My ex tried to teach me to drive stick on the way home from urgent care… my urgent care. Because it was convenient for him at that time. He refused to teach me several times before then because it was inconvenient. (why yes, I did leave him decades ago over abuse, thanks for asking! Tho it was not the specific thing)
I don’t care if manual is superior in some irrelevant way; I refuse to learn now due to trauma. Pretty sure I looked just like this picture.
Thing is, it’s not superior in any way, quite the opposite. Maybe things were different decades ago.
Though I drive an automatic now, I do still feel like manual transmission gives you a little bit more control. I miss being able to use the clutch in the friction zone for fine control at low speeds or even reversing. Plus I miss being able to downshift at higher speeds for a bit more torque. The last one is achievable by just pressing the accelerator to make the automatic shifter understand what I want to do, or by using it’s manual override but that feels less natural to me for some reason.
Meh, stick is simpler so if anything goes wrong it’s easy to fix or less things to break. The only other reason is that it forces you to pay attention to your driving, so, if your into cars, it’s more enjoyable to go for a drive.
Automatic is superior, especially now. You aren’t missing much.
Different technology, different pros/cons. You don’t need to learn it in the same way you don’t need to learn to calculate the sheer force of a raindrop on a window: you just don’t need to.
Learning manual is one of those things that requires some understanding of what’s going on, a lot of time, and patience. It’s a feel thing, but you need context. After that, it’s muscle memory - and context.
Honestly, most people do all parts of it wrong. So don’t feel bad.
Hey glad your free of that
It’s not just the clutch. Rev up the engine too.
Now you killed it while lurching forward! Exciting!
While learning, don’t touch the gas. Learn how to take the car out of neutral and into first using only the clutch. Then the whole process makes a lot more sense for when you need to do it faster.
No, you didn’t “kill it”, you gave it what it needs and then released the clutch. Slowly letting go till it bites doesn’t make any sense, especially when going uphill. The clutch can take moving a tiny bit faster, the engine cannot take it moving a lot slower. If you lurch, you gave it a ton of gas, instead of keeping it at like 3k range max.
Basically, train on a level surface. Push in the clutch fully, break fully. Then let go of break, and push the gas in slightly. Learn how far you need to push it to keep it at 3k or so, depending on your vehicle. Then, the most important part. Gas doesn’t make your vehicle go, the release of the clutch does. Once you figure out that it’s the left leg that makes it “go” instead of the right, you’ll get it every time, uphill or not. It only needs the tiny amount of initial gas to be good.
None of this "wait till the cars starts rolling and then you have a quarter of a milisecond to add gas before it dies on you.
The “don’t touch the gas” thing is mostly just a learning exercise for people brand-new to driving stick to get a feel for where their clutch bites and how it slips, it’s not the way to start a car rolling, certainly not on hills. Though anecdotally, I’ve driven at least a dozen manual transmission cars and trucks and only one lacked the torque to start and roll just idling - because we found out later that its timing jumped a tooth. So this line
None of this "wait till the cars starts rolling and then you have a quarter of a milisecond to add gas before it dies on you.
makes me suspect that there’s something up with your car? Even if it can’t start from idle, any car should be able roll in idle
Man y’all might as well be speaking Greek in this thread.
laughs in electric drivetrain
Voltage up.
Voltage down.
Simple. No additional headache.
3 phase synchronous motors want a word with you!
Heard the manual vs automatic argument million times. I learned to drive using manual, my first few cars were all manuals and this is all I knew for a long time.
When we bought our first car together with my wife we got an automatic. She is a less confident driver, and wanted an automatic car. I dont mind it at all, got used to it and now I don’t miss manual at all. She is a much safer driver, under stress or in a sticky situation the manual transmission is a an extra thing to worry about and I feel calmer knowing that she can fully concentrate on the road instead of shifting.
I think manual is great for experienced drivers, but automatic is so much safer for beginners and people like my wife.
I also learned on manual in Europe and switched to automatic when I moved to the US because it’s the only option.
i like driving while being able to rest one arm out the window, or sip from a drink or something.
If I need to quickly accelerate out of a busy turning I put it into Sport mode and turn Eco Mode off
i had a manual mustang cobra a long time ago and dealing with the clutch in stop and go traffic could get exhausting. my leg would actually start getting tired after a while.
Lol volkswagen autostart Slows down for speed bump. Engine turns off.
Autostart and lane assist are turned off in my car.
Wait this happens?? Lmao
Yeah. Know problem in my polo. Have to turn stopstart each time you start the car
🤮 So glad my stop-start has been broken on my Hyundai for years now, everything else works though
Ahh but its so worth it. Also just take the bus lol, driving should only be for fun. Make all fuel eco and its gonna be more expensive but cars as a form of transport are horrible. I like driving but i also like swimming and that doesnt mean i want to swim to school/work.
Just get an automatic transmission instead. That might be my American perspective showing though. I know manual transmissions are more common in Europe (or at least I’ve heard), but I don’t know if that’s just driver preference or for some other reason (like cost).
Automatics had a bit of a bad reputation, for quite a while. They don’t/didn’t play well with our road layouts. E.g. they could be slow to downshift when climbing a hill, and kick when they did decide to play along. I believe they have improved a lot, but most people are used to manuals, and so more manuals are sold. This makes automatics more expensive and rarer.
In France they’re only starting to get traction. They just weren’t a thing until say ten or fifteen years ago. Top of the line cars had the option, but it was very rare. It’s a matter of culture. We have an automatic now (wife is more comfortable with it), it handles gear changes shittily but it appeases my left leg, so we’re even.
I will say when I rented a car in Wales in the mid 2010s they had like literally 2 automatics and they were double the rate. It wasn’t at all common there then.
Put it in H!
What country does this car come from?
The country it comes from no longer exists!
I feel like learning manual is easy if you already know how to drive. My newest car is a stick shift and I just started driving it. Took like a month to be comfortable, but I was able to drive it and get from point a to point b without being good at it. Really just first gear that’s annoying.
I enjoy driving, so I drive a manual. People who don’t enjoy driving, or who merely drive because there’s no other alternative, should not drive a manual.
That being said, nobody should drive a tesla.
I love driving but I will not drive a manual unless there’s no other alternative, it’s 2025 I shouldn’t have to be doing that for my car
I don’t like my car doing anything I didn’t explicitly tell it to, or not doing what I do he’ll it to, like not downshifting when it’s time to downshift.
Exactly. I hate those little gear shift recomendations. Fuck off I will shoft to 5th when I want to and not when you say because your dumb ass cannot see the hill we are about to ascend in 200m.
I always hated this instruction. When instead I had it explained that one can think of it as fading the clutch out and fading the accelerator in (and that points in between are fine too) I immediately understood and never had an issue again. Admittedly I stalled a few times when switching to a different car whilst I learned its specific tolerances, but conceptually I was golden.
…now I drive an electric car.
Also it’s never taught that you should lift the clutch to the bite point and keep it still until the car builds up some momentum. I think people do it so subconsciously that it doesn’t occur to them that that’s the key to moving from a standstill.
I love teaching my friends how to drive stick. The first lesson is how to make the idle car move by lifting the clutch foot so slow that you can feel the car move and keep going slowly until the foot is off the clutch pedal. It’s about a 15 minute lesson and the driver understands what to do with the clutch. The gas is easy.
In their own car right? That’ll kill the clutch after a few friends. It’s entirely possible to do, but thats hella unhealthy wear on the clutch. The parking lot must just reek when you’re done.
It’s slow, but in most cars the idle is torquey enough that it’s not that slow. My beater doesn’t even have 1st gear anymore, so I start in second, and I can still go from a full stop to clutch fully released and rolling in like 4 seconds (if that) without touching the gas at all.
I feel like this is something that you just have to do to learn though. You can’t smoothly and competently operate the clutch without understanding the bite-point, and for a noob it’s going to be really tough to get a feel for that bite-point if they aren’t taking it very slow at first. Speed will come, usually after only a few starts
It’s also nicer to pedestrians and other drivers if the car isn’t sporadically revving or lurching.
Exactly! In city driving or parking lots when I’m just creeping around I literally don’t touch the gas at all sometimes
Nope. I teach them in my car. And yeah, the car might sometimes stutter but that doesn’t hurt anything. It’s hard to harm to a clutch without using the gas pedal or a graded street.
It depends on the car, my first car used gasoline, so the idle torque was low and you really needed to push the gas at the same time, otherwise it would stall, maybe not if you are releasing the clutch extremely slow, but that is not practical.
My current diesel car has so much torque even at idle that you really don’t need to press the gas pedal while releasing the clutch.
On principle I only teach in their car, but made an exception for my friend’s husband since he wanted to rent a manual overseas. I learned my lesson, he didn’t
You aren’t having them redline the engine and slip the clutch going up a hill. Practicing idle starts in first is probably way less wear than a single sporty start on a highway on ramp.
It’s like learning to ride a bike. There’s all this balance going on, but after you’re good at it it’s just natural and you kind of forget how to explain what to do because you stopped thinking about it so long ago.
This wasn’t taught to me either but this is the best thing for teaching others. I’ve explained this to a few people before that were struggling to learn and it made the process much easier.
I was taught that. I learned driving in Germany, though.
Really depends on the amount of torque your car has at idle, in some you don’t need to touch the gas pedal at all to set off.
Or how good the anti-stall system is, the car I learned in was basically impossible to stall by letting the clutch up too fast, it would just automatically fade in power.
My father in law decided randomly one day I was going to learn to drive manual. So he started up the pickup truck, and said “it’s easy to get started going down hill” as he demonstrated rolling down a steep hill. Then he u-turned, parked the truck at the bottom of that steep hill, turned off the engine got out and said “your turn”. Dick.
A tip for this: the accelerator is less important, slowly release the clutch until you feel the car vibrating, then you can release the brakes and the car will not move, or start moving slowly, then you can start accelerating and releasing the rest of the clutch.
What if you’re on a hill?
You try not to park on hills haha. But the concept is the same you just get better/quicker at doing it. When you’re letting off the clutch, the engine is connected to the wheels. Its enough to not need the brakes so you give it a bit more gas to get over the resistance of trying to go up a hill versus flat ground.
But some manuals will “hold” the brakes for a few seconds after you let off the brake pedal.
Also, everyone who drives manual stalls. You just laugh at how dumb you are and try again.
Use the handbrake. At least that’s how I learned it. Back when the handbrake was a lever connected by a steel cable to the break pads. Man I’m old.
Automatic transmission ❤️
Try as I might I don’t think I’ll ever understand people who like manual transmission. I think it’s like some kind of elitism thing? I can drive the annoying esoteric vehicle so I’m better than you?
It’s not like it actually makes you go faster, automatic transmissions are pretty good these days. I’ve tried to drive manual vehicles and it just required way too much of my attention for what should be a simple means of conveyance.
Esoteric? I’ve only encountered a handful of automatic cars in my life here in the UK. Having a licence that only covers automatic has historically been rather limiting here. The only person I know that has that has dyspraxia.
For me the appeal of a manual transmission is in engine braking. When driving an ICE car I barely need the brakes because the majority of my speed management is through engine braking. Fortunately my electric car has the option for pseudo engine braking - and it charges the battery too!
Automatic cars also have engine braking.
When I’ve driven an automatic I could only manually set the gears for first and second. I’m sure that’s not universal as nothing is, but I can only speak to my own experience.
I would usually use fourth when decelerating up to a junction and then switch directly to second as I get close, as an example.
Yeah but it’s not really feasible to use it at every corner and stop like you can a manual car. Engine braking in an auto is mostly just for doing long descents without riding the brakes too much
Some cars have ‘hard’ regenerative braking but yea, it’s rare (thinking about Tesla)
Regen is just an electric car thing though, no? And EVs (with very few exceptions) don’t have a transmission at all?
Uhhh that sounds right
To be fair I know close to nothing about cars and mechanics
Regen has been on trains for a long time, fwiw.
I believe they’re just cheaper and technically they allow you to get a bit more from your car, but yea apart from that, not much
In some countries there are more manual cars so I get them, but trashing on automatic is just dumb. It’s much more enjoyable (people I know told me that). Most manual drivers have muscle memory so it’s not really something that takes too much place in their mind, but I guess having to remember less could make you more focused on the road.
Disclaimer: I have an automatic driver license, and no manual driver license haha
having to remember less could make you more focused on the road.
On contrary, in my opinion. Especially in cities, where manual forces me to anticipate the next turn, light or other drivers. Automatic makes me zone out and focus on everything but driving.
ADHD?
Not that I know of.
Most people have manual cars in the UK. Automatics are the weirder, more esoteric ones to us.
I think it’s more or less a cultural thing at this point
FWIW I believe competitive drivers prefer manual control (even if the gearbox itself is automatic) because controlling when the gear change happens can make a difference in a race
I heard that automatic cars were more common in the USA but idk if that’s true
Nearly 98% of cars sold in the US are automatic. Manual transmissions are often not even an option for a lot of models.
That explains it then! Thanks :)
Because they like it. It’s engaging.
But it also forces you to pay better attention, I’m just not going to get snippy about it.
You complaining about the attention… Terrifying. Jesus, you can kill someone.
It’s more enjoyable is the main thing. It’s more fun to drive a manual car to many people and that’s their appeal. There are a few other advantages to it as well. They’re generally more reliable and have better fuel economy and performance than automatics that were offered until the 2010s.
Had a previous car that was manual. Then I bought a car with a CVT (continuously variable transmission) and it’s such a nuisance because it is always unpredictable when it will shift. So you go to pass someone, step on the gas and sometimes it takes off and other times it fiddles with shifting for a second before giving you any power. Can also be a real pain in stop and go traffic because it will have unpredictable amounts of power when starting from a stop. I’ve had this vehicle since 2017 and it’s always been this way. I don’t miss having to shift constantly but I do miss having a reliable amount of power when I’m in a certain gear - that’s what is so nice about a manual transmission. You feel more in control of the car. That said, my daily driver now is electric with no transmission and that is the best of all.
Is your CVT vehicle a Honda? I know Nissan CVTs have had their issues but the Toyota ones have a fixed/real first gear before they switch to the CVT to give you that reliable start from 0 mph/kph.
Those shift points are artificial, unnecessary and only programmed that way because people are used to it.
annoying esoteric vehicle
You’re making it sound a lot harder and more painful than it is. Do you also judge people who ride a 2-wheeled vehicles that “require attention” for staying balanced?
- Manuals are more engaging. Getting a smooth shift or a perfect rev match on a downshift is very satisfying. Shifting gears when your have a car with smooth, very mechanical shifter feels even more satisfying.
- If you ever have to gun it in an emergency with a manual the acceleration is instant. In an automatic you have to wait a few seconds for the transmission to figure out what gear it wants to be in before anything actually happens.
- Generally, in an automatic, the connection between the engine and the wheels doesn’t feel very mechanical. It feels like they are connected but a rubber band.
- In a manual you feel much more like the car is an extension of you.
- Going back to driving an automatic usually feels like you’re being handed a children’s toy. The whole experience feels hollow like it’s missing something substantial.
I guess there can be some elitist mindset to being able to do something that fewer and fewer people can do. But thinking that this is the main reason why people love driving stick is downright ignorant.
No automatic takes “a few seconds” to gun it, I think you might be the one with the flawed experience
Manual: floor it, instant pull. If I want to downshift I will.
Automatic: floor it, hesitation, downshift, revs go higher but nothing happens because it isn’t sure if it wants to downshift again, hesitation, downshifts, revs go crazy and outside of power band or just at the top end of it, shitty pull, upshifts almost right after. Finally some pull after wasting three seconds.
I’ve driven countless various automatic vehicles. They all do that to varying degrees of disappointment.
The only time I had a delay was when I had a car that took half a second for VTEC to kick in, I’ve never had an automatic that took SECONDS to go vroom
There is a difference between engine noise and actual acceleration.
I was referring to acceleration.
The “satisfaction” is probably novelty. UK/EU, nobody thinks about it.
I think there’s a kind of fetishisation of manual transmission in the US. Like your emergency scenario: I guess if you need to accelerate away from 30-50 feral hogs then you might welcome it.
It’s just more fun dude. Manual transmissions make shitty cars bearable, and nicer cars exhilarating. Plus I really like having that direct control over the car. Plus they tend to be more reliable and cheaper to repair. There’s not much else too it.
I’ve tried to drive manual vehicles and it just required way too much of my attention for what should be a simple means of conveyance.
That just means that you haven’t developed the muscle memory yet, you had that same learning period with every other aspect of driving, operating a manual transmission is just one more. So you know, if you’re serious, practice.
I’ve been driving manuals exclusively for so long that I actually have the opposite problem, In the rare situations that I need to drive an auto, I have to be super careful and mindful. I’ve literally stabbed the brake before in an auto with my left foot instinctively looking for the clutch, so I have to conciously keep that foot still.
I’ve tried to drive manual vehicles and it just required way too much of my attention for what should be a simple means of conveyance.
Driving a manual doesn’t require any more attention than an automatic. Here almost everyone learns in a manual and by the time you get your license it’s something you don’t need to think about.
If you’re used to manual, driving an automatic for the first time is a pretty scary experience. Half the controls you need to operate the car are missing.
It’s not an elitism thing as almost everyone drives a manual. My late mom drove a manual at 72, including dragging a big caravan all across Europe.
Used to be that the only people who drove an automatic were people with (mental) health issues. If you got a manual-only license it used to have a big stamp across it that said ‘AUTOMATIC ONLY’. If you got one of those as a physically healthy 18yo it might as well have said ‘RETARDED’, as that would have been the only reason to get one.
Nowadays with electric cars becoming more common having an automatic-only license has become socially acceptable.
It’s weird to me that y’all don’t appreciate the convenience of advancing technology.
It’s like going “only mentally disabled folks use microwaves, the rest of us light the wood stove and let it simmer for a half hour”
Especially when Europe is known for its electric kettles, which are only recently becoming common in the US, who have traditionally used range-heated kettles.
Shit… are you also all still on Nokia 3310s and connecting to the internet with SLIP/PPP too?
It’s weird to me that y’all don’t appreciate the convenience of advancing technology.
You’re operating from the incorrect assumption that an automatic is more convenient while it isn’t.
Try this: stand up, walk to the other side of the room and back. Was that inconvenient? Did you have to consciously place your legs and think about how to use your feet? No. You just want to go in a certain direction and your legs just move without you needing to think about it.
Driving a manual is the same. You don’t consciously operate the gearbox, you just drive. Shifting gears doesn’t require conscious thought. An automatic isn’t convenient, quite the opposite, as it gives you less control.
Why don’t you use a wheelchair? Surely rolling around is more convenient than balancing on two legs? It’s because balancing on two legs isn’t actually that inconvenient once you learned how. It was when you were a baby, but we help babies learn to walk instead of putting them in a wheelchair. Same goes for driving a manual. Once you learn to a point where you no longer need to think about it, it’s more convenient than an automatic.
It’s like going “only mentally disabled folks use microwaves, the rest of us light the wood stove and let it simmer for a half hour”
Good analogy. Now go microwave a steak while I cook one over a wood fire, which steak do you think will turn out the most delicious?
Try this: stand up, walk to the other side of the room and back
I mean, I have spondylitic arthritis, but okay. (Luckily I got on the good meds again.)
which steak do you think will turn out the most delicious?
Ah but the question wasn’t quality, it was convenience.
Even if you argue that after a while the less convenient becomes familiar, that doesn’t really mean it was more convenient, it was just not inconvenient for you. But I have to say even if you’re a seasoned manual driver, not having to shift every 25mph is arguably more convenient than having to, even if you’ve gotten used to it.
People got used to climbing stairs, doesn’t mean we stopped using elevators.
Even if you argue that after a while the less convenient becomes familiar, that doesn’t really mean it was more convenient, it was just not inconvenient for you. But I have to say even if you’re a seasoned manual driver, not having to shift every 25mph is arguably more convenient than having to, even if you’ve gotten used to it.
You keep assuming it’s an inconvenience that you have to ‘get used to’, that’s not the case at all.
Let’s us another example: typing. You have to learn to type, that’s inconvenient, right? When you first learn to type you have to look at the keys and hunt-and-peck to find the right keys to press. Why would you learn this when every modern computer and smartphone has speech-to-text? You can simply speak instead of typing, nothing to learn, much more convenient, right?
Except it’s not. Using speech as an input mechanism is annoying and inconvenient, it’s slow, it’s annoying to people around you, privacy is an issue in any shared space, etc. Typing by contrast is fast once you’ve learned it. You no longer consciously have to search for the keys on your keyboard or even think about it. You just think what you want to type and the words appear on your screen, your fingers move to the right keys with you barely aware of what they are doing.
The same happens in a car, even an automatic. If you want to go faster, the car goes faster, you aren’t really aware of your foot pressing the gas pedal. If you want to slow down, the car slows down, you don’t have to think about operating the break pedal, that’s just something that happens of which you are barely aware. The car basically becomes an extension of your body. The same goes for shifting, it’s not an inconvenience as you are barely aware that you are doing it. It’s like breathing. Sure, if you pay attention to it you notice, and you can consciously control it, but 99,999% of the time it’s just something that happens automatically.
As I said, the car becomes an extension of your body, and this is not something that happens ‘after a while’. it happens in the first 10 or so driving lessons. When you first get in the car on your first lesson, you are a person sitting inside a car operating it. By the 10th lesson or so you are no longer a person in car, you are the car. This happens whether or not it’s an automatic or manual. The only difference is that with a manual you have a little more control over this extended body than with an automatic. I’ve owned an automatic and that lack of control is a mild inconvenience. The automatic gearbox doesn’t know what is happening ahead of you, it can’t anticipate, so you get small annoyances like it shifting up when you know you need to slow down in a second to take a corner, and then it’s in the wrong gear and it has to shift down again when you need to accelerate out of the corner. The gearbox is not clairvoyant so it doesn’t know what I’m about to do and it’s always a little too late. It’s a small inconvenience that you don’t have with a manual.
Actually there used to be another, more important reason:
Back in the old days, automatic transmissions accelerated pretty slowly. It was not possible to accelerate normally – or what we thought to be normal. No one in their right mind would pay ~5–10 % more (automatic transmissions used to be expensive) to get a lame car and annoy everybody at every traffic light. I don’t know when automatic transmissions got as fast as manual shifting, but this memo hasn’t reached Europe yet.
And, last but not least, and only still valid argument: automatic transmissions are still more expensive than manual ones. Why should I pay extra money for some fancy tech with no extra benefit that takes away my illusion of control and feels horrible to drive?
automatic transmissions are still more expensive than manual ones
Is it still though? I dare say it is becoming increasingly common (in the US) that in order to get a manual transmission you have to make a special order.
At some point in time it was argued that manual allowed finer control of engine efficiency to automatic which simply shifted at certain speeds or rpms that weren’t always ideal. So properly driving a manual meant you saved gas.
I dare say in the decades since that argument began, automatic transmissions have gotten way better and reasonably as efficient as the average manual driver.
Also, when manuals were more generally common, they were generally cheaper than automatics. I don’t know if that’s true anymore, but I think the average person will have a hard time finding a manual new (consumer grade) vehicle in any given dealership in the US these days – you’d have to get it ordered.
