All,
Having been a stick driver for all of my 40+ years of driving, including my
current Dakota and ten years of autocrossing, I concur with the advice on
learning. I taught my girlfriend to drive a stick and she still married me.
After 35 years of marriage she's still as much a hard-core shifter as I am.
I'll add a couple pieces of advice for habits to learn early on. First, as
alluded to in an earlier post, the clutch is there to disconnect the
transmission from the driveshaft for long enough to select another gear (or
neutral). It's not a footrest. "Riding the clutch" (keeping your foot on
it when you're not using it to affect the aforementioned action) is the best
way to find out how much a throwout bearing costs. Second (a corollary of
the first) is to put the vehicle in neutral when you're not going to be
moving for a bit, like stoplights or traffic jams. Same reason as above,
plus left leg fatigue. The third (again, a corollary of the other two) is
NEVER (yes, I'm yelling) hold the vehicle on a hill with the clutch!!! Same
reason as the throwout bearing mentioned above, plus a clutch disk.
Although the parking brake isn't as easy to use for hill starts as a
floor-mounted handbrake, it still works, saves the clutch, and doesn't allow
rollbacks (when properly done).
Now I'll step down from the soapbox. I too hate automatics. They never
seem to be in the gear that I want, and are too slow to respond to my
wishes. I know that the newer automatics are more fuel effecient and can
tow more than a manual these days, but the fun of shifting and the feeling
of control far outweigh the other considerations for me. There's no greater
fun (in a moving vehicle, at least) than flying up to a corner, braking and
downshifting at just the right points, clipping the perfect apex, and
accelerating out the other end of the turn under the right amount of power
and coincidentally leaving the ricer who was on your tail going in wondering
what the heck just happened.
Mike Nott
Orlando, FL
2001 Sport+ CC 4.7 5-speed
1992 Honda Civic Si Hatchback 5-speed
(I can't ever leave her in the corners - she autocrossed for eight years)
1966 Corvair Corsa Turbo Convertible 4-speed
> Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 21:54:36 -0500
> From: "John Neff" <jndneff@texas.net>
> Subject: DML: RE: learn to drive stick?
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