Driving a car with a stick shift

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I forced myself to learn to drive my parent's car which is a stick shift but never owned one myself. I can do everything, including stopping and starting on hills and parallel parking. The only thing is I haven't had nearly enough practice for it to feel like second nature. I'm still clunky going from 1st into 2nd.

Also when I haven't driven it in a long time I always absent minded forget to push in the clutch and downshift before coming to a stop. Seems to happen when I've been cruising along in high gear on the freeway with my left foot relaxed and off the clutch. I forget I'm not driving an automatic when I slow on the offramp and it goes THUMP. Stalling in traffic sucks.

Shifting without a clutch is a good way to destroy a clutch.

Many people who use the left foot on the brake have a tendancy to ride the brake and wear the brakes out much faster. Even if you drive an automatic, you should use the right foot on the brake.

Remember thr rule of thumb when learning stick and having a hard time getting from one gear to the next:

"If ya can't find 'em, grind 'em."

Shifting without clutching AKA: rev-matching/power shifting does nothing to damage the clutch in anyway.

When power shifting/rev-matching the clutch pedal is not used therefore the pressure plate, clutch and flywheel never disengage = less damage/glazing/surfacing of the contact areas.

What can happen is destruction of the transmission. The clutch will be fine.

Two of my four vehicles have a standard transmission. I personally installed new Cenerforce stage II racing clutches in them both. One of those clutches was a one-off for my Honda Civic, I guess they don't "make" one for an 86 with a 1300cc engine so Cenerforce had to design and build me one lol.

The other one went into an 88 Jeep YJ.

I only use the clutch for 1st and reverse in the Civic, the rest I rev-match, both up and down shifts, while puttering around the city anyway. I taught myself how to heel-toe shift a long time ago so when I feel like driving "spiritedly" thats when I'll use the clutch in the Civic.

Even though I bought 2 Cenerforce stage II racing clutches, the one for the Jeep differs from the one for the Civic in that the fingers on the pressure plate have weights on each one. So when engaged and turning, centrifugal force pushes those weights down onto the clutch disk providing a lot more clamping force....


I always ALWAYS use the clutch in the Jeep. CANNOT rev-match with it..... not because of the clutch but because the Jeep is like driving a tractor, it will climb up a vertical wall while idling in second gear......I think its a 4.2L? or the 4.0L but its the HO inline 6 and its really really low geared. With the new clutch in it, I never use 1st gear in the city, I always leave stoplights etc in second.


I do not suggest a heavy clutch if you have to do a lot of stop and go city driving.... you'll have one leg bigger than the other...

Just got rid of a truck that had an inline 6 with 3-on-the-tree.. No one could drive that thing but me. I hated it.

I want a standard tranmission in my diesel van, but I don't have $10k for the swap (includes 4X4 transfer case + Allison transmission + all bits related) That swap would net me: 4x4, RWD and, AND Front Wheel Drive if I need it!! ! Plus I could put a tune to my engine.. which has been detuned to 250HP/450ft tq due to using the 400 transmission instead of the Allison. I could take it up to 1000HP with no issues...

Today I built a wood box to house 2 12V batteries in the diesel van just for the multimedia/inverter system. Fun stuff.

Sorry for rambling.. I like vehicles and driving and stuff. Always been a huge special interest of mine. Not affraid to get my hands dirty either.

I meant to say transmission. I wasn't thinking when I wrote clutch.



You must have a different definition of power shifting. What I have always heard referred to as power shifting is to keep the gas pedal down while doing a very fast shift using the clutch. And that is hard on clutches -- they will wear out much quicker.

No sadly, that is not powershifting, that is called novice... we all have been there. lol


I actually have sad emotions for vehicles I hear being driven like that. I hear it all the time..

Let's see what a little web searching finds.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powershifting:

From http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/transmissions-drivetrain/228291-what-power-shifting-speed.html:

From http://ls1tech.com/forums/lt1-lt4-modifications/974613-power-shifting-bad-your-clutch-flywheel.html:

There are also some assertions that power shifting means to shift without using the clutch. I have no idea where to find an absolutely authoritative source that defines the term.

In any case, whenever I see someone driving around on the streets playing games with their cars like that, I see them as being nothing more than wannabes trying to make everyone else think they are cool. They aren't.

"powershifting is full throttle (read no lifting), slight clutch and banging gears. as long as you dont miss, bang away."

Ouch.

I mean for modern day sports cars that is okay, they have multi-clutch systems that use computers to control the shifts. But for regular 4cylinder Civic's, WRX's, Focii and the like.... OUCH!! !

The second gear syncro in my Civic is toast from the previous owner doing that. I did have a 4 speed in my car but it sucked for highway driving, bought a whole car from some skater kid out of kijiji JUST for the 5 speed transmission... "No grinds" he says......... Dammit.... So now when I swap engines later this year I'll have to pop out the transmission so I can fix that syncro. Another 10 hours... no biggie... *SIGH*

I learned how to drive standard and heel-toe on a frozen lake in the middle of nowhere. I still like to drive frozen lakes.

I guess my idea of power shifting was wrong, I wasn't sure anyway which is why I added "rev- matching" which is just matching the RPM of the engine and the transmission between shifts sans clutch.

Street racing is a crime. People who do it should go to jail and have their cars crushed. Though I wouldn't mind if people who talk/text on their phones while driving got their cars crushed too.... just sayin.

When I was a kid, we had some old pickups that we could abuse as much as we wished including shifting without using the clutch. Learning to do it was rather hard on the gearbox. We never actually lost an entire gear from it, but one of them got to the point where if you let up on the gas, it would pop out of gear.

It actually wasn't much of a step to doing that. I was already used to double clutching when driving grain trucks which I was doing well before I got my driver's license. So going without a clutch wasn't all that different.

The only time I've ever had to shift gears without a clutch on the street was on a Triumph Bonneville motorcycle when I lived in Houston years ago. That was one miserable day.

First, I had a mild case of pneumonia and went to the doctor's office. They gave me a bunch of medicine and told me to go home, take the medicine, and call them if there is any change for the worse.

So I took off on my motorcycle. About two miles from my apartment, it started raining. Fortunately, I had a good rubber raincoat in my pack on the bike so I pulled into a parking lot and put it on.

When I started the bike and let out on the clutch to go back on the street, the clutch cable broke.

Not the way to spend an afternoon when you are sick.

For the rest of the trip home, I would kill the engine as I approached a stop light and pop it out of gear when it stopped. (Not the way to make an engine last.) After I stopped, I would start it again (kickstarter only -- no electric starter). When the light changed, I would rise up off the seat and pop it in first. The back wheel would start spinning on the wet street. As I gradually put my weight on the seat, the bike would find traction and take off. When time to switch gears, it was quite easy to just pop it to the next gear. Then kill the engine approaching the next light and pop it back out of gear.

Everyone who saw that must have thought I was the biggest idiot they ever saw.

I've practiced enough where I don't ride the brake and can get a set of brakes to last a long time. The key is learning to hover your foot rather than setting it. I also believe my reaction time is better than braking with the right foot. Not that I usually need a lot of reaction time because I'm a very defensive driver, but it's still necessary at times.

Perhaps a car could be adjusted so you could still drive a stick shift. Might be something to check into.

That's a nuisance! I've driven many antique cars with non-synchro transmissions and old cable-style clutch, and it's nearly impossible to avoid at least some grinding. Even a lot of later model vehicles only have synchros in 2nd gear, so you have to go to 2nd before trying to go into reverse or 1st from neutral. Toyotas were like that all the way through the 90s, and maybe even today. My ex-GF has a 1993 Toyota truck with 4WD manual 5-speed, and she drive it for 10 years without knowing that she could do the trick of going into 2nd before reverse, and avoid the grind. She didn't believe me until I had her try it!

I prefer manual shift for about 99% of driving, but I have to admit that stop & go traffic in the city is a drag with a clutch. But I HATE automatic transmissions when it's time to make a 3-point turn, or to parallel park on a busy street. There is a delay in shifting to reverse, and that's enough to get you in trouble when every microsecond counts. The only automatic that doesn't seem to do that, is my wife's truck (2005 Chevy 4x4 Duramax diesel with the Allison 6-speed automatic). That one is just about instant into reverse, and no sudden jerk and bang of the gears like in most other automatics when you go in reverse and need to give it gas quickly.

Charles

My Supra would always grind going into reverse unless I waited a few seconds for the trans to slow down. Maybe if I gave it a little gas, actually I might have figured that out before I sold the car.

I learned to drive on a manual. Like driving stick alot. Too bad I couldn't find a Jeep Grand Cherokee with a 5spd so I am stuck with a slushbox.

I think I do that sometimes going from 1st into 2nd. If I don't let off the accelerator enough it revs but if I let off the accelerator 100% I get herky jerky rather than smooth acceleration. I don't know which is worse for the car.