Originally Posted by paulca
It's not really take up rates, it's culture. Not just "car culture" but everyday life culture. Over here everyone drives "stick", even 90yo grannies drive stick. They were raised being driven around in manual cars, they first drove in a manual, took lessons in a manual, took their test in a manual and their first car was most likely a manual. All their family and friends drive manuals. They borrow each others cars frequently. A clutch is a clutch is a clutch. Most people are surprised when they see an auto, it's a novelty. I'd even risk saying that most people have never owned an auto in their life.
It's changing though with more and more hybrid auto's and electronic/auto gearboxes arriving from manufacturers in the last 5 to 10 years. I think the auto ownership is now as high as 18%. I expect for a considerable time yet people will favour doing lessons and a test in a manual as if you do the test in an auto you are not allowed to drive manual in the UK, it explicitly states "Auto" on the license.
I wouldn't necessarily call it a skill question or issue, but if instead of the manual take up rate of this car in respect to North America you looked at the spread of "hours driving stick" or "general stick driving experience", you will probably find that while there are the few old hands with tens of thousands of hours driving stick I would expect the bell curve would be much lower. In the UK most people mid driving career have never driven anything but a manual.
So there is possibly a skill anomaly, yes. The other aspect is "speciality". To you guys a manual is special, being enthusiastic you probably googled, forumed and youtubed all your questions about this and that. "Things not to do in a manual", "How not to abuse your clutch", "Double clutching", "Rev matching", etc. etc. It's all very exciting and mostly rubbish or unnecessary. I did the same recently when I had to borrow an auto for 3 weeks. "What happens if I put it in N while rolling and try and put it back into D?" etc.
I expect, and gathering from what I read on here I'm correct, that a manual car is a specialist item for you, you guys obsess about the details and put far too much weight into the finer details as if these cars where not designed to be beat on by a 60 yo English Mum and her teenage son and survive for at least 10 years. They don't need wrapping in cotton wool and treated like a crystal ornament. It's just a car and not an American built one either! It will take a fair amount of punishment without failing and the things that will wear and fail are meant to wear and fail. Replacing a clutch is so common here pretty much 99% of local mechanic shops will do it in an hour while you wait. They will either have a compatible clutch in stock or can order one the same day. It's no more of a "job" than getting your brake pads changed.
Case in point. The clutch feels absolutely normal to me. I can drive very smoothly with it. If it lurches it's because I did something wrong. Several other people have driven my car, getting out of old wrecks or nice Audi's and not one of them mentioned anything about the clutch being weird, non of the lurched or jerks. Most commented the car was incredible smooth.
As to removing the spring being a preference item to change how the clutch feels and behaves, fair enough, but at your own perile, if it wasn't meant to be there they wouldn't have put it there. My point is that the clutch in the car is fine. Assuming the clutch is the same both sides of the Atlantic. It does not need the spring removed to be "corrected" in some way, it's not broken.
Traffic and journey types may also have an effect. I can spend an hour sitting on the clutch in the mornings on a bad traffic day. Bite, roll, release, brake, wait... Bite, roll, release, wait.... Moving 10 feet at a time in stop go, bumper to bumper traffic. My foot goes numb, my calf muscle hurts. Trying to build a gap and keep rolling at 4mph only gets you so much of a break from time to time as do longer pauses when you can go neutral+hand brake and relax your feet. The fact there is a helper spring there I'm glad of. (I often dream of an Auto some mornings. Actually I'd even take a little electric motor for those situations.)
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