If you release the clutch slow enough, in most cars you can get moving just with idle engine.
Practice in a parking lot if you can, and just do that over and over until you understand the friction point.
Getting moving from a dead stop in first or reverse is really the only hard part of driving a manual, shifting up through the gears from there is trivial.
Learn to shift based off the sound of the engine, dont stare at the tachometer.
If you already know how to drive, learning manual isnt so hard. You are going to stall it out, you arent hurting anything but your pride when you do.
A point on stalling: don't panic! You're gonna stall first in line at the stop light and you're gonna look in the mirror at that long line of cars behind you, but don't panic! Take a breath, clutch in and start the engine back up.
We made our kids go to a church parking lot and drive without the gas pedal. There was much bitching and screaming, but they both learned pretty quickly. Backing up through the circle drive without hitting the curb took much much longer.
In my experience, releasing the clutch without adding throttle will only get you moving in a diesel car.
Gasoline engines will stall much faster, which is part of the reason learning vehicles are all diesel.
Works I'm my 1L petrol car. You just need to be gentle.
I've never driven a car that couldn't do this, and I've driven at least a dozen manual transmission cars and trucks, all gas. Hell my beater right now doesn't have first gear, and I have no problems starting in second just idling. You just need to be really slow and attentive to your rpms. Not that you should always start rolling like this, but I agree with the comment above that it's an excellent learning exercise. I always start with this one when I teach other people how to drive stick with great success, and I wish that I started with this exercise when I was learning.
Looking at the tach is so useful through. You can learn how your car can go into gear at different speeds depending on if you're going uphill, downhill, or flat.
Make sure you press down the clutch all the way
People will be annoyed with you and honk at you when you stall at a traffic light or something. Know and accept that fact. Do not mind them. Take your time to do things right. With time you'll gain muscle memory and you won't have to think about it at all. Until then, don't mind the impatient drivers.
I watched my ex drive a manual for over a year. I intently focused on when he was shifting and what not. When I got the car finally for myself, I just got in and went. I had a friend show me how to reverse in the parking lot. I called my supervisor and told her, "I'm driving the kia in today myself, I might be late" and I took my first ride. Made it to work on time, but stalled everywhere I went for two weeks until I got the hang of it. Took a bit longer to get the hang of downshifting.
Dont panic when you stall! You're just rebooting, keep going!
Except one short mention about riding the clutch, I haven't seen this yet... Get into the habit of completely removing your foot from the clutch pedal whenever possible. Even just lightly resting your foot against the pedal can wear your clutch out prematurely. Cruising on the highway: remove your foot from the clutch pedal and rest it on the floor. Sitting at the lights: put the car in neutral and release the clutch. Put your foot on the floor until you're ready to go. Also, it's ok to coast to a stop with the clutch pedal depressed, but you have much more control if you downshift to a stop and you will extend the life of your brakes, too.
you can't spend too much time practicing in a big empty parking lot.
Or if you know a farmer, a paddock is also a good option
Don’t step on the clutch with just your toes or the ball of your foot. Push down with the entire length of your foot. It’s easier to control it that way because you’ll be lifting/depressing the pedal with your knee movement instead of ankle.
Also, don’t ride the clutch, even if you think you’re just resting your foot over it lightly. That still puts pressure on the pedal. Rest your foot on the dead pedal when not shifting.
Don’t rest your hand on the shifter (applies to automatics too).
Use engine braking to your advantage.
To add on, if your left ankle is on the ground when working the clutch you'll have trouble controlling it.
Like scytale says, use your whole foot so the action is at the knee. This means lifting your ankle up off the floor.
There's already plenty of good advice here. The one that I think is missing is that the clutch pedal probably has like 10 inches of travel, but it only cares about 1 inch of it. All the rest is just slop. You need to figure out where that zone is, and get good at hitting the start of that spot quickly.
Once you can get to the start of that zone reliably, then you can start working on how fast you release the clutch through that zone. The more power you're applying with the throttle pedal, the faster you can release the clutch through this zone.
That depends greatly on the age/design of the car/truck. I've driven some that barely let you shift with the pedal in the floor, or like my new car, you barely even touch it and the clutch is slipping. My first car was somewhere in the middle; a few inches to fully disengage, with a couple to spare.
As with most things that you have to actually interact with, you have to get a feel for it before you'll have perfect stop/starts.
One I haven't seen here yet. If your battery dies, you can usually get the car rolling (neutral with people pushing, or turn down a small hill) and once moving a bit you can throw it straight into second gear and hit the gas and it should cause the car to start and you can drive it to a destination to replace the battery (or just let it charge the battery if you left the headlights or interior lights or such on and let it die on accident). No second car/jumper cables required.
The first time I pop started a manual car I felt like a god lmao, it's an awesome feature
You can get an assist from a speed bump if you time it right. Just as the car apex's the bump drop it into 2nd and the wee hill can be enough to start the car.
Keep the radio/music off. It's much easier to hear the engine and how the clutch engaged while you are getting used to your new clutch
I find it interesting how those of us having learned with manuals just know when to shift after a while, even if the music is blaring.
You sort of just feel it.You'll get there soon, OP, just keep practicing!
Keep at it.
Nothing really to it, you just need time and lots of practice to build up the "muscle memory" for it, until it becomes little more than a reflex.
You've gotten a lot of solid practical advice, so I'll take it to theory.
Learn how it works and what happens when you push that clutch in and let it out.
Here's a video with a lot of detail and animation.
+1. When you know what is going on inside you can get a much better feel for what the car is doing.
When you are cruising along, if you back off the accellerator a bit you can feel the whole drivetrain go 'loose' (If you back off a bit more you will start engine braking). This the backlash in the gearbox & you will find you can pop it out of gear without the clutch quite easily. Putting it back in without the clutch is best practiced on an enemies car.When my truck’s clutch cylinder blew, I managed to limp it to the shop just by rev-matching and slipping it into each gear. I couldn’t stop without stalling, so I definitely blew a couple stop signs, but I made it.
practice letting off the clutch by going to an empty parking lot and try to release the clutch in 1st gear without stalling and without gas
then remember that your clutch foot and the gas foot are a 50 / 50 team
so for all the force you put on one, you need to take from the other
dont be afraid to use the parking brake on hills to help you get into 1st when your at a stop
Lots of people talking about clutch work so I'll mention something else - how to use the gearstick. Sounds a bit of a silly thing to talk about but how you do it can actually help.
I've seen various inexperienced drivers shift by grabbing the gearstick tightly and pulling it around in that same tight grip until it's where they think the next gear should be. This usually works for getting around but it makes it hard to know what gear you're actually shifting into and when it's properly engaged - particularly on boxes that don't give much feeling through the gearstick. One person in particular was repeatedly struggling with hitting the wrong gears (particularly when other things were happening) until I suggested they change this behaviour.
I recommend instead keeping a relatively loose grip on the shifter and considering changing gear a quick three part motion instead of a single one. Say for example that you're shifting from second to third in a typical 5 speed H pattern - the three parts are you pushing up to move out of second (which you don't need a tight grip for as it's just pushing the shifter with your palm), centring the gearstick to below third (where you only need a loose side grip - there's minimal force involved and keeping loose lets you feel the springs pull it where you want to be), and pushing upwards into third. Your grip should be changing a bit depending on what part of the shift you're in and what gears you're moving in/out of, I find this does help with improving feel and accuracy.
...also, jiggle it to check if you're in neutral, then jiggle it again just to be sure: ooh, now you're stopped at a light, better jiggle it...
(okay, that's an easy tease, but as a compulsive habit it really does help cultivate kinesthetic proficiency through tactile feeback)
This isn't bad advice and is similar to advice given to me when I first started. It's bad form to leave your hand always on the shifter. I was told it can wear out the linkage faster as your always putting pressure on it.
Agree with the other posters about clutch work. A small hill or parking lot with an incline may also help with clutch feel / practice.
That is what helped me get a better feel for using a clutch.
When you start the car on uphill roads, press release the clutch slowly and press the accelerator at the same time. Balance it.
Pffft thats not the fun way, the fun way is to redline the engine then slam off the handbrake.
The hardest part will be learning how to properly feather in the clutch. Find an empty parking lot and practice stopping fully then starting out with someone who has driven stick before and can give you feed back.
Accidentally stopping the engine is no shame. Whatever anybody thinks. Focus on not making collisions. You can always just start the engine again. Nothing bad happened. Collisions are the real headache and what is important.
Lots of good advice in here for the basics. Only one I'll bother repeating is to get used to your clutch by slowly releasing it and getting the car moving without touching the throttle at all.
Also never downshift into first. This is a bit of a soft rule since it can be done, but the speed you need to lose before you do is a lot more than any of the other gears. If it's a 6 speed, this might even apply to 2nd gear to a degree. To figure out when it's safe to downshift to first, redline it in first and check your speed. Never do it at or above that speed as a hard rule.
For intermediate techniques:
When shifting while moving, let off the gas a bit before pressing the clutch. The idea is to smoothly stop accelerating to reduce the jerk you'd normally get from going from accelerating, clutch (decellerating), back to accelerating once in the next gear. Your passengers will appreciate it if you can get this timing down, though if you're on your own, it doesn't matter as much since you can anticipate the changes in acceleration.
On the opposite end of that spectrum, practice speed shifting once you're comfortable with clutch timing and gear positions. It's the same motions as a normal shift, just aiming to do it all as fast as possible. It'll give you better acceleration when you need it (very noticeable if you compare one and the other when accelerating beside another car from a stop light).
For stop and go traffic and traffic jams, instead of maintaining the same distance from the car ahead of you, try to figure out a constant speed you can maintain and let the cars ahead of you do the pull up (away from you) and then brake to a stop (while you slowly catch up to them). If you can find the right speed, you can stay in first gear instead of needing to get in gear, move up, then clutch. The "getting the car moving without throttle" skill from earlier can help here and sometimes you can go a while in a jam without touching the gas pedal. It'll reduce the wear on your clutch and brakes if you can drive in a way that uses them less.
And an advanced technique:
Clutchless shifting. If there isn't a lot of force on the gear, you can pop it into neutral without the clutch quite easily. And by force I mean if you aren't accelerating or engine breaking. Getting into another gear is harder but also possible. The hard part is that you need to match the engine speed with the transmission speed for the gear you want to shift into. If they match, it'll just slip in. But matching is easier said than done, since the car is decelerating and the engine also changes speed very quickly with no load. If the speeds are far from a match, it will feel like the gear just isn't there. If they are kinda close, you'll be able to find the gear but it will grind when you try to put it in all the way. If they match closely, it'll just slip in as easily as it slipped out to neutral.
Why would you want to know how to do this? Well, for one, it's very satisfying to do properly. But I was very glad I could do it when my clutch died. I was able to drive for another week without a clutch because I was competent enough with clutchless shifting. Note that if you need to do this, you have to turn your motor off when you stop (unless you're on a downward slope), put it in first and start it in first gear to get moving again (which feels awful and is awful for your starter and probably not great for the whole drivetrain, so get it serviced asap but this might at least save you from needing a tow).
This is great advice here, both for moto and cars.
Most modern cars have hill assist, but it might still be a help to use the handbrake when starting on a hill, or at least know how to do it.
A looooong time ago I learned to drive.
Figuring out the clutch was just a single driving lesson. He took me to a road which was basically a long hill with no traffic around. He got me to head up the hill in first gear, then to slowly start depressing the clutch until we stopped moving. Then he got me to just play with lowering the clutch more (we slowly start to roll back), lifting the clutch (we start to crawl forward), adding some more throttle and then catching and holding it on the clutch again, rolling back slightly, crawling forward slowly, and so on - all while listening to the engine note so I could hear just before we stalled. We spent about half an hour on that hill and by the time we left it I had pretty much mastered holding the car on the clutch.
Hill starts. Pedal timing for take off from standing. There's a little dance to learn, @Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk hill start advice should see you learning it.
Parked or driving, you've got to be able to take off while facing uphill without rolling back. You don't want to roll back into the person behind you. Also a good reason not to pull up too close behind others on a hill.
This is what I was going to say. Practice hills.
Practice taking off from being parked uphill.
Practice taking off from being stopped downhill.
People will park/pull up almost to your bumper and give you very little wiggle room.
Just remembered another thing he taught me which should help with standing starts.
Doing a hill start, you pop it into first gear with the clutch down while still on the hand brake.
Give it some revs (not a huge amount, and how much exactly will come with practice) and slowly start to come off the clutch. What you’re looking at is the front of the bonnet. As you get to the biting point the bonnet of the car will lift slightly. At that point you should be able to take it off the hand brake without rolling back.
Same thing if you need to do a standing reverse start on a slope, only this time you’re looking for the bonnet to dip a little.
Starting out in second gear can sometimes help prevent your tires from slipping on slick pavement. Also useful if you ever drive a pickup truck with a "granny" [first] gear, which is only intended for getting you moving from a dead stop under heavy load.
Vehicles with manual transmissions have a backup starter if you find yourself with a dead battery. If you can get it rolling, you just put it in at least 3rd or higher and let the clutch out . Should normally start right up.
Learn how to stop and start going up a steep hill. Depending on where you live, it may not happen for a long time. But when it does, you'll want to be prepared. It's done with a quick but smooth motion. You "feather" the clutch, allowing it to drag enough to hold the vehicle in place but not so much that it stalls the engine. Then you let off the brake and simultaneously accelerate and let the clutch out until you're moving up hill. Takes a little practice but not too hard to get down.
I disagree, I think it's better to use the e-brake to hold the car on the slope while you're engaging first gear. And when you're in gear you lower the e-brake.
Whether this is possible depends on your parking/e-brake configuration. Pretty much have to have a hand lever controlled brake (hand brake) to do it effectively. The only manual vehicles I've ever owned have been light trucks, none of which had a hand operated brake. Trying to operate four pedals at once is just not practical.
You can use the emergency brake to keep from rolling back if your car doesn't have any built in rollback protection.
Just pull the e-brake with your hand, and reduce it at the same rate you engage the clutch when pulling away up hill. Easy peezy.
Otherwise, just make sure you get really good at not riding your clutch for any maneuvers. It's easy to burn them out if you're using your clutch to make up for bad driving habits.
Everything has been said here
I just wanted to say welcome to the club! Driving will be fun again :)
When approaching a light or stop sign, smoothly press down the clutch and break pedal together. If it's a red light where you might be for a while, pop the gear into neutral and let go of the clutch.
I was taught (rightfully or not) that holding down the clutch too long can damage it.
Really all you would wear out is the throw out bearing doing that and the clutch plate will go before that does. They are like $10 so they always get replaced with a clutch job. The pressure plate can be reused generally for 3 clutches
Don't money shift it. That's when you feel like racing and you slam it into second from first, then from second into what you think is third but is actually first again.
To bypass that I always just let shifter go back to the middle and then I change the speed.
Yes it takes avay 0.3 seconds to do but allowed me to never money shift and be able to overtake cars without doing it either.
Next time, get an automatic.
Dumb and unproductive.
You're going to drive it without lessons? Is that legal where you live? I'm confused about the question
I was just asking for general tips tbh, I have experience driving and rode a motorcycle for several years, I just never had a manual car before. If that makes more sense?
If you're used to a motorcycle clutch, you'll take to a manual car very quickly.
Don't money shift it, pay attention to the road.
Don’t stall.
That's a skill that won't apply for much longer. If possible, don't learn.
just buy a new clutch. you'll use it.
Driving is complex. Knowing what to pay attention to when takes time to learn.
I recommend not trying to drive a manual until you’ve already learned the basics in an automatic. In my opinion, learning to drive AND learning how to handle a manual transmission is too much at once.
Lol, where I live we still learn to drive on manuals since 99% of cars owned here are manuals and I literally don't see how learning to drive and a manual at the same time is such a problem.
It’s virtually the opposite here. Most cars are automatics. Lots of drivers never learn how to operate a manual transmission, because they simply don’t have to.
I’m just biased by my own experience, I guess. I was relieved to already be familiar with the basics of operating a car. It made easier to concentrate on shifting when I already knew the “feel” of driving.
