Teaching to drive manual frs

[Joakim3]

Originally Posted by Eurasianman

As others have said, just tell her to slightly let off the clutch until she feels the car pulling and then give a little gas. When it comes time to shift, let off the gas, clutch in all the way, shift to 2nd, and slowly release the clutch again while giving a little gas. Practice this a few times. Be sure to make it clear that when she is braking, let off the gas, clutch in, and then hit the brakes. Once she gets better, she can start braking before she hits the clutch all the way in.

When it comes to hills, she has an advantage having a normal handbrake (some cars have the pedal e-brakes... hate those). Same rules apply. When on an incline, with the e-brake engaged, slowly ease of the clutch, while giving a little gas. Once she feels the car pulling, slowly release the e-brake.

Be thankful the car is not a turbo. I was trying to teach my wife how to drive my Cobalt SS turbocharged..... turbo starts spooling at 2000 RPM. You should have seen the look on her face when the car started boosting

I get the luxury of learning stick on a 9-3 viggen... full boost @1950rpm, that shall be fun hahaha

[Eurasianman]

Originally Posted by FRiSson

Geez, the FR-S clutch would be hard to learn on. Not very forgiving.

Psh. My father taught me how to drive a manual on an 89 Pontiac Firebird Formula that had a clutch pedal that was a bitch to depress!

I find the clutch in our cars very soft.... maybe too soft.

[Diode Dynamics]

Not on my car!

Nick C.

[BANGER]

^lol ironically I learned how to drive manual in my friend's brand new and first manual car and learned it faster than him, lol.

[bdanisi]

Thanks to everyone for the pointers! @ihaskrayon I appreciate the offer but this is still a bit aways I'm trying to do my homework before I attempt to teach ha haha

[chrisl]

Originally Posted by FRiSson

Geez, the FR-S clutch would be hard to learn on. Not very forgiving.

It's really not too bad. I've driven a lot of cars that were worse.

[STV3]

Originally Posted by Eurasianman

Psh. My father taught me how to drive a manual on an 89 Pontiac Firebird Formula that had a clutch pedal that was a bitch to depress!

I find the clutch in our cars very soft.... maybe too soft.

Yeah I hate how soft the clutch pedal is in this car, it feels like a toy.


One thing I would say is that before you let her drive the car have her go through the motions with the car off to get her familiar with everything

[STV3]

Originally Posted by chrisl

It's really not too bad. I've driven a lot of cars that were worse.

its not bad at all, almost impossible to stall out lol

[Muskokan]

If she constantly pops the clutch as soon as she feels it grab, like my gf, get her in the habit of holding the clutch still when it starts to pull, to get her moving, I could get my gf to keep slowly letting go until I got her into doing this... She's a blonde tho.

[chrisl]

Originally Posted by STV3

its not bad at all, almost impossible to stall out lol

Yeah - I was really surprised how easy this car's clutch was when I test drove it actually.

As far as challenging clutches are concerned, the Evo has one of the more irritating clutches I've driven - pretty soft, not a lot of feel, but a super sharp engagement point that's really far from the floor. Definitely takes some getting used to. My Cayman is also a fairly tricky clutch - it's fairly heavy, and fairly different from any clutch I'd previously driven. Definitely the record (for me at least) though as far as difficult clutches are concerned was a Ferrari 360. The engine has very little inertia, is super quick revving (with a sensitive throttle pedal), and the clutch is fairly grippy. I drove that car for ~40 miles, and I still was having a hard time by the end, even though I've been driving exclusively stick shift cars for close to 7 years now.

[Rustyspoon]

I learned to drive manual when I drove the car off the lot. Its easy to learn on. It even starts rolling in third gear.....good luck to you guys.

[STV3]

Yeah all Scions seem to be the same. When my friend had his tc the clutch pedal felt exactly the same as the FRS. I heard that Scion's also have very heavy fly wheels to make it harder to stall as well. I was told they did this to make it easy for anyone to drive stick.

I came from daily driving a car with an ACT HD pp and 6 puck clutch disk so it was quite a difference. Now when I drive my other car the clutch pedal feels so damn heavy to me lol

[thebus]

Take her for a drive and have her watch your feet. Then put her in the drivers seat without the car running e brake on and have her get comfortable. The next thing is to have he shift through the gears so she can learn the pattern explain reverse as well. I found it easier to get the feel of the clutch in reverse since its less likely to stall.

[nathanR]

Patience patience patience. I learned on a 1984 Pontiac Fiero. My parents bought it at a yard sale, then brought it home to me and told me to cough up the cash for it.

I never learned a darned thing when they were trying to teach me. Eventually, I just took it out on my own late one evening and figured it out for myself. My trick was: gently apply the gas, THEN gently let out the clutch.

In hindsight, I probably should have gone to a parking lot and tried ONLY driving by letting the clutch out. Let the clutch out slowly and the car will start to pull forward. Once the clutch is fully out, you'll be driving around 5ish mph and you won't need to press the accelerator. Maybe she can practice like this for a while, getting used to only the clutch and the brake pedals. Then work the accelerator in slowly as she gets better.

The FRS is such an easy car to drive. Learning to drive on a 2010 Mazdaspeed 3, for example, would have been a nightmare. The clutch pedal only knows two positions: ON and OFF. Thank gawd the 2012 was more forgiving.