Rep Power: 300

i tought myself, i bought a 93 Ford Probe SE 5spd, no clue how to drive it. so my moms bf picked it up for me and brought it home. he told me he would teach me the next day, i didnt want to wait, so i did alittle research online hoped into my car and drove around my little complex for about 45 minutes only stalled like 4 times and 2 were in reverse. the next day i was driving in the hilly streets of PA, that made me learn were the friction point was very quickly. then less than a month later i took my car on a trip from PA to upstate NY then down to LI, so i say in a month i learned stick very well. i shift now and i dont remember shifting, im always "what gear am i in" cause i dont remember shifting. its accually easy, i tought a friend, she stalled alot, but thats cause she couldnt do the to feet thing. my gf needs to learn how now cause we go out drinkin alot or im just to tired to drive so she can drive me home cause im normally the one driving cause she likes my car better. lol

wow that was a long post lol

 
Rep Power: 434

why is it that people don't know how to spell "hopped" (i.e. jumping into a car) or "taught" (i.e. i taught myself how to drive stick)...

 
Rep Power: 300

hahaha true, i spell it like i say it, well hopped i just missed a p, but i say taught like tought, so out of habit i spell it that way.

 
Rep Power: 336

ok, when i got mine i was taught before but haven't driven a stick in around 2 years. i was rusty. i stalled 5 times before leaving the dealership in my test drive. that day and 2 more days later, i was still chirping on my launch from 1st. still stalling out. took me 3 days. about 1 week to not stall anymore, 1 month to get the jerks out, and in that month i learned about the rev matching points in my car. learned to downshift little bit by bit. so i say about 1 month and 1 week to perfect it

 
Rep Power: 346

A couple of months... The fact that the vehicle I learned to drive in was 18 years old at the time and the only original parts were the actual body/frame/engine block didn't help a lot. It was a diesel and it belched black clouds of smoke when you ran it above 60 km/h


ahhh.... damn good thing everything I've driven on highways after that was an auto.

 
Rep Power: 0

I learned at the dealer ship on another manual 7th gen EX that I pretended that I was interested in and then after a few solo test drives learning the cluth pt and how to not stall and how not to ride the clutch I bought another Civic that was in the show room. This way, I didnt have to learn on my car so the clutch would b in better shape on mine and worse on the test drive car..... hahahahaha

 
Rep Power: 583

i learned on my roommates isuzu trooper my freshman year. first time i tried i stalled the **** out of it in the parking lot. after like 20 minutes my roommate took over because we had to be somewhere. lol i think i got it on the second outing. didnt really get a lot of chances to drive his truck, but i got my practice that summer w/ the beater pickup when i worked at the pool.

 
Rep Power: 0

was never "taught." Just got in my jeep, and drove. Took me 10 minutes before i got all the "jitters" out

 
Rep Power: 0

I've been driving stick for like 10 years but I still feel like i'm learning all the time. Smooth downshift, upshifts, launching, powershifts, powering through turns in the right gear.

 
Rep Power: 0

Took me about an hour and a half to learn on a 95 Si hatch...wasnt too bad, my only problem at first was feeling like I was giving it too much gas, and that I was gonna peel out. I eventually learned that I was in a Civic, not a big block chevy.

 
Rep Power: 380

To learn how to shift and get the car moving... A few hours to learn it, a few days to get comfortable with it.

To learn to heel toe down shift, Revmatch, Double clutch and such that I use for autocross.... a whole lot longer (to at least be consistant with it)

 
Rep Power: 0

Exactly what I was going to post, yet I don't get the double clutching part. Does double c. really result in better times?

 
Rep Power: 380

Double clutching is just nicer to the transmission (you are doing more of they syncors job for it) note that this is only for down shifts, I never double clutch on upshifts.

Its a good thing to do if you arnt hurried, but not nessisary if you are. meaning I double clutch down shift a whole lot more on a road course then i do for autocross, not to mention that properly done it allows you to drop the car Multiple gears in one smooth shift rather then risk upsetting the balance of the car by "rowing" through the gears when braking for a turn.

 
Rep Power: 285

speaking of double clutching....

i was at LACR last wed, and there were 3 civics there (older style).
All 3 of them would speed shift into 2nd, then push in the clutch and release it several times (while in gear) so the RPM would jump up, then fall back down. They said they were 'double clutching'.

i think they watched fast and the furious a few too many times.

 
Rep Power: 334

I learned the basics in a couple hours. Would've taken less if it wasn't that I was too darn excited about having my birthday present in a tangible form... it was too sweet to have the car I wanted for my brithday.

Next day I went down with a couple friends to the metropolitan area on Puerto Rico...
Stalled at every red light and was stopped at a police road block... officer laughed when he saw the car had one day of being on the streets and at the fact that I stalled the car in his face

 
Rep Power: 264

i hated when that happenned, but the pressure makes you learn a whole lot faster.

 
Rep Power: 258

took me bout 30 mins to teach myself how to get out of first gear without stalling, then it was easy flying from there (on a 2005 mazda 3)

 
Rep Power: 287

took me 2 hours to learn, another 2 hours to perfect. First learned with 04 LX civic, then practiced a lil bit in a parking garage with my friends 99 EX. I perfected with a 06 mx-5. loved the mx-5 clutch.

 
Rep Power: 0

hill starts were bs gay when i first started manual but yeh now its all good and i can sit at lights on a hill now and feel superior when i see someone stall and roll back hahaha j/p

 
Rep Power: 0

about a week 'till i really got comfortable with it. i was 10 years old...i did alot of my learning on dirt mountain roads!it was fun!!!

 
Rep Power: 282

I never drove a manual car ;[

 
Rep Power: 264

aww, that sucks. it's never too late to learn.

 
Rep Power: 0

My first day at work at Auto Repair shop. It was my first job so I didn't want to waste it away. I had the whole day to teach myself on the company car if I didn't learn I was fired. I didn't even know that you had to step on the clutch to start the car. So after a couple of hours of driving on the road, which was very unsafe, I finally mastered it only after 5 hours.

 
Rep Power: 277

I didnt get a chance to learn before I got my car, but I did do some research on the net. Stalled it 2 times getting home, and 3 days before I got comfortable to drive it on the street to work. And even now, after 3 months I still get some jerkyness in shifting.

 
Rep Power: 264

you'll get it, just try not to think about it alot. when i was just beginning to drive, everytime i would stop at a red light, i would look into the rear-view mirror and see a car inching towards me, so i'd freak out and stall the car.

 
Rep Power: 313

went out the day i got my permit and learned within a matter of hours. never drove auto before either, learned on manual. a manual honda accord.

 
Rep Power: 264

yea i learned on manual in iran, drove parent's auto till i found the car i wanted, now i'm back to manual in my car.

 
Rep Power: 277

Im gonna be driving a second manual car tomorrow when I help my cousin pick up his mazada6.

 
Rep Power: 311

I know it's wrong and i wont ever do it again, but 9 coronas, first time i ever drove stick, but hey, never killed it, and no one could tell i was buzzed. I drank a lot back then so i dont think i was THAT buzzed, just realaxed .

 
Rep Power: 288

I relearn it everytime I drive someone elses car...rather the pressures and such...since I have an auto and I work in a service shop, I have to constantly move other peoples vehicles, auto or stick, god I need to get a beater and learn it straight.....driving all these diff trannys with diff pressures and feels (some have no pressure in the pedal and some feel like they just had them installed an hour ago, hell a couple people actually have clutches so fycked you don't need to push the clutch at all the car just goes...scary as hell cuz the whole time it is rumbling.....