Letting spouse drive

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

That was a problem in my Grandmother's rusted out Corvair if you were sitting in the passenger seat.

And some people are worried about letting their spouse drive for fear of breaking their car!

[SisterBlue22]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

From when I was about 4 years old to about 10 my Dad drove a 1950 pickup with no doors on it. They of course, did not have seat belts. Since his complete list of safety instructions consisted of "hold on tight" being thrown under the dash was the least of my worries.
Mind you with a single cylinder brake master, brake lines held together with electrical tape and an e brake that probably seized up in 1951 hammering on the brakes usually meant mutter of "oh fuck hang on tighter" out of him.

At one point when I was a kid back in Massachusetts, my dad had a 1940-something pickup truck. The floorboards were completely rotted out, and you could literally watch the road speeding by beneath you. You had to plant your feet on either side of the big hole on the floor and hope you didn't fall out.

[Frost]

Teaching your S.O. how to drive stick on a car you love is truly a test of your love (something I suggest most peeps do before getting hitched). It brings out the worst and best in people - the thing I say is that: "If your student fails, you too have failed as a teacher". A lot of people brute force it. Eg: Just balance the gas and the clutch, it's easy like this! And then proceed to repeat the same thing over and over again as if it'll somehow magically work the 100th time.

Some people also get frustrated easily and the partner can't cope with it.

Seriously though, if you can't survive a practical learning course, what's to say you can survive life together?

Maybe that's why I'm still single.

Doh.

[3nl]

Originally Posted by SisterBlue22

At one point when I was a kid back in Massachusetts, my dad had a 1940-something pickup truck. The floorboards were completely rotted out, and you could literally watch the road speeding by beneath you. You had to plant your feet on either side of the big hole on the floor and hope you didn't fall out.

I'm pretty sure everyone who grew up poor with a blue-collar father has a story like this. I, too, remember watching the lines of the road go by through the rusted out floor of my dads white 78 Ram 1500 rustbucket and the massive, not at all straight, holes they cut in the floor to cobble in a junkyard manual when the original auto blew. It was fun to toss stuff through the holes and watch it bounce down the street.

I used to get fast food every time it overheated too because the fast food places usually only filled up his gallon jug if we bought something (the radiator leaked like a sieve and coolant was too expensive to replace weekly).

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by 3nl

I'm pretty sure everyone who grew up poor with a blue-collar father has a story like this. I, too, remember watching the lines of the road go by through the rusted out floor of my dads white 78 Ram 1500 rustbucket and the massive, not at all straight, holes they cut in the floor to cobble in a junkyard manual when the original auto blew. It was fun to toss stuff through the holes and watch it bounce down the street.

I used to get fast food every time it overheated too because the fast food places usually only filled up his gallon jug if we bought something (the radiator leaked like a sieve and coolant was too expensive to replace weekly).

That was my mom's 64 1/2 mustang. No floor in the back at all. On long trips my dad would keep yelling at us to stay awake so we would fall through or die of CO poisoning.
Ya we were poor!

[Bergen23]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

That was my mom's 64 1/2 mustang. No floor in the back at all. On long trips my dad would keep yelling at us to stay awake so we would fall through or die of CO poisoning.
Ya we were poor!

Even I grew up with that! My dad had a rust bucket 78 Ram or something. Rusted out floor, seatbelts didn't work and a horrid exhaust leak. That one got retired around 1997 or so.

Good times. Can't wait until the FRS is at that point, and I can subject my children to that.

[venturaII]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Raise your hand (assuming you still have it) if you ever ended up in the floorboard in the back or under the dash when your parents slammed on the brakes!


(oh, oh pick me, pick me!)

This happened the first time I drove an automatic, and approached a stop sign. I went to step down on the clutch and caught the edge of the gigantic brake pedal they always use in automatics, and sent everyone in the car flying forward...lol

[SisterBlue22]

Originally Posted by venturaII

This happened the first time I drove an automatic, and approached a stop sign. I went to step down on the clutch and caught the edge of the gigantic brake pedal they always use in automatics, and sent everyone in the car flying forward...lol

LOL! A friend of mine did this pulling into the driveway of my new house driving a huge U-Haul with all my stuff in it! Forgot there was no clutch and stomped on the edge of the brake instead. Everything in the U-Haul went flying but thankfully it was packed pretty tight.

[Talus1]

Originally Posted by venturaII

This happened the first time I drove an automatic, and approached a stop sign. I went to step down on the clutch and caught the edge of the gigantic brake pedal they always use in automatics, and sent everyone in the car flying forward...lol

I did that once, too. One of the few times my old AE86 let me down, I was on the highway heading north with my canoe on the roof racks when the fuel pump died. I ended up getting towed to a repair shop that loaned me an old Malibu(? - it was so old and decrepit I'm not entirely sure). Luckily my roof racks fit, so I continued north. Not far from the shop, some knob in front of me stopped suddenly to turn left. Of course I hit the brakes and the non-existent clutch at the same time, so both feet hard on the brake pedal. The thing pitched nose down and squealed so hard that the engine stalled, which of course meant no PS or PB. I had the presence of mind to reach down and turn the key and it restarted before I came to a stop. Still not sure how I did that. I had to drive along slowly for the next few minutes to let my heart rate settle down...

I haven't done it yet in my wife's new car (our first AT) but I am sure I will.

[Talus1]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Your mother drove RWD (Possibly MT)

I'm old enough that the (first) oil crisis affected how I learned to drive. My parents both learned to drive in late thirties, manual of course, but by the time I was born they were driving big sedans with automatics. Then in '73, OPEC cut the flow of oil and the cost of gas went through the roof. My Mom bought a Corolla with a manual transmission and I went with her to pick it up. I was young enough not to understand why the car kept stalling on the way home from the dealership. It didn't take her long to relearn. She never bought another car with an automatic.

By the mid seventies, everyone in my family had a small Japanese car with a manual transmission, mostly Toyotas. So, I learned on cars with manual transmissions, rear wheel drive, rigid axles, skinny bias ply tires and no ABS, air bags, etc. None of this was a hardship. Those cars were fun to drive, even if they were (mostly) crap.

[stugray]

I learned to drive stick about the hardest way possible.

I had broken my right hand at OU and had to drive to Oklahoma City for a doctor to "look at it".
My roommate loaned me his RX7 and it was stick.

I didnt know how to drive stick, but i figured it out and didnt even stress his car, but I was able to drive because the hand didnt really hurt that bad to drive (it was a boxers fracture, so just the pinky finger bone in the hand).
So the drive there wasnt so bad.
Well the doctor didnt "just look at it" he decided to SET IT and put it in a cast.
To do that he pumped it full of numbing agent (same stuff the dentist uses).
By the time I left the office, the pain killer was wearing off and the hand HURT LIKE A SOB!
So I drove back from OKC to Norman shifting with my left hand reaching across each time

Talk about a screwed up way to learn to drive stick......

[Talus1]

Originally Posted by stugray

...it was a boxers fracture......

LOL, I had the same break once, right hand of course. The cast was set with my hand bent up at the wrist. I could push the shifter forward with the cast but it was hard pulling it back with thumb and forefinger because of the angle, so I had to use my left hand. At least I wasn't trying to learn stick at the same time!