How long have you been driving manual?

[Hatchman]

Nice point Rob. Your figures are eerily similar to my own as far as the time it took to adjust to the FiT. When I had the Golf, I had reached a happy level of proficiency. Just goes to show ya how badly I wanted to gat back into a Honda

[Paolo300zx]

first time i drove a stick was when i was like 12, but ive been daily driving stick for about 2 years, almost 3

[Prodigal Son]

The subject of proficiency across multiple vehicles interests me. I've never had a problem adjusting to a clutch or a gear box. In fact, I've had more trouble adjusting to the gas and the brake in different cars. Even then, though, a few lurches from an over-sensitive brake pedal on a rental and I adjust.

Maybe this is just a matter of the number of different cars I have driven over 30 years of driving, 20 of them in manuals. Even when I stepped into a friends manual Corolla after 10 years of driving slushie, I adapted to the clutch and gear box almost immediately. I actually took a little longer to get comfortable in the Jetta, not because I had a problem working the clutch or the gear box, but becuase I had trouble adjusting to the sound of the engine.

So, maybe I'm just able to adjust quickly. Maybe its the years of experience. But I honestly suspect that it is something else. There is a lot of talk here about learning the friction point, and in general, learning the pedal. I was not taught that way. I was taught to go by the behavior of the car -- to focus on the feedback I was getting from the motion and sound of the car.

If you look at it this way, it is not about moving the pedal this far or this fast, it is about moving the pedal so that the car moves like this or sounds like this. If you train yourself this way (I believe) you will have a much easier time moving from one vehicle to another. Moving to another vehicle of the same class should take no more than half an hour to adapt (like adapting to the brake on a rental car). Adapting to a different class should take no more than a few days.

The specific motions are different in each car, but the nature of the feedback is pretty consistent. If you train yourself to the motions, I think it will be hard to adapt to another car. If you train yourself to the feedback, I think it will be much easier to adapt.

It's just a thory, but it helps me to explain some of the difficulty people here seem to have sometimes.

[SonOfAFarmer]

I have been driving stick for ca 35 years now. I am 46 years old.

All the tractors / USSR made "Jeeps" and Land Rovers in my fathers farmyard vere stick. That was the norm. My favourite was the Allis Chalmers. Throttle by hand and all...

I just recently bought my first juicebox at free will (ie not swapping and getting some slushies), an BMW 540i and I love it. Not for the box but the car overall.

Two years ago I helped my dad (age 85) to buy a car for himself. Being 100 kms away from me, his last conversation when I was closing the deal over the phone ended .. and you remember son, NOT AN AUTOMATIC ONE...

I quite like ss.com although I never dreamed driving could be so difficult, as some of you describe. In my territory learners only drive stick. And benefit from it, being able to drive almost any type of car from that point on.

[Hatchman]

The subject of proficiency across multiple vehicles interests me. I've never had a problem adjusting to a clutch or a gear box. In fact, I've had more trouble adjusting to the gas and the brake in different cars. Even then, though, a few lurches from an over-sensitive brake pedal on a rental and I adjust.

Not sure if I'm being picked on (again), but all I can say is the Golf and FiT were my first two manuals, owned and operated within a year of each other. And although they were generally in the same class (compact/subcompact hatch), they felt like night and day. Clutch travel, throttle sensitivity, engine sound, brake sensitivity, handling, control placement, all were very different. I believe my 15 months of manual experience versus your 20 years may just have a little something to do with our respective adjustment times. Experience can be a very good teacher. I believe your years in a stick have helped you reach comfort level in a new car much faster. Happily, I've now (finally) reached it in my Honda, which makes two mastered sticks under my belt. Watch out! I'm catching up.

[j_ortiz]

February of 1981 when I converted my trusty '74 Datsun B210 because I had to take out its slushbox anyway since there was an engine oil leak. Over 25 years of continuous shifting!

[Prodigal Son]

Not sure if I'm being picked on (again),

I don't believe I have ever picked on you. (I hope not.) I have sometimes disagreed with you. I have sometimes reported that my experience has differed from yours. In neither case was I intending to attack you personally.

Frankly, I am always very interested when my experience differs from someone else's. I want to know where the difference lies. I am also very interested in why some people learn things quickly, others learn them slowly, and others can't learn them at all. (I can't learn languages or dancing, for instance, but I tend to learn mechanical things very quickly. Why is that? I don't know. I wish I did.)

As a technical writer, I am also interested in how people learn. Why does one learning method work for one person and another learning method work for a different person? Is one learning method inherently better than another, or do different ones work for different people. And if the latter, how do we select the right learning strategy for a particular person or help them to select it for themselves.

I believe my 15 months of manual experience versus your 20 years may just have a little something to do with our respective adjustment times. Experience can be a very good teacher. I believe your years in a stick have helped you reach comfort level in a new car much faster.

That may well be the whole of the explanation. On the other hand, I don't remember ever having trouble moving from one car to another. I also know that the way my father taught me to drive manual was not at all like the method that we seem to commonly advocate here, with its emphasis on friction points and the details of foot movement. My dad's approach focused on how the car behaved. Move the clutch until the car does this. Press the gas until the car does that. Is that approach better, worse, or just different?

It's been 30 years, so my memory may be at fault, and I have no way to prove that it isn't. On the other hand, we have members on this board who are still struggling after a year or more. What's the reason? An inherent lack of aptitude? Were they taught wrong? Was the way the were taught inherently wrong, or was it just wrong for their learning style? Would a different way of teaching/explaining help them?

Is the difference in my experience perhaps, as I speculated in an earlier thread, that those of us born before the digital era just learned and used so many more mechanical devices that we internalized the fundamentals of operating them in a way that the children of the digital age never did. (Conversely, many my age and older cannot work even the simplest digital devices. They didn't learn the logic and conventions of them in their youth and can't seem to manage them now, even the simplest ones like cell phones and VCRs.)

I don't know. But I think the question is worth exploring, because if we could answer it we might be able to help more people learn to get comfortable with their cars more quickly.

Anyway, my point is not to brag about my skills (which are, frankly, pedestrian and no better than they need to be) or to belittle anybody else's. My point is that I'm hearing people express their experience and I'm thinking, "Hmmm. It was not like that for me." I want to find out if anything useful (or even just interesting) can come out of noticing that difference.

[jomotopia]

it's the difference between "what" and "how".

some people, you can tell them what to do (release the clutch slowly with some gas so the car starts to move), and they will figure out for themselves how to do it. other people, you tell them what to do and they will keep trying the same thing over and over, not being able to do it, and ask "how?".

learning the "how" rather than the "what" is fine for something like, say math. but for driving stick, the "how" varies greatly depending on the car, situation, etc, etc ad nauseum. you can learn pointers on "how" but you have to be willing to adjust them to achieve the "what". if you learn only the "how" in a particular car and strictly adhere to it without concentrating on the "what", you will probably have a much harder time adjusting from car to car.

that made more sense in my head. hopefully ppl get it.

[Prodigal Son]

Well that's exactly what I'm wondering. I was taught the what of shifting and let my feet figure out the how. Other people seemed to have been taught the how of shifting.

Does being taught the what rather than the how make it easier to learn? Maybe.

But then there is a second question: If those who have learned the what can adapt more easilly than those who have learned the how, then they have not just taken two different roads to the same place, they have actually learned two different skills for handling the same machine (which is *very* interesting if it is true).

Or might it be that they do eventually end up at the same place, but those who learn the what get there faster than those who learn the how.

Or is the sample size to small to draw valid conclusions about teaching methods, and perhaps the difference is in how people learn, not how they are taught. Or might it be generational. Or.. or.. or..

[coolguy]

Man didn't you guys think way toooooooooooo much? I thought most advice on here is both "what" and "how" mixed. Everyone is different, man. Some people will just take longer time to learn certain things while some people will just take shorter time, no matter how they were taught. Of course, a good teacher may helps to speed up the learning process. =P

[Prodigal Son]

I believe the big misconception about driving manual is that there is some magical way that requires some great skill beyond people's abilities.

Until I came here I never imagined that the simple act of shifting was so interesting or so difficult for people. For me, the interesting issue has always been gear selection. That's what makes driving a manual worthwhile and interesting for me. (I remember my father teaching me about gear selection years before I was old enought to drive.)

After I came here, I did put some time into learning heel and toe, which I had never done before, but not because I was interested in it as a physical challenge, but because it offered new options for optimizing gear selection.

Actually, the reason I stick around here, I think, is not so much because I am a car guy (I'm not). I stick around because this place is a technical communications sand box, and as such I find it fascinating.

[jomotopia]

paul34, you should take your car to the track and wind out the gears and heel-toe flying into some turns. that should bring back the magic of stick.

[eaglecatcher]

yeah. going to the track doesn't have to be about racing to win, it can be just to have fun w/ you car. I'm gonna get some friends together when we all get cars, and go to the track, and just race and stuff.

[OzZyMaN2438]

I learned maybe two years ago. My first real experience was in a brand new Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart, and the guy taught me the basics while on a test drive. I "taught myself" the rest and sorted everything out while driving an 86 Ranger pickup that the company I worked for owned at the time. I hated that thing...the clutch pedal actually broke off twice...(linkage)

Recently I have had the fortune of being able to practice manual driving in several forms. My wifes Civic allows me to practice on proper technique with a smooth gearbox and minimal power, and my Spyder allows me to have a silky smooth clutch and fun driving...The best of both worlds...

[jcprov21]

Coming up on 2 years in may

so a year and a half or so..