Long story short: I’m (24M) American, and I’m visiting my long-distance Romanian boyfriend for the first time soon. In Romania, most cars are manual - including all the ones owned by my boyfriend’s family (I’ll be staying with them). I’ve never driven a manual before. His dad told me he can give me a quick lesson, and that I’m welcome to use their cars if I want; otherwise, I can rent an automatic. I don’t have access to any manual cars here in the U.S. to practice on, so I’m not sure what to do.
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I miss the prevalence of manual transmissions. Every one of my old first beater cars were manuals. But it seems that they’ve been phased out for the most part and it sucks. Driving Automatics isn’t really driving (I’ll die on that hill).
In answer to your question, no, it’s not unreasonably hard to get the hang of as long as you accept the fact that you’re going to stall it a few times at first and don’t get embarrassed about it, you’ll pick it up pretty quick.
In my experience, the people who struggle are the people who are too tense to learn because they’re afraid of looking like a fool for stalling it while they’re learning. Accept the fact that it’ll happen, and you’ll be able to relax and learn in no time.
D’awww. You’re like that lesbian who crossed the sea by boat to be with her lover. <3
Not if you already know how to drive, no. My kid who was motivated to use my car learned easily, and I learned it in a day when the rest of the people I was with were too drunk to drive.
But learning to drive in a new country? And manual at the same time? That seems more difficult. Can you practice here first? Does anyone you know drive stick?
It’s really easy, there’s just a few things that you have to remember and there is a bit of muscle memory. I suggest watch a bunch of videos on how to do it properly on YouTube and just practice in a parking lot for like 2-3 hours and you should be completely fine to drive. You might not have cars to practice on where you live, but you might be able to just do it when you get to Romania. Just go for like two hours to practice before you start driving around.
Driving a manual is a bit tricky to start with but minimum practice and you’ll learn everything you need to know. Everything else is experience. Once you’ve driven it for a while, especially through various weather conditions, you’ll find that you have more control of the vehicle when driving a manual stick shift. Even three on the tree makes you more free.
I’m a car guy and learning manual for me was embarrassingly slow. I’m good at it now and my daily is a manual but when I was learning it was a total disaster.
I miss my manual a little bit sometimes, especially for shorter drives it could be fun.
Long drives with frequent speed changes, traffic or hills kinda sucked though. I had a pretty crappy Kia though lol curious how a higher end manual feels by comparison.
I never minded manual until I got the crappy little Swift I’m driving now. It only seems to respond to swearwords.
It’s not too bad. You can get passable in a manual with less than a day of practice.
There are a lot of good tips in here, but I’ll add a few that seem to be missing/less prioritized.
Practice rev matching while down shifting. You’ll be a lot more comfortable with the car if you can get into a lower gear faster. This will allow you to pass and accelerate smoother and with confidence.
Practice recovering from a stall (although you’re probably going to do this accidentally anyway). Foot on brake, push the clutch all the way in, shift to neutral or 1st (I prefer 1st to get into gear faster), start the car, and get moving. This process should be fairly automatic and done within a second or two.
On that note, don’t worry about stalling the car. It feels terrible, and embarrassing, but it’s not really damaging the vehicle (might wear out the engine mounts a little faster, but no one really cares).
Most important, have fun!
Its pretty easy but takes time just like any machine operation.
Like riding a bike. If you’ve never done it it’s going to be hard but give it a few hours of deliberate practice you’ll be fine.
And again like with a bike you should probably practice away from traffic to begin with…
hm i think you will need at least lime 3h of controlled practice tp get used to it. My gf learnt to drive automatic and after 3 lessons of 30min, she can barely start moving the car by herself lol.
Learning to drive a stick is really easy if you have somebody to teach you well, but waaay too many people are like, “here, keep fucking up until the car doesn’t go anymore or you figure it out, whichever comes first”.
Hardest part is getting the car to start moving from stopped. Changing gears once moving, you can fuck it up a bunch and nothing much happens except funny engine noises and the owner starts making constipated-looking facial expressions. But if you fuck up starting from stopped, then you lurch around a bunch, stall the engine, and don’t go anywhere.
To get started from stopped, without horrible lurches or stalls, do like this FROM A FLAT PLACE – don’t try anything with hills until you can make the car go on the flat first:
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IMPORTANT: adjust your seat so you can easily push the clutch (left pedal) in – all the way to the floor – without uncomfortable stretching
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In your driveway when there’s nobody going to honk at you, start the car, put it in neutral, and practice pushing the gas pedal just enough to hold the engine at 3000 RPM or so. Not making crazy racing noises, just a nice steady “the engine is running normal-fast-ish” and hold it that way. Practice a couple times until your foot and your ear know what it feels like
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Put it in gear without moving – gas off, clutch in and put the car in first gear.
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Gas on, steady at 3000 RPM, slooooooowly let the clutch out until you can just barely feel the clutch is engaged. Engine revs down a little bit, car starts crawling forward. Practice that a couple times, just let the clutch out until it barely starts doing anything, then put it back in, until your foot knows what it feels like.
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Now do it again, engine held at steady revs, clutch out until just barely engaged, then let the clutch out just a little bit more, so the car wants to crawl, and hold the clutch there. Car starts crawling. Keep the engine steady like you’ve been, let the car start crawling, don’t even change anything, just let the car crawl. It will slowly accelerate until you’re moving at some steady 1st-gear speed. Once it’s come up to (slow) speed you can let the clutch out the rest of the way.
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Congratulations you moved a car
IMPORTANT: adjust your seat so you can easily push the clutch (left pedal) in – all the way to the floor – without uncomfortable stretching
The person of the driving school who thought me how to drive told me to push in the clutch completely, and put your seat in a way that you would have your knee bent just a tiny bit.
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I’ve found the hardest part is suddenly having any health issue with major extremities. Broke your finger? Crucial. Broke your leg or foot? Crucial. Having 2 functioning legs and 2 functioning hands is ideal.
Take the lesson. While learning, stay off of hills and any upward incline until you got a feel from taking the car from full stop to going in 1at gear.
While learning you will stall the car… Don’t let it bother you.
The trickiest part is learning how to ease the clutch while applying gas to go from full stop to motion forward.
Remember neutral when coming to a stop.
Manuals are great, it’s built in theft protection from like 95 % of people
No more difficult than using a phone while walking, except looking around while driving is even more important. I’ve taught several people how to drive a manual transmission in an afternoon. Different afternoons of course.
