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more questions about driving a STICK SHIFT...

B

badboyeee

Senior member
im getting a new car. i have an automatic right now but thinking of getting a stick shift for my new car. im not a pro at stick yet, and i have some questions i like to ask too...

What ruins/wears out the clutch/transmission?
or
What are some bad habits that some people do when driving stick that are harmful to the clutch and transmission?

What requires more maintenance and would mostly likely need repairs? Auto or Stick?

and.. Will I ever get over the fear of stopping on a hill? Some tips? 🙂
 
and.. Will I ever get over the fear of stopping on a hill? Some tips?

My dad took my into San Francisco when I was learning how to drive a stick, trial by fire sort of thing. I could care less where I drove a stick after that.
 


<< What requires more maintenance and would mostly likely need repairs? Auto or Stick? >>


Stick is generally more reliable.
 
One thing to avoid when driving a clutch, is "riding the clutch" This is when you depress the clutch pedal when going downhill, or just driving. Don't ride the clutch, it is bad for the clutch plate.
 
Just takes a bit of practice. And the fear of hills goes away pretty quickly. Only thing that gets me still is parallel parking on a hill, but the hand brake solves that problem, even though i'd be fine w/o it.

Generally speaking more moving parts = more maintenance. Niether should give too many problems but if they do go up, the auto would cost much more to fix.

m00se
 
Q:What ruins/wears out the clutch/transmission?
or
What are some bad habits that some people do when driving stick that are harmful to the clutch and transmission?
A:
- Reving the engine real high, and then "dumping" the clutch. Dumping is just releasing the clutch real quick.
- Keeping the clutch half engaged for extended amounts of time(stop and go traffic, holding yourself still on a hill, ect)
- Riding the gas hard while manipulating the clutch

Q:What requires more maintenance and would mostly likely need repairs? Auto or Stick?
Depends on a lot of factors. It's a gauranteed thing you'll have to replace a clutch, it's just a matter of when. Completely depends on driving style, the type of driving(highway, city, hills, ect), and the qaulity of the transmission.

A typical clutch lasts 80,000 to 120,000 miles. A replacement is anywhere from $300 to $1000 depending upon the make and model of the car.
A typical automatic transmission could last anywhere from 60,000 miles(*cough* Dodge *cough*) to half a million miles. Nobody really knows. But do know that when you have to have an automatic transmission rebuild you are looking anywhere from $800 to $2000 depending once again on make and build.

and.. Will I ever get over the fear of stopping on a hill? Some tips? 🙂
Yes.

 
Manual transimission cars are cheaper off the lot. The better you are at driving with a stick, the less likely you'll need many repairs. There was a thread some time ago about how long a person had gone on their original clutch. I went 149,000 miles(roughly) on my Toyota pickup. Others went much further than that.

What ruins a clutch is slow transfer between gears. It wears the clutch down much faster. I'm sure some of the mechenically oriented in this forum can explain this much better.

If you know how to drive using a manual transmission, you can drive anything. You won't worry so much about hills with experience.

 
hills = parking brake, or when you're l33t you can sorta gas/clutch your way into not moving ^_^
 
Not shifting while all the way on the clutch may wear the syncronizers............riding the clutch is a no no too 🙂
 


<< hills = parking brake, or when you're l33t you can sorta gas/clutch your way into not moving ^_^ >>




hehe i do the gas clutch thing, especially on really steep hills where its hard not to roll back a couple feet in the second it takes to take your foot off the brake and gun it.
 
I drove stick on an old Civic. Back then you could really feel how the clutch engages and how the engine is running. The cars now are all made for comfort- shifting now is a breeze. That doesn't mean it's easier to drive, just less chance of make your car chug.
 
<<What ruins a clutch is slow transfer between gears. It wears the clutch down much faster. I'm sure some of the mechenically oriented in this forum can explain this much better.>>

Not true. If you have the clutch completely disengaged you can take 5 minutes to shift without wearing the clutch. Clutch wear is caused by any situation in which the clutch and the flywheel are spinning at different speeds and are in contact. A good example of this is when someone intentionally slips the clutch while on a hill.

Now, if you do not completely disengage the clutch with every shift (which is bad no matter what) then taking longer to shift will be worse since the clutch is slipping for a longer period of time. If you completely depress the clutch pedal though, this is not the case.

ZV
 
what's this "using the parking brake on hills" thing about? i've always just tried to be quick & finesse it. if there's a useful crutch with the parking brake, I'd like to know it. I'm experienced with sticks now, but I've been driving my bro's Honda lately which is so different from my Explorer Sport's manual tranny that I occassionally make mistakes on hills... which makes me paranoid and leads to more mistakes (revving the engine, popping/dumping the clutch, stalling). so enlighten this "back to the basics" sometimes-manual-driver, if you please. thanx
 


<< Not shifting while all the way on the clutch may wear the syncronizers >>


That's probably my biggest problem. I rarely push the clutch all the way to the floor because it the clutch plate disengages far earlier in the pedal's travel. I can't seem to push it in all the way all the time. On my first manual tran'd car, third gear was getting a little funny after about 30K of use, so I might have done some wear to the synchros. 🙁
 


<< <<What ruins a clutch is slow transfer between gears. It wears the clutch down much faster. I'm sure some of the mechenically oriented in this forum can explain this much better.>>

Not true. If you have the clutch completely disengaged you can take 5 minutes to shift without wearing the clutch. Clutch wear is caused by any situation in which the clutch and the flywheel are spinning at different speeds and are in contact. A good example of this is when someone intentionally slips the clutch while on a hill.

Now, if you do not completely disengage the clutch with every shift (which is bad no matter what) then taking longer to shift will be worse since the clutch is slipping for a longer period of time. If you completely depress the clutch pedal though, this is not the case.

ZV >>



You being the mechanically oriented person I expected to hear from. 😉 Actually what you are saying is what I tried to convey.
 


<< what's this "using the parking brake on hills" thing about? >>


Pull up on the parking brake. Let out the clutch, apply throttle. When the car feels like it wants to break loose from the parking brake's hold, push down the parking brake and the car will go forward with little to no backward motion.

EDIT: I think Subarus have an automatic anti-rollback feature on their manual cars. Funny how nobody else has copied this technology.
 
Ah yes, the old "parking brake on a hill" approach. Crucial for those of us who learned to drive a manual transmission car in San Francisco.

The definition of terror when I was learning to drive my 1972 Volkswagon Beetle 😀 on the hills of SF was stopping on a hill and having some big American car pull up close. Given that the Beetle had an engine in the rear AND those big cars would easily override the back bumper made for some harrowing experiences!

To this day I only buy maual transmission cars .....they're more fun to drive!

fraz
 
"parking on a hill" is when you want the car to go against the slope from full stop. Because you only have 2 feet, there's a time gap between letting go the brake pedal and switch to gas with one foot while holding clutch with the other. So the parking brake must be pulled first. Otherwise the car will fall back first before you rev the engine and release the clutch, and hitting somthing, car, behind as a result.

So after parking brake is pulled, rev engine, and release clutch to the point that you feel the car's about to go, but the brake is hold it, like reigning in a jumpy horse. Then release the parking brake and you're off!

 
Just a litte update to what I said earlier, as long as you completely disengage the clutch each time, the more slowly you shift the better it is for the transmission. Shifting quickly can be hard on the synchros. If you have the time, learn to double clutch (ask a mechanic/driver buddy of yours about how to double clutch, it's hard to explain over the internet). Double clutching can save a lot of synchro wear, though it's really not necessary unless you intend to drive an old car with a non-synchro transmission in which case double clutching becomes required. (By "old" I mean early 1960's or older.)

ZV
 
thanks for all the responses

so slowly shifting is okay? just as long as its smooth right? i thought slow shifting was bad, so i was kinda doing it fast. but sometimes it gets jerky hehe

I do that balancing of clutch with gas thing while I'm on slight hills a lot. I guess i wont be doing that no more.


ONE MORE QUESTION:
ive been driving 89/90 integras with stick. I might be getting a new car, so manual transmissions have improved a lot since then? is it much easier to drive?
 
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