Marklar

Is driving a stick becoming a lost art?! I guess most people don't learn to drive on a stick anymore.

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

I grew up on a farm and started driving tractor when I was 7 yrs old. I was driving a manual pickup truck, on the road alone, when I was 13. When I took drivers training, in the early 70's, the school had one car that had a manual trans (72 Dodge Charger w/ 383 engine and posi) because they thought everyone should learn to drive a manual. At that time most cars were automatic. I think there are more manual trans cars on the road now then there were then.

willyompit

Just anecdotal, but I've had a harder time being smooth with the RX-8 in low RPM, around town driving. This is mostly due to me not wanting to slip the clutch much between shifts, but you really have to if smoothness is the goal. I used to drive a WRX and thought it was a much happier around town driver and smoother shifter. However with the turbo, it didn't lose RPM as nicely as the 8 does. The WRX really didn't mind clutch drop shifting, and it could be done pretty smoothly. Not the 8.

bvisser

nice.. yeah i think i need to adjust my timing a little bit. The shifts are more noticible in first second gear... but I've noticed very fast shifts seem smoother - likely because the revs arent dropping as much as i shift.

Robonaut

I find the hardest thing to do smoothly is the initial launch in 1st gear. It's certainly not jerky, just not as smooth as, say, a second to third shift.

Am I the only one?

luckygrrl

Me too! I learned to drive stick on a WRX too and I had the same problem when I got my 8. I had a much harder time driving slowly around town with the 8 at low RPM. I took me a really long time to get used to it.