Comment by throwaway01151 4 days ago
This is exactly how I teach people to drive stick, and they’ll learn within 30 minutes. Put them on an empty road with a downward slope. The car will roll on its own, without them having to use the gas pedal. Then they can just practice switching into first without the risk of stalling. After a few times integrate using the gas pedal.
I've had success with getting people to do a clutch-only start then stop several times over. Once they get a feel for the engagement zone and realize that they can speed up the process by applying gas somewhere around it then it's all (metaphorically) downhill from there.
This is how I taught myself how after having multiple people tell me things like "it's just a continuous motion you do with both legs", "you just let the other pedal out while you give it gas", etc. Driving a manual seems to be one of those things that few people seem to be good at teaching because they forget how frustrating it can be to learn.
Oh man yeah the advice about continuous motion is not right. A clutch is a torque control device, in the case of a car it’s more like a torque limiting device. The more you let the pedal out the more torque you allow the engine to apply to the wheels up until the point where the torque you allow exceeds the engine’s available torque at a given rpm and throttle position. So if you’re constantly letting the clutch out you’re ramping up the torque limit linearly but the engine speed and wheel speed don’t match and if the engine speed is low of course the engine can easily stall.
Instead what you want to do, what most people do subconsciously is let the clutch out partially until it is allowing the engine to apply some of its available torque but not all, and then pause there until the car’s speed roughly matches the engine speed, at which point the clutch will stop slipping even though you still have the pedal partially depressed, after which you should be able to rapidly raise your foot from the clutch and feel no acceleration or deceleration. For an experienced driver that pause is less than like half a second from standstill. Also technically the point at which you want to pause the clutch let out depends on a whole bunch of things like how quickly you want to pull off, how much torque the engine can provide and whether you’re on a hill etc, but we just do this intuitively with experience.
This is like a super over-complicated way to think about it and I would never try to teach a learner driver by first explaining this lol but the point is, you find the engagement point and hold there for a while and then release when the car is moving. This is what we all do but it helps to understand why we do it so we don’t explain things wrong.
I feel like people also don’t get what applying more throttle does while the clutch is slipping. All it does is raise the engine rpm, it will apply absolutely no more torque (and therefore acceleration) no matter how much you press down the throttle. While the clutch is slipping the clutch pedal controls your torque and therefore acceleration. You need some throttle though to give you some room for error and some minimum torque to work with.
The funny thing is when I first started learning to drive, it seemed impossible to get right without stalling or bunny-hopping or something else going wrong. Yet now after years of driving it feels like there's a huge window of acceptable throttle and clutch. Apply tons or throttle or hardly any. Release the clutch carefully or quickly. Car always starts great. There must be so much muscle memory magic to it. I don't think I could bunny-hop the car anymore if I tried.
Release the clutches linearly in half a second with the engine at 1k rpm and bunny hop away lol
But you’re totally right. You can pull away quickly by letting your rpm build up and choosing an aggressive clutch position while applying enough throttle to keep the rpm constant, alternatively in most cars you can pull away on a fairly steep hill with no throttle if you just barely let the clutch engage and hold it at that point until the car is moving steadily
Interesting… I learned exactly the opposite way and I’d argue it was easier. Feet on clutch and brake. Start the engine. Get used to the feeling. Gear stick into first. Back to neutral. Give it a wiggle, that’s how you know you’re in neutral. Practice changing from neutral to first and back. Foot off the brake, practice holding the engine at 1k, 1.5k, 2k rpm.
Talk through the next bit first: Hold engine at 1.5k rpm. Ease off clutch just enough to start engaging and rolling forwards. Back on the clutch then gently break to a stop. Repeat until confident.
Etc. etc. The whole time the learner is in control of the car and they learn the basics without having to worry about steering.
Someone recently told me that petrol and diesel engines with manual transmission feel very different. He told me that driving his dad's manual transmission diesel engine was easier because the clutch was "more forgiving". I cannot driving manual, so I have no idea about it. My guess: That tractor is diesel.
To explain different. Cars are geared like a bike in the fastest gears, starting takes a lot of torque. Tractors are like the slowest gear like a mountain bike climbing gear. In addition a tractor motor is like a champion squatter and a car's is like a the fastest kid at your school (Olympic sprinters are still strong).
Cars spend no time at .5 mph but plenty at 60. Tractors spend almost no time above 15 and tons of time at .25mph. tractors will pull your house over. Cars won't.
You can pop the clutch in idle in 6th in a tractor and it'll likely start
Yep, I have a manual diesel 4WD and have taught several people to drive it in a pinch when needed. It's very forgiving as I can just tell them "Put your foot on the clutch, shift into first, and slowly take your foot off the clutch". At that point, they're slowly driving around in first gear and can practice shifting up and down a bit without worrying about the accelerator too much.
This is exactly what it reminded me of. My dad taught me by setting me up on a flat surface (parking lot) and getting me to try and find the sweet spot where I could press on the gas a little. As in "let off the clutch a bit and press on the gas" with a bunch of ambiguity in the middle; how much should I do of either, why? When I was teaching my gf, I quickly realized this made no sense at all, and did exactly as you described. It didn't completely alleviate the stress, and I feel a bit bad that I put her through it, but just feathering the clutch is a massively better way to get a feel for it.
> This is exactly how I teach people to drive stick, and they’ll learn within 30 minutes. Put them on an empty road with a downward slope. T
I do it exactly the other way: put them on an empty road with a slight uphill.
With the parking brake on, let them practice getting a feel for when the clutch "bites". When it does, put the parking brake down and the car remains stationary.
Do that a few times (10m, or less) and the learner develops an intuition all by themselves for how the clutch pedal works (there's some travel until it "bites", the expected type of progression of the pedal, etc).
Can't teach that when they learn to use it like a button (which is what happens when they learn to change with the car in motion).