To those who learnt auto driving before stick
 

Ive driven auto for 3 years now, how long roughly would it take to learn manuel driving and feel confident by myself?

How long did it take you?

A day or two.

Just get in the car, and drive around some back streets with lots of stops and some hills. You will stall the car a few times but unless you are a complete spaz, you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

learned*

Always drove auto, understood the concept of manual, not regretting for a second getting a manual. Its either something you want to learn or not.

park yourself on a slight hill and try to drive


my father taught me how to drive manual doing this way, would make me go up the hill and reverse down, over and over again until i could do it without thinking


IMO this made for regular driving around town with manual alot easier!

This is my first manual car and it took me like a week to get comfortable but sat on a steep hill for better part of entire first day. Still improving as I go tho.

2-5 days to be really comfortable.

practice starting on hills. If you can do that you have nothing to worry about. Then practice downshifting as you slow down to turn and such.

it's worth it! The only way to have a sports car IMO

took me about 3 days to be confident enough for city driving and about a week for steep hills. Funny story when I first brought the car I got stuck on a hill a block from the dealer sitting there for nearly an hour before I was saved by a random guy walking by lol.

Not long at all ..... I can't remember exactly .... cause that was 65 years ago ..... when I was 5 years old.....yep, you read that right .... :)

Driving an under powered tractor, pulling a heavy piece of ground working equipment ...... you learn that real quick.

NO, I wasn't exceptional ..... it's just when you "killed it" and grandpa or pa had to come over and hand crank the tractor to start it ..... and glare at you ...... you learn REAL QUICK ..... :slap:

Is it time for my oatmeal .... or is it nap time .....?? :sigh:


humfrz

I learned the old fashioned way, MT first.

I've always thought that coming from Auto to Manual would be relatively easy. Since you already know how to "drive"... Correction you already know the rules of the road, judging distance, traffic signals, vehicle handling, steering speed, etc. All you are doing now is training your other foot to contribute.

Hills are easy, I was taught the ebrake trick for hills as a 15 year old. it helped overcome that fear of rolling into the car behind you. But honestly in a car as light as an 86. You shouldn't ever need it.

As everyone has said go play in a parking lot. Then on side roads, then hills. Then venture out. A day or so of messing around and you will be fine. hell take a friend who can drive stick with you if you are worried you might kill it.

Most decent stick drivers can teach you in less than a couple hours.

Its not that bad. My dad taught my mom how to drive a stick in his truck and made her to go work that evening in that truck. Inb4 sexual joke, but i'm serious.

I got the hang of it within a few minutes. But it takes a few days to be smooth at engaging.

Like all other have posted, it's not too tricky. Honestly, the most difficult part is learning the clutch as I feel 80-90% of driving stick is knowing how to use the clutch. Here are some quick practice tips:

- Practice holding on and driving up a hill. This is a really popular way to learn as others can attest but it's a bit tricky to start off with and can get downright scary sometimes. If you want less anxiety...
- Try doing launches in 1st without using any gas. Go to the flattest parking lot you can find, and just practice launching without using the accelerator. This will require you to be extremely gentle with the clutch, and it will make you a lot more aware of the friction point. Disclaimer, you will stall, a lot. But this will teach you to be smooth with the clutch, learning how to stop right before the friction point.
- My preferred method for teaching people; practice launches in reverse. I.e. go to an empty parking lot and put the car in reverse. Then, be sure to do the proper 'look over your shoulder' method, and just practice starting and stopping. This will teach you to feel the pedals and listen to the engine sound instead of relying on the tach and staring at your feet/shift knob/whatever. It's a bit unnerving at first, but it really nails down the basics quickly from what I've seen.

After that, all you'll need is real world experience. This can be rattling at first because you'll be afraid of stalling or going to slow or jerking the car... but that's to be expected. Don't force yourself to try to keep up with people launching in automatic. Even if you think you're going too slow, as long as your launches are smooth, it doesn't matter. You'll develop speed as you gain more experience. Remeber, 'Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast.'

Also, don't get too hung up on 'how easy' it should be to learn stick or 'how long' it should take to master it. Everyone's different. Some people can knock it out in a couple of hours. Others take weeks. However long it takes YOU to be comfortable with it is how long it takes to learn.

Just be calm and patient with yourself, and you'll be rowing through those gears in no time.

Some people pick it up very quickly while others will take a few days/weeks to get decently comfortable. I learned to drive stick when I was like 15, then I never used that knowledge until I was about 18 when I had to drive a manual work truck for a couple weeks. Then I bought my BRZ and I picked the manual driving back up in about 10 minutes.