<p>Michuncle and Newmassdad, thank you for the information. I’m going to give it to D - she is in love with a Volkwagen, and if she’s determined to drive manual, this should help her. She spent a couple of hours with a friend who owns one and believes it’s very easy, but, since her source of information is someone who has been driving a manual for a while, there’s probably some inaccurate information - bad driving habits - passed along. </p>
<p>Dogwood23, do you really think it makes a person a better driver? It makes sense I guess, since the driver has no choice but to pay attention. Do you happen to know if there are any stats on accidents or driving infractions and automatics vs. manuals?</p>
<p>i don’t really recommend the whole going to the parking lot and getting the car moving without the gas. you end up burning the clutch unnecissarily. </p>
<p>my best advice is learn to let the clutch out much further than normal and give the car less gas. as long as your not trying to break any accelleration records you can almost drop the clutch and get into first year without bucking.</p>
<p>My Dad had a Ford pick up truck that would drive about 30 miles an hour if you tried that trick with the parking lot. I liked the pick up but the Ford Windstar sucked. It’s electric parts were always misfiring. I was on the way to get it fixed yet again when it was totaled. My new Mommy van is a Toyota.</p>
<p>My Dad always had volkswagens- he even talked my granpa into buying one, but he didn’t keep it long * the engine sounds like a sewing machine! *</p>
<p>Both H & I had toyotas- but now he is on an American car kick-
The jeep isn’t bad though- but I wanted a Subaru</p>
<p>“i don’t really recommend the whole going to the parking lot and getting the car moving without the gas. you end up burning the clutch unnecissarily.”</p>
<p>Actually, Jags, you have it entirely backwards. On level ground, not giving gas and letting the clutch out slowly is the least harmful way to use the clutch. Think about it: a clutch is a mechanical device that connects two shafts. If they’re at different speeds, there will be slippage until the two speeds sync. With no gas, the engine quickly transfers some energy to the drive train while turning at about 1000 rpm. The engine speed drops while the drive train speeds up until the two sync.</p>
<p>If you gave the engine gas while letting out the clutch, the engine speed would not decrease as much, perhaps not at all or even increasing, hence the slippage amount is increased.</p>
<p>There is just no way around it. The faster the drive train must turn until sync, the more slippage. </p>
<p>Jags, sounds like you’ve never tried a no gas start. I suggest you do so before pontificating.</p>
<p>I love cars with manuals for a couple of uses. One is for simply hot-rodding (or feeling like you are) around and the sheer pleasure of shifting. The other is when 4-wheeling where it gives the driver much more control over hill descents and rock crawling. Driven properly (i.e. not hot-rodding), a manual will usually get slightly better mileage than an automatic. A manual is also simple and cheaper to fix when something goes wrong. Automatics today are quite complex and very expensive to repair as many of you can attest.</p>
<p>On the other hand, automatics are geerally more practical (as long as they don’t break and cost $$$). They’re mush easier to drive in heavy traffic and when starting up a hill for one with not much experience. An automatic is easier on the drive train as well - especially in heavy traffic, due to the ‘shock absorber’ effect of the torque converter. Automatics are the lowest common denominator - anyone who can drive can drive one. With a manual, you could have the issue of a kid, parent, sibling, etc. that might not be able to drive your car (maybe it’s a benefit).</p>
<p>For the ‘family’ car, I have an automatic. If I had a sports car or a jeep, I’d definitely want a manual.</p>
<p>you act like its some big deal to start the car without using the gas pedal. anyone can do it - its not that hard - and its not practical at all.</p>
<p>without using gas however, from a standstill, you have to ride the clutch more than you would if you would use the gas pedal - or else the car stalls. as i’m sure a mechanical expert like yourself knows, anytime the clutch is depressed partially, and the car is in gear, there is wear on the pad (and anytime you push the clutch pedal at all, you wear out the mechanical parts specifically the throwout bearings). now - if you want to go ahead and use no gas and sit on the clutch for a few seconds so that u end up going 5 mph thats fine by me. but you can get off of it much quicker by just bringing up the rpms to 1500 with the gas and letting the clutch out faster.</p>
<p>Nice try at a rebuttal, but wrong on three counts. </p>
<p>First, if you’re not too aggressive, the car will not stall. </p>
<p>Second, it is not how FAST you get going. It’s how much energy needs to be transferred during the start, the slippage period, if you will. The faster the car is moving at the end of clutch engagement, the more the wear.</p>
<p>Third, the throw out bearing issue is bogus. These things can outlast many a clutch, and do. In fact, what happens when someone rides the clutch when driving? Ever hear of a worn TO? No. The clutch goes.</p>
<p>Years ago, TO bearings were sometimes graphite and metal. Had a car with that. And yes, that one did wear. Had to replace the TO every time I did the clutch (and the clutch wore a lot because it was a bit small for my blueprinted, modified engine) but it still never outwore the clutch. These days, every one I’ve seen is ball bearing, and they seem to last forever. They get replaced in clutch jobs because they’re so cheap.</p>
<p>Sorry if you don’t understand the physics behind this stuff.</p>
<p>Oh, BTW, a no gas start IS practical. Do it all the time now, and my clutch is happier. I agree that if you’re in a rush (say to beat the car next to you) you probably want to use gas, lots of it. But budget some repair money if you do this too much.</p>
<p>I’m a relative youngster but in high school driver’s ed I drove a manual that had the clutch on the steering wheel column. The car was a 57 Chevy Nomad, the oldest darn thing in the driver’s ed car pool. I was horrified at first but after a couple of minutes I couldn’t believe how easy the car was to drive. Never drove a manual again, however. Passed D.E. with flying colors…except for that parallel parking thing.</p>
<p>The no gas pedal slow clutch release is a great way to LEARN how to drive a stick while a newbie is figuring out where the clutch friction point is. That method is much easier on the neck than bunny hopping around the parking lot trying to work out the clutch/gas together stuff. I will occasionally do it just for kicks (there’s just something so “zen like” to that process) when there is no traffic around, which in my neck of the woods is seldom. Today’s drivers, as a rule, have no patience for that kind of stuff, especially if it’s going on right in front of them. <em>Sigh</em>, how many times this past spring did I bite my tongue rather than yell “back off Jack” to the tailgater behind us as my kids gained proficiency with the manual transmission?</p>
<p>Having the skills to drive a manual transmission go hand in hand (I think, though could be a fallout of my father’s teachings that I spouted along to my own kiddos) in a greater awareness of what the heck the car is going through: GEARS! Lower gear, slower speed. MUCH better on nasty roads than sudden braking, don’t you think? But that probably requires a more aware driver, thinking ahead, which I think an accomplished manual driver might be, whether driving a stick or an automatic. That’s my take, anyway. Knowing how to handle a manual transmissional isn’t a requirement for being a savvy driver, but I think it could help instill that trait.</p>
<p>Of course, that means nothing to an acquaintance who managed to do much damage to his recently purchased manual transmission roadster. Having fun on a windy road, fiddling with a new unknown radio… Let that be a lesson kids. (I’m not sure how much of that was due to the stick.)</p>
<p>S has a manual. One advantage is that a lot of kids don’t know how to drive one, so he is not asked to lend it out, or if he is, the manual is a roadblock. I know, I know, that they should be threatened to burning at the stake for lending out a car, but the requests roll in and it is so hard to say no. Friend of mine whose son was given absolutely NO permission, but punitive measures for letting anyone else drive, saw no harm in letting girlfriend drive car from one end of parking lot to the other in pouring down rain when she had something delicate to carry. Of course there was an accident. Also, my son seems to be more concerned that someone can screw up the transmission with poor shifting than he is that someone will have an accident and jump up the insurance.</p>
<p>CPToftheHouse: (what does CPT stand for?)
The catch to kids not knowing how to drive a stick is that they will ask your son to teach them. My D has taught about ten people how to drive a stick (using the no-gas-let-clutch-out-slowly method described so ably above). Of course, no one had the nerve to ask her until college–but…</p>
<p>There has to be SOME benefit to driving something that requires dozens of posts and linked instructions and even debate on how most efficiently make it stop and go. Since there’s no financial benefit, it must be a LOT of fun to drive.</p>
<p>There’s also the fun of bragging that you drive a stick, which many people consider very difficult (even though it really isn’t). When my son took his driving test with a stickshift, the examiner confided that <em>he</em> didn’t know how to drive a stick and had found it too difficult when he tried. My son crowed about that one for days.</p>
<p>There is nothing difficult whatsoever about driving a standard shift car. In fact, in many parts of the world an automatic is considered a handicap device. Now if you are talking about rev matched downshifting, that takes a little practice but is SO worth the time and effort.</p>
<p>When we went to Italy this summer my motor-head husband said he was going to rent a Ferrari since it was his birthday. Knowing he was joking, I didn’t think anything of it until he came back and said “forget it…they only rent them with automatic transmissions.” Curious, I looked at the AutoEurope website, which indeed said they only came with “automatic” transmissions (they were also about $1200/day, which no doubt had much to do with DH’s “decision.”) It still seemed weird, so I googled a bit until I found that they had a system remarkably liked the one described by LakeWashington–mounted on the steering column. You can see it in action here, in this semi-humorous British program–fast forward to about 3:00 if you want to skip to the very cool computer-assisted steering column-mounted clutch/shifting system. (They borrow the Ferrari Enzo belonging to Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason).</p>