I have a 15-year-old cousin who is taking driver's training this month. I was pleasantly surprised when she expressed interest in learning to drive a manual transmission car, since it's nearly impossible to find a driving school that teaches on standards, at least here in Michigan, and most teenagers have no interest at all in learning anything but a simple automatic.

Since no one else in my family has a manual transmission car (except for my dad's baby, his GT Bradley kit car, but that's in storage right now), I offered to help her learn to drive a MT on my RX-8 next weekend when I'll be in town. Ironically, the Bradley was the car I first learned how to use a clutch on, and I was too scared to shift out of 1st My first regular driver was a 4-speed '75 VW Beetle with a two-foot stick, a two-foot throw, and a foot-long friction point on the clutch.

Now teaching someone to drive stick on a sports car is an interesting proposition. I think it can be helpful to learn on a car with a fairly sensitive clutch, where mistakes in clutch or gas use will make the car shake like Michael J. Fox going through caffeine withdrawal. I'm not too worried about ruining the clutch or anything, I don't believe an hour or two of clutch slipping or some stalling in a parking lot will cause any long-term damage.

Phase one will be learning to launch without touching the gas, and getting up to about 20 MPH in 1st gear, then coming to a full stop by pushing in the clutch first and then using the brake. Phase two will be launching with a little bit of gas, putting the throttle at a constant 2-3k RPMs and slipping the clutch, and decelerating without pushing the clutch down until about 5-10 MPH / 1000-1500 RPMs. Phase three will be the 1-2 shift at about 20 MPH, and Phase four will focus on making all the shifts smoother.

She's a pretty quick kid, so I'm hoping this won't be too frustrating for her. I was considering letting her try my girlfriend's Honda CR-V which has an extremely forgiving clutch and transmission. However I believe that it's better in the long run to learn on a more "advanced" system first. She may not even have a MT car for her first vehicle, but it's better to learn now while her brain is still in "learning mode".

If later on she drives something with a forgiving transmission like a Civic or Focus, she'll be surprised how good she already is!

Any other recommendations for teaching a new driver?

 

Hmmmmm, I believe that it might be a better idea to use a more simple car to learn at first. It is a good idea to learn with the 8, but the 8 can be tricky at times.....

Also, I don't see the need to start learning by letting off the clutch without giving it some gas....this will actually cause more stress to the engine than needed...

Also, as you probably know, keep in mind that it will require more than 3 or 4 sessions for her to get used to a manual transmission.
If she starts having trouble with the 8 she might get discouraged.... try an easier car first...

Another lesson will be launching on an incline....I know that when my wife was learning to drive stick (on a 94 Toyota Tercel), she was encountered with the incline at the light at W. Liberty near downtown, and she had lots of fun once the light turned green... She surely burned some rubber...

Another lesson will be showing her the difference between upshifting for gain in speed and upshifting to increase engine resistance to "engine brake" the car...

Well,, good luck..

 

The 8 may make her more nervous. I was pretty nervous when my dad taught me way back when, and that was in an older Jimmy w/a loose (gear)box. hehe. Nerves would have been worse if it was the year old mustang in the garage instead.

 

Wow, i thought this post was going to be about something else, my bad.

 

hahaha that's some good stuff!

good luck.

 

I've been in the same boat recently- I got my Rx8 last Tuesdsay, and it's my first stick. I had a friend give me a lesson on his Tiburon Friday and took it on a test drive Saturday and did pretty well (only one stall). Last week had some rough spots (gotta love stalling at a light and getting horned so I decided to take it to a parking lot myself Friday evening and just practice starting- never taking her out of first. I did about the same Sunday from the same lot just working on starting on an incline that time. I'm doing pretty well now.

One thing that I found helped me a lot was turning off the radio- it helped get a better feel for when I was hitting the friction point.

Since she's totally new to driving, I'd recommend just sticking in the parking lot for the first couple of lessons. I've been driving for 9 years or so, and a couple of times I've caught myself paying more attention to shifting properly than to what's going on around me. She'll probably have ten times as many things to worry about (that an experienced driver just processes naturally), so I'd make sure she's very comfortable with starting/stopping/etc. before getting out on the road.

 

You are a great cousin man. I dont think I could throw my keys to anyone who doesnt know how to drive stick. Maybe if I had a beater. To be honest, I have a hard time letting any of my friends drive my car(including the ones who do drive manual transmissions)

 

I remember when I taught my cousin to "drive stick". Ah, the love that dare not speak its name.

 

 

That's exactly what I plan to do, too many things to learn to confuse her by driving on city surface streets -- just keeping it to a big high school parking lot nearby, and a private dead-end country road that my parents live on.

I'm not worried about a clutch-only launch stressing the engine a little -- we're not going to be doing that part for hours & hours. I'd rather have her be more comfortable with exactly what a friction point is and how to be smooth. Maybe I'll even print out some exploded diagrams of what a clutch looks like and how it works -- keeping it simple ;-)

 

I learnt to drive manual on a G35 lemme tell you, the clutch on that thing sucked. When I got my 8 it was alot easier, for me at least, to drive. I taught my ex gf how to drive on my 8 and she did fine, just to scared to go past 2nd gear. I dont think your cousin should have a hard time but thats just from my experience.

 

go rent a car for 50 bucks or something and let her mess around with that instead.

 

Where can you rent a manual transmission car from?

 

Good point, but I am assuming they'll start out on a slight downhill stretch for this. That's the easiest way to learn to get going...not using any gas at all.

 

I don't know if you can launch without giving it gas on the RX-8.

I tried to do that the first time I test drove RX-8 and it just stall... twice... first time I thought I let the clutch off too fast, but second time confirm it... that was embarrassing... I gave it gas about to 1.5K RPM while let go of clutch, then it started rolling. I was able to do the no gas thing on the GTO.

 

I can launch my 8 with no gas easily on a level surface and even on a slight incline. Sure, it shudders so I don't make it a habit. However, it's definitely possible. You've just got to have a good feel for the friction point of the clutch.

 

we have manual transmission rental cars in NYC... dunno bout you guys.

 

cover the tach with some paper so she cant use her eyes to see if the car is going to stall based on low rpm, make her use feel, its alot safer when she gets on the road she wont be looking down at the tach the whole time and getting in a wreck

 

I just did it yesterday, twice, so it's certainly possible. It may have helped that I did it while the car was still fairly cold, so the idle was in the 1-1.5k RPM range already.

Michigan might have some car rental places with manuals, but certainly not in the podunk town that my family lives in, and I'm not driving 30 minutes and paying $50 just so she can have a slightly easier car to practice on. If she wants to keep practicing more in the future then her parents can shell out the cash, or she can make some new friends that already have MT cars ;-)

 

my 13 year old sister in law had no problems at all she stalled once and that was it we have about a half mile long driveway she learned on just going back and forth on the turn around points