learn to drive stick shift

I drove a stickshift car for the first time a few weeks ago. When I would ask them when to shift gears, all they kept telling me was “you have to feel for it.” I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, and it would drive me crazy. The second day after about 30 minutes I felt like I kind of knew what they were talking about, and I could shift from 1st to second almost every time. I never went fast enough to shift into 3rd or 4th though. Too much traffic. I don’t know when I’m going to practice again.

Is it mostly us chicks in here? I want a Jeep Wrangler for graduation (I’m buying it myself, people) and there is no way on God’s green earth I am gonna buy a Wrangler with auto transmission. Therefore… so I gotta get my brother on this.

I learned how to drive a stick when I was 17. It took me two weeks to get it right, but it’s a skill i won’t forget. And I’m glad to know it, it can be quite useful. My teacher was the best though, he was extremely patient. It was hard finding that balance between letting go of the break and depressing the clutch AND the gas; I felt like I needed 3 legs. It was very frustrating, but my advice is to stick to it, you will learn.

If I want to drive while I´m abroad in a foreign country I´m gonna have to figure it out because most of the cars have manual transmission. Sooooo….

to learn. I know how to take off but when I get to the stop sign a block away I kill it. =/ And that was 2 months ago…the marines took my teacher away. He better finish my lesson when he comes home! i’ll have a special treat for him when he does ;)

I’m learning how to drive stick. I got it down for the most part. It’s fun. I now need a car that I can play with.

...but automatic makes it soooo easy!

It’s not like I haven’t tried to learn. But traffic scares me. Forget about merging onto the highway! I seem to stall out, right when I think I’m getting the hang of it. I have no rhythm to the whole clutch-brake dance. Ugh.

In a lot of ways I think this is going to be like learning how to snowboard. It’s about subtle muscle memory that with practice, you just start doing and you don’t know how it’s happening. But just like with snowboarding where I’m not anxious to keep banging my head against the mountain every 3 minutes because my edge keeps catching, I’m also not anxious to keep stalling out with lots of angry cars behind me…

I’m keeping this goal up here, because of course, my fiance drives standard. And if there are two cars in one family, a person needs to be able to drive both. So, I’ll keep trying.

the hardest thing for me was learning when it engages and not popping it. but after time and trying masny different approaches and methods of basically trial and error i got it down. oh and just remember to put the clutch in when braking. that takes a bit to remember

I learned stick shift on my new car in about 40 minutes flat! It was way easier than I thought it would be, and I love it so much more than automatic!

It can get a little frustrating at first. I know, that’s the truth. But one thing that actually helped me was practicing a lot, and then I stopped after I got frustrated. When I came back to try it out, something just clicked. Finding balance is the hardest part. Once you get over that, you’re good to go. My parents were also kind of hard on me about it. They put me under pressure. One day my mom just stopped the car on the side of the road and said “Drive home.” I don’t know if that’s good, but it did help me to be under that kind of pressure.
The hardest thing for me was not stalling. It was just because I was too scared to give it enough gas. My friend said, “it’s better to give it too much gas than not enough.” Just practice. It’s hard for a couple of days, but that’s it.