I've been looking around but don't seem to come across any media (DVD, Video, etc) (not too $) over the internet with Manual Transmission classes and proper technique to take care of your clutch and tranny and learn how to drive both way (Gramma way and YEAH-BABY-HOW-DO-YOU-LIKE-THAT way).

Please just becuase you've been driving for 50 years doesnt make you a good driver like i experienced w/ a friend of mine 38 years old(driving his whole live stick) I got from point A-B dizzy.

I am looking for "PROPER" technique to learn both ways (see above)...

One more time thanks for the input on this.

Note: We all had a starting point some earlier some later...but NEVER TO LATE to made a choice of a 5spd MAXIMA.

 

I'm not sure if you can really learn properly online or reading a book. It's more like a hands-on learning experience. My dad thought me how to drive stick when I was 15. Damn that seems so long ago. For starters, he thought me how to go forward and reverse in the front lawn of our old house, it was so spacious that it wasn't necessary to do it on the street. Once I got the 1st gear and reverse down w/o stalling the car and getting him and I dizzy with the forward/backward jolting movement, he took me into the street. He thought me how to listen for the engine and knowing when to upshift, what can I say, he's old school and drove stick all his life til the day hey died. BTW, the car I learned stick on was a 77 Toyota Celica GT. Then he took me to the Hollywood Hills and thought me how to launch on 1st gear from dead stop at a steep hill, that was the scariest experience I have had trying to learn how to drive stick. On some cases, you have to hold the car steady on an uphill w/o the use of the brakes. Just holding it up with the proper amount of clutch and gas. Took him about a week to teach me how to drive stick and now, I'm 36 and still driving stick. And I never get my passengers dizzy.

 

yes i agree with Dennis, you must learn from experience, at first you might miss gears, and make the car cut off but soon youll be shifting like nothing without paying attention to what your doing and still master it

 

thats how i let the clutch out on a hill, let it out a bit to get a head start. u roll back alot on a realy steep hill, nobody ever gives you room. that or you could ebrake but that's not a good way and prolly dangerous
ive had my 5spd for 2 months and shifting has been a breeze from the start except FIRST gear. if i ever had a problem it's in first gear. drive it like you stole it

 

Eventhough I have all these years of experience driving a stick, I try to avoid steep hills. But sometimes when I decide to hit a bar or a club in the hollywood hills, I have no choice. On a weekend night, those hilly streets are definitely bumper to bumper. And generally, people know to give you a little bit of space in the rear. But if not, I would let the car crawl back a bit to let the guy know behind me to back off. And if that doesn't work, sometimes I'll just hold the car w/o using the brakes so that my car don't have to roll back if I go from neutral to 1st gear and let go of the clutch. Another thing that you have to learn is that during bumper to bumper traffic, it's tedious and tiresome to keep shifting then dropping to neutral. Sometimes you get a stretch and you don't necessarily have to drop the car in neutral. Just learn to leave it in gear and know when to shift up if the you must speed up. Learn how to engine brake because that will save your brakes tremendously.

 

Experience, of course, but one thing I can always recommend is spend as little time as possible with your foot on the clutch. That doesn't mean drop the clutch all the time, but basically the less time spent on it the better you likely are, so no painfully slow grinding hill starts or riding it or crap like that. Master quick starts from stops and changing gears, while rev-matching, and you'll have covered most of your bases. The rest is just icing on the cake.

 

i am really looking into getting a 5 speed 99 maxima. And I have to learn stick really fast. Is it possible to learn in a few hours?

 

i heard that you do save brakes, but then i thought...i would rather save my transmission than my brakes. its more expensive right? so mostly, i just put it into neutral and brake...or going fast enough ill use 3rd gear to brake. but not 2nd

yes you can learn pretty quick, youll stall alot though ^^...on a nice car too

 

I've seen newbie moves like getting off of the freeway and dropping the car to neutral while still going 50 or so and just using nothing but breaks. That's one good way to wear the pads or warp the rotors or both. If you know how to engine brake you don't have to worry about breaking your transmission. Rev matching will let you do that. My car has 138k miles on original clutch and the last time I had the tranny inspected, the clutch is still in good condition. I've never felt it slip.

 

Its all about getting a feel for your clutch. I think the best thing would be to teach yourself how to start out in gear without using the gas pedal. That taught me how to control my left foot to start out smoothly without anymore than 900rpms.

 

Taught* haha

 

When I was 16 my mom made me take driving lessons in the city. I was from a small town. I started on a friggin simulator looking at a picture of a street. They had us simulating driving with a "three on the tree." That was about 37 years ago. You had to be there, lol! Then they took us out in traffic with a 4-speed manual teaching us how to parallel park on hills at rush hour downtown. That was fun. One thing they did teach when driving with a clutch on a hill when you are stopped is to find the "friction point" of the clutch. You can hold the car stationary without using the brakes at all. I don't do that much anymore because its flat where I live.

 

http://www.standardshift.com/videos.html

there you go... if u sit down and acutally listen 2 the guy u will be a great driver.

practice makes perfect bitach

 

I already went over those but they are partial... It would be nice tho to get a complete set of full lenght videos.

Shame cuz looks like he know what he's talking about...

 

I am from Mexico and before I came to US, 15 year ago almost 90% of cars were manual, so I learned manual when was maybe 15 years old and at 36 now still driving 5 spd and love it; won't ever go back to automatic; the only problem is that my wife can't drive my car. Actually when came here my first job was as a driver with an automatic pick up and I told the boss I knew how to drive anything but really didn't, so when he asked my to drive I almost quit the job, but when was going back to my boss office to let him know can't drive automatic and quit, another driver ask me what happened and told him; he laughed so hard and then told me you will learn in 3 minutes and bingo, was driving automatic but looking for stick and clutch all the time. Very funny.

 

what is rev-matching? i engine brake all the time. its not bad for the tranny

 

wow did you guys here that M5 engine?? ooooo

 

Oh soo nice!

 

Imagine this, I learned to drive off of a 5 speed, no easy automatic then graduation manual, noooo. On top of that the vehicle I learned to drive 5 speed was one of those big old Mister Softee trucks that my uncle drove. I love 5 speeds won't do automatics anymore, taught my wife how to drive a 5 speed, she doen't want an automatic ever again either!! Who can beat rev shifting and popping the clutch from a roll to start the car?? No offense automagics.

 

hell im only 18, and i just got my max last year, but before that i was driving a 98 Mazda MPV(fricking mini-van) and boy was that sooooo much fun*sarcasm* only person in my family that doest drive a manual car is my mom, and 1 out of 3 sisters. The oldest, and the Youngest of the 3 and I drive 5spds, and we all agree that auto's suck and will never go back we all learned on auto's, but eventually upgraded to 5spds, and like maxgtr said you can never beat rev matching, and popping the clutch into third on the highway....ooooo

 

I learned on a manual, and never looked back. Those M5 vids are great - I've learned all of the aggressive driving techniques from this set. I now double clutch all over, it comes natural now.
My advice - FORGET ABOUT AGGRESSIVE SHIFTING for now. Learn how to drive well, be confident that you won't miss gears or stall, and then try to improve yourself.
Remember clutches were designed to SLIP (to save wear on the rest of the car), but also remember that the less slip you have, the better. As the vids say, your shifts should sound crisp (instant tone change), not like how he describes (the bad way).

 

Yeah, it just becomes second nature. I'm anxious to get a 6-spd car to check out the diff, but I bet it's nothing. I would say keep a mental note that everytime you press the clutch and it's not fully engaged, it's putting wear on the clutch. So the key is to get fully-engaged asap, but smoothly.

I was in a hurry last weekend meeting this a new chick so I smacked the concrete in her parking garage, probably at 3 mph. I thought I'd have some airbag action but no. Probably wouldn't have done that with an auto, could have eased it up better.

I did exactly what you said--a BMW X5 was tailgaiting me for miles yesterday, so at a hilly stoplight, I let my car roll-back as if I were going to tap him. He didn't follow so closely anymore.

 

That always works for me too.


Rev-matching does exactly what the word implies, you rev the engine so that when you shift to a lower gear you save your synchros and your transmission. Lets say you are going 55 mph on 5th gear and your at lets say 3500rpms (just an example), then you see everyone's brake lights lit up and you have to slow down real fast. So you depress the clutch (the rpm usually drops drastically at this point), then you slam the shifter into 3rd, what happens? The RPM climbs up high and the nose of your car dives and you get jolted forward from your seat. That's engine brake, but the bad way. You're making the synchro slow your car down and all that stress from the engine is going to it. The more you do this the sooner they wear out and the sooner it wears out the transmission as well. Rev-matching brings up the RPM of the engine before you shift to a lower gear, to synch up the engine and transmission thus saving your synchros and transmission. And you don't get jolted forward as well.

 

I have tought probably 6 people how to drive a stick, and the hardest part is as always starting off in first gear. I find that the best way to teach them the balance is to let them ease off of the clutch slowely without giving it any gas and letting them let the car roill forward that way. It lets them see how and when the clutch starts gripping and after that they rarely stall. As for 2nd gear and so on, as stated above keep your foot off of the clutch as much as possible, it pains me to hear a car wine as someone is giving it to much gas while letting go of the clutch. anyway hope i have helped.

 

Anyone have any tips about heel-toeing, because seriously it doesn't even seem like I can reach the gas from the brakes at all. I am an expert at rev- matching, but heel- toeing seems impossible

 

Best way to learn a manual is by experience, I don't think those bmw videos help much. I've learned all those techniques just by driving; they come to you naturally. The first time I learned how to drive it was a car with a stick. My mom drove one and my dad. I've never owned an auto and never will. Even if autos start catching up in speed nothing beats the fun factor. Don't let the car pimp you.

As far as heel toeing goes, It's very difficult in the max because of the pedal lay out. I don't even bother.

 

ive taught a lot of people to drive manual and do what supermaxx does.... from a stop, put it into 1st gear and slowly come off the clutch (NO GAS) and feel where the clutch engages. after u get the car rollin, do it again, and again, and again, and again..... After u can do that w/o jerking the car back/forth, then i allow u to touch the gas pedal. driving manual is all about where ur clutch engages. when u miscalculate that u get a jerky ride.

on the max, i can sorta do heel-toe, but got to reverse it... instead of brake w/ toe and gas w/ heel, do brake w/ heel and gas w/ toe. i can barely do it,so i dont do it that often.

 

Do you do a lot of drifting or rallying on your Max??? It's pretty much unnecessary to do that otherwise.

 

As the saying goes, "practice makes perfect". Don't worry, it will take some time but you will get the hang of it

 

After been driving for quite a while now... I had no problems whatsoever taking off..nor on a stop on a hill (i let the clutch go here a little bit till start engaging (down to like 500rpm) only then i move from the brake to the gas...it barely roll back). What i think i need now is a short throw shifter since shifting are faster and more easy with it.

 

Its all in the feel, its not really sumtin u can TOTALLY read about but it helps, just get some hands on expierence and u'll be fine within a week.

 

Best vids I've ever seen for driving a manual trans:

Greg's M5 Driving School

 

when this guy double clutches...he does it so fast i had to watch a bunch of times. it made sense the first time he did it but i wanted to make sure before i went and tried. havent tried yet ^^
clutch in+shift, clutch out
rev match in neutral
clutch in+downshift
is that right?
rev matching to me, is more difficult. do you guys just memorize it? eg; 2nd @ 3000rpm is 3rd@2500 rpm?

 

Driving stick is de ultimate. Videos and instructional material is always good to know. Noting wrong with knowing the theory, but you've got to have the experience. Oh and for those who don't like to use the brakes a lot in neutral. It cost a lot less to replace brakes than cluthes and trannys.

 

Double-clutchin' is part of rev-matching. Rev-matching wouldn't be done right w/o double-clutching.

1) Clutch-in, go to neutral, clutch-out
2) Tap accel (rev)
3) Clutch-in, downshift, clutch-out
4) accelerate

The key here is doing this in an instant motion. If you do it too slow, the RPM will be below rev-matching ranges by the time you shift it to a lower gear.

Omitting any steps would make it wrong. Doing this right will save brakes and tranny!

 

You need to learn how to heel & toe.

 

i dont even realize i shift or down shift or anything its like automatically programmed into my arms and foot.....as far as learning you must do it from experience...if ur smooth and not jerky ur a good everyday driver..and if ur original clutch will make it past 100k too....my friends WRX has like 5k before he needed replacing on his clutch cause he sucked......on the track is a totally different story for another thread and time

 

are there any tips for gearing up gently? in these vids he's always givin'er
do you give it gas as you let it out into 3rd gear from 2nd gear? as you would letting it into 1st gear? or just get to your RPM, clutch+shift, clutch out?

 

I'm curious, how the hell do you drift a fwd car? E-brake? in reverse? this is not truly drifting so stop w/the misinfo!

heel toeing is for race specific applications, not for everyday driving

it is all about hands on learning like stated previously stated

 

Misinfo about what? What are you talking about?? I posted a question towards azianjiu's request if someone knows any tips on heel-toeing...read post #25 again. The info I was posting all along was about rev-matching. None of them said anything about how to heel-toe or drifting, heck I don't even know how to do both and I don't care to know. Are you actually reading the posts or are you just skimming thru it?? Read post #25 again.