For those of you driving a standard.

[Loves Disney]

I have had my license since last August but have been driving since November 2004. I learned on an automatic and as of right now, only know how to drive an automatic. Today, I was FINALLY taken out to learn how to operate a standard. However, after the multiple - stop, go, stop, go, stop ...bounce - I realized this isn't as easy as some people made it out to be lol. Now, I feel so stupid because I was unable to smoothly drive in my cute, small, red Miata. What I want to know is, am I a complete idiot for unsuccessfully driving a standard, or is it okay to be "disabled" in that area of driving? lol. I plan to take the car out more and am hoping that with more practice I will be cruising down the streets in my other car. How long did it take for you guys to learn and were you all "stopping and going" just the same?? lol.

 

[MuNkY]

My mom's boyfriend can't shift in his Miata to save his life. If you ride with him, you'll be constantly jerking around.

 

[Loves Disney]

My mom's boyfriend can't shift in his Miata to save his life. If you ride with him, you'll be constantly jerking around.

Must be a Miata thing...at least, that is what I now keep telling myself.

 

[jonestavern]

Most everyone 'bucks' the vehicle while learning
This is why you let your parents or SO teach you to drive, the Lord & the law, have provided this outlet for your repressed feelings of hostility

By the end of 20 hrs or so you should have kicked the habit.
Like anything else, learning to drive smoothly, varies from person to person.
Before you know it you'll be cruising down the hi-ways & bi-ways, eating a burger, flipping radio channels & flawlessly power shifting

Be sure to practice holding still on a hill--you may need to drive to New Hampshire one of these days~

Jean

 

[Loves Disney]

Most everyone 'bucks' the vehicle while learning
This is why you let your parents or SO teach you to drive, the Lord & the law, have provided this outlet for your repressed feelings of hostility

By the end of 20 hrs or so you should have kicked the habit.
Like anything else, learning to drive smoothly, varies from person to person.
Before you know it you'll be cruising down the hi-ways & bi-ways, eating a burger, flipping radio channels & flawlessly power shifting

Be sure to practice holding still on a hill--you may need to drive to New Hampshire one of these days~

Jean

So rolling backwards on a hill picking up incredible amounts of speed isn't a good thing??

 

[MuNkY]

Must be a Miata thing...at least, that is what I now keep telling myself.

No because when my mom drives it it doesn't do that.

 

[Servants of Evan]

Okay, I'm way too old to be posting on this board, but since I saw the topic as the lead I though I'd chime in... I've been driving a stick-shift almost every day -- for well over 23 years now. My last car I gave away with just over 165,000 miles on it, and it still had the original clutch. As such, you might say I have some experience on this topic...

Obviously, you have learned that the hardest thing to driving a standard transmission car is getting started either in first gear or reverse. Yep, you're not alone. That's just the way it is but I'm here to help you learn. Personally, I think standard transmission drivers are better drivers overall. The reason is, we have to be. We need to focus more on driving, on what is happening farther up the road than just the back bumper of the guy in front of us. We have to pay attention!

That being said, first off -- you need to relax. Drifting back while at a light on a hill isn't good, but neither is tensing up and stalling the car when you pop the clutch. In fact, popping the clutch seems to be your problem. Your use of the clutch and gas pedal almost need to be a complete inverse of each other. A good visualization would be a teeter-totter. One side is the clutch pedal and the other side is the gas. To be smooth, you need to slowly add gas while you're slowly coming off the clutch. Do not pop the clutch out (unless you've just shifted from a gear into neutral). It's a clutch, not a lightswitch -- don't just go from on to off instantly. Sure, doing that chirps your tires and you'll think it's fun until you find out you just destroyed your constant velocity (CV) joints, torqued your motor mounts or fried your clutch and plate. Simply put, it's not worth the damage you can inflict...

So, how do you become smoother at shifting? Besides the obvious "practice" there are a few exercises you can try to "become one" with your car. Do you instinctively know where your clutch engages? Sit in a vacant parking lot (or your driveway if you've got the room) with the engine running and the car stopped. Don't go with your friends, or anyone else who may be a distraction ... we need you to focus here. Now turn that darn radio off - this exercise works both your sense of touch and your sense of hearing (See, I said you'd have to pay attention). Press in on the clutch fully and shift into first gear. With the engine at idle, slowly let out on the clutch until you feel it grabbing. You'll feel the resistance in your foot as the force of the motor begins to be transferred to the clutch pack. Push it back in and next time pay attention to not only how it feels, but how the engine sounds as well. You'll hear it as the strain is put on the motor. Do this a few times. Don't worry, doing this a few times isn't causing any more damage to your clutch than popping it is... Once you're comfortable with the engagement point, do it again and this time when you feel the engine take the strain add a little gas as you come fully off the clutch. You're not driving a top fuel dragster, you're driving a car which needs care. Unless you've got a pit crew waiting to rebuild your car after each outing, take it easy. You should be creaping along at five miles an hour or so. Do this a few times and concentrate. If you can do this, you've got the hard part behind you.

When you're shifting between gears (upshifting) you should be able to be pretty smooth unless you're "slamming" the gears. If you are "slamming" them, I hope you've got that really good pit crew with a very large spare parts budget. The goal is not to take the car up to your 6000 or 7000 redline and then pop into the next gear unless you're going for that dragster trophy. Again, keep that spare part budget in the back of your mind. Take the car up to maybe 4000 rpm on the tach, and as you quickly put the clutch in, take your foot off the gas. The engine will naturally drop in rpm, and as you're changing gears and coming off the clutch you start adding gas again. What you'll wind up with is Smmmmoooooth shifting. Remember - don't fly off that clutch, but instead take almost three seconds from the floor until you're off it.

Here we'll end lesson number one. Go out and drive. Listen and feel. Become "one" with your car.

 

[tiff13]

Its normal from what I've seen for learners. Once you get the hang of it, stick shifts will be fun. And then after awhile you'll find they are really annoying. As for myself, I've grown up driving tractors, 4 wheelers, and driving in the backwoods so its always kind of been natural for me.

 

[Loves Disney]

Okay, I'm way too old to be posting on this board, but since I saw the topic as the lead I though I'd chime in... I've been driving a stick-shift almost every day -- for well over 23 years now. My last car I gave away with just over 165,000 miles on it, and it still had the original clutch. As such, you might say I have some experience on this topic...

Obviously, you have learned that the hardest thing to driving a standard transmission car is getting started either in first gear or reverse. Yep, you're not alone. That's just the way it is but I'm here to help you learn. Personally, I think standard transmission drivers are better drivers overall. The reason is, we have to be. We need to focus more on driving, on what is happening farther up the road than just the back bumper of the guy in front of us. We have to pay attention!

That being said, first off -- you need to relax. Drifting back while at a light on a hill isn't good, but neither is tensing up and stalling the car when you pop the clutch. In fact, popping the clutch seems to be your problem. Your use of the clutch and gas pedal almost need to be a complete inverse of each other. A good visualization would be a teeter-totter. One side is the clutch pedal and the other side is the gas. To be smooth, you need to slowly add gas while you're slowly coming off the clutch. Do not pop the clutch out (unless you've just shifted from a gear into neutral). It's a clutch, not a lightswitch -- don't just go from on to off instantly. Sure, doing that chirps your tires and you'll think it's fun until you find out you just destroyed your constant velocity (CV) joints, torqued your motor mounts or fried your clutch and plate. Simply put, it's not worth the damage you can inflict...

So, how do you become smoother at shifting? Besides the obvious "practice" there are a few exercises you can try to "become one" with your car. Do you instinctively know where your clutch engages? Sit in a vacant parking lot (or your driveway if you've got the room) with the engine running and the car stopped. Don't go with your friends, or anyone else who may be a distraction ... we need you to focus here. Now turn that darn radio off - this exercise works both your sense of touch and your sense of hearing (See, I said you'd have to pay attention). Press in on the clutch fully and shift into first gear. With the engine at idle, slowly let out on the clutch until you feel it grabbing. You'll feel the resistance in your foot as the force of the motor begins to be transferred to the clutch pack. Push it back in and next time pay attention to not only how it feels, but how the engine sounds as well. You'll hear it as the strain is put on the motor. Do this a few times. Don't worry, doing this a few times isn't causing any more damage to your clutch than popping it is... Once you're comfortable with the engagement point, do it again and this time when you feel the engine take the strain add a little gas as you come fully off the clutch. You're not driving a top fuel dragster, you're driving a car which needs care. Unless you've got a pit crew waiting to rebuild your car after each outing, take it easy. You should be creaping along at five miles an hour or so. Do this a few times and concentrate. If you can do this, you've got the hard part behind you.

When you're shifting between gears (upshifting) you should be able to be pretty smooth unless you're "slamming" the gears. If you are "slamming" them, I hope you've got that really good pit crew with a very large spare parts budget. The goal is not to take the car up to your 6000 or 7000 redline and then pop into the next gear unless you're going for that dragster trophy. Again, keep that spare part budget in the back of your mind. Take the car up to maybe 4000 rpm on the tach, and as you quickly put the clutch in, take your foot off the gas. The engine will naturally drop in rpm, and as you're changing gears and coming off the clutch you start adding gas again. What you'll wind up with is Smmmmoooooth shifting. Remember - don't fly off that clutch, but instead take almost three seconds from the floor until you're off it.

Here we'll end lesson number one. Go out and drive. Listen and feel. Become "one" with your car.

It is very good to see in words what my father was trying to explain to me! It really is lol. You have pretty much targeted my exact problems when it comes to driving a standard lol. For me, it is pretty much knowning how much gas to put on and how quickly/slowly to release the clutch. I suppose my initial issue was I put on way too much gas and took the clutch off way too fast. OR, I was not putting enough gas and releasing the clutch "off balance" with the gas. My dad and I were driving around the school parking lot and so I had plenty of space to practice.

There was this one point, through all the chaotic "jerking", that I actually had the car going smoothly. However, some woman was lost and waved her arms at us yelling for our help. I had a heck of a time stopping the car at a sudden "bounce". From there, I never had the car going quite the same again lol. Ah well...

Thanks for your input and well explained/written, essentially an, instructions manual! lol. This will prove rather helpful when I am out again (if my father isn't too afraid to get back in the car with me! LOL) And I mean, I am a well driver when it comes to driving an automatic. Except now, it is like learning all over again...

 

[WDWHunk]

I picked up on it after only driving mine for a couple of hours. Manual transmission cars are more fun overall, however depending on where you live can get old very quick. I live in Atlanta where the traffic is horrible and since I'm constantly down in Atlanta where its stop and go everywhere, I'm currently looking for an automatic car. A miata should be a fun little car to learn on though.

 

[Servants of Evan]

Another thing that may help is to visualize what is happening inside the transmission to give it some "context." When your engine is cranking away you've got pistons pumping, a crankshaft spinning and important to this discussion -- a flywheel turning. In it's simplest form, a flywheel is a large piece of steel shaped a bit like (and about the size of) a frisbee. That's what is actually turning the 6000 rpm. So, you've got this steel frisbee standing vertically and spinning. The clutch is like a slightly smaller luncheon plate spaced just a little bit away from the flywheel. It's covered with a coating which allows it to mildly "grab" the spinning frisbee and it uses pressure to lock itself onto the face. This clutch then transfers the spinning energy to the rest of the transmission (gears) and finally the drive shaft(s) and wheels.

So, think about what happens when you "pop" the clutch. You've got something which isn't spinning suddenly being told to grab on to something whirling around at a high rate of speed. Instead of grabbing on smoothly, it's being bounced off. Imagine one of those local park carousel platforms that as kids we used to hop on and whip around on. When the platform was spinning quickly it was tough to jump on, correct? When it slowed down, you were able to grab the pipes and haul yourself onto the platform. The same holds true with your transmission. When you add too much gas and rev up that flywheel right before the clutch is engaged, it's the same as the carousel speeding up just as you go to grab on. You're not going to grab on smoothly and if you do happen to grab ahold, your going to be jerked violently... If you can visualize this, you can understand why your car feels like it's jerking when you let off on the clutch too fast or with too much gas... sure, it's a bit over simplified, but you get the idea.

 

[Loves Disney]

Another thing that may help is to visualize what is happening inside the transmission to give it some "context." When your engine is cranking away you've got pistons pumping, a crankshaft spinning and important to this discussion -- a flywheel turning. In it's simplest form, a flywheel is a large piece of steel shaped a bit like (and about the size of) a frisbee. That's what is actually turning the 6000 rpm. So, you've got this steel frisbee standing vertically and spinning. The clutch is like a slightly smaller luncheon plate spaced just a little bit away from the flywheel. It's covered with a coating which allows it to mildly "grab" the spinning frisbee and it uses pressure to lock itself onto the face. This clutch then transfers the spinning energy to the rest of the transmission (gears) and finally the drive shaft(s) and wheels.

So, think about what happens when you "pop" the clutch. You've got something which isn't spinning suddenly being told to grab on to something whirling around at a high rate of speed. Instead of grabbing on smoothly, it's being bounced off. Imagine one of those local park carousel platforms that as kids we used to hop on and whip around on. When the platform was spinning quickly it was tough to jump on, correct? When it slowed down, you were able to grab the pipes and haul yourself onto the platform. The same holds true with your transmission. When you add too much gas and rev up that flywheel right before the clutch is engaged, it's the same as the carousel speeding up just as you go to grab on. You're not going to grab on smoothly and if you do happen to grab ahold, your going to be jerked violently... If you can visualize this, you can understand why your car feels like it's jerking when you let off on the clutch too fast or with too much gas... sure, it's a bit over simplified, but you get the idea.

I cannot believe I understood a lot of what you said here! I am the last person to understand cars like that, but you explained it very well and understandable. Thank you so much for your posts here, they help A LOT! Hopefully I will be driving that car sooner than later! I cannot thank you enough for all you have written here to help me! Very cool!

~Loves Disney (who is very thankful for the input of Servants of Evan)

 

[Servants of Evan]

Happy to help. We "standard people" need to stick together!