Chicago or any other big city and have the gear not go in at the time the light turned green....can you say "better get Maaco"....

With your foot totally pressing the clutch, this is not wearing at all....

SouthernBoy

It's not the clutch that's affected by this.. it's the release bearing. You risk shortening it's life.

I stand by my statement.

clausda0

I really appreciate everything you wrote SB. I just find it so aggravating trying to figure out the "Correct" way to drive a manual, because people who "have been driving a manual transmission their entire life" have THE way to drive a manual, and it will conflict with some other person's statements that have been "driving a manual transmission all their life."

My TL is my first manual transmission. I'm not sure how to go about figuring out THE best way to drive a manual car. I'm thinking about perhaps taking a performance driving type course, but that is the best way to drive for Performance, NOT for car longevity. Maybe I should buy a book, but I bet I can find 2 books that have conflicting hints about driving a manual transmission.

Maybe I should pray about it, because this seems to be one of those things that only god knows the 1 true way to drive a manual transmission.

SouthernBoy

While I would most certainly defer to God, here on earth, we are left to fend for ourselves most of the time when it comes to driving. So I would recommend this.

Learn how a manual transmission works. Learn about all of the major parts and how they interact with one another. Learn what happens when you depress the clutch, and shift gears (both upshifts and downshifts), and learn how all of this melds together. Then just apply some common sense.

The natural condition of a clutch is fully engaged. So it stands to reason that THAT is the condition in which it should remain most of the time. Any other condition is detrimental to the life of the clutch, and yes, that means using it to motivate the vehicle. But then again, that's its intended purpose.. right?

HOW you use it to motivate your vehicle is what separates the correct manner in which you do this from the incorrect manner. I stated in my text that while there are many ways to operate a manual transmission, there is really only one correct way to do this and I know this to be fact. I also said that I was fortunate to have learned this at an early age which allowed me to develop good habits, not bad ones, when operating a manual transmission.

You may very well hear people telling you this or that about how to drive a manual transmission, but if you have the opportunity, take a ride with them and observe how they do it. Trust me, if you really know how these things work, you'll soon see their errors and mistakes. Remember, just because someone has used manual transmissions their "entire life" doesn't make them experts or make their technique the one you want to use. My father-in-law drove manual transmission cars and trucks for most of his life and he did it quite poorly in my opinion. But you couldn't tell him otherwise.

Once again, learn the workings of the gearbox and the clutch assembly and then apply common sense and knowledge to their use and you'll probably do fine.

SouthernBoy

As a follow up..

Some people will tell you or show you when you are waiting at a light on a slight incline to just hold the car with the clutch. They might tell you to do this just before the light cycles yellow to red for the other traffic so you can start off without rolling backward. Not only are they showing their ignorance about how to launch on an incline (no malice meant by "ignorance"), but they are teaching you a VERY bad technique and habit.

Another one is those who will try to tell you to use your emergency brake under these same conditions (incline and light), but if you start doing this, you'll find it a very hard habit to correct later. Learn it right from day one.

I won't even go into the mistakes and horrors of downshifting I see every day, but suffice it to say, few people do this correctly. Most just remove their right foot from the throttle, depress the clutch, then start easing the clutch out after the downshift. VERY BAD. Learn NOT to do this.

However, the final note and what's really important in the end is the fact that it's your car and your clutch and your transmission and your decision to take as how to operate them all.

clausda0

yeah, i'm currently working on perfecting my, no room for errror, uphill traffic light start without having to use clutch to hold the vehicle start.

i'm getting better

bmui1561

Uphill starts in traffic were the scairest thing when I first started driving a MT when I first got my liscense. I would always get really nervous just seeing the car roll back even a bit.

However when i was trying to learn this, I found that you just gotta tell yourself that the car is going to roll back and just expect it. If you like forget that you are on a hill and forget to expect it to roll back you will freak out and either stall or buck.

It took me awhile to get the hang of it but just be confident and with practice you'll get it.

GOODLUCK