How long does it take to get good with a manual transmission?

O

OppositeLocK

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Feb 27, 2019
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I've been driving for about 12 years. Covered plenty of miles, with many different types of vehicles, in all kinds of traffic, roads, and situations. From Wranglers, to Minivans, to F-150's, to RAMs, to Corollas, Altimas, etc. But... I've only ever driven automatic.

Well...I bought a brand new WRX with a manual transmission. Needless to say, I've never felt more emasculated in my life. I've driven it about 3 days and put about 60 miles on it. For the life of me I can't master clutch control. It's always either too much gas or not enough, or I miss the friction point. Always a clunky start, with a jerky shift... and that's good because it means I haven't stalled it...

Feels like I'll never get good. I've only been driving it on the weekend on isolated country back roads. I refuse to commute or drive it in general traffic until I can drive it like I do any other car. It's honestly been very a demotivating, disheartening, and disappointing experience for me. Feel like an idiot through and through.
 
You'll get the hang of it in no time. Like you, I purchased a manual tranny car in 1995 (1988 Mazda B2200) never having driven one in my life. I didn't take long at all to master the third pedal. As of now, I've probably put a half million miles on manual tranny automobiles. Much of that being in the awful Bay Area traffic!
 
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It takes more than 3 days.

I felt very discouraged during the first week, but practice makes perfect. I felt pretty comfortable in most situations after a couple weeks.
 
Depends upon the car. Tried many times on an Acura integra that a friend had. Couldn't master it. Bought my 91 bmw, got it in a day. A few stalls, but just went out driving after a few tries on the street and it was easy. Incidentally, my brother learned on the same car, same clutch. All original when I sold it with 188k.

My wife had an integra, the clutch was just as bad. I could just drive it fine because I learned on something else.

So do yourself a favor and learn on a car with a good clutch and you'll have mastery fast.

My suspicion is that a wrx due to a performance bias, has a heavy clutch and light flywheel which might be a poor combo from a leg practice and inertial standpoint. Pure speculation though.
 
It takes time. And only 60 miles!? Time to pack some miles on it. Drive in neighborhoods where you've gotta shift a lot before you come up to the next stop sign.
 
Originally Posted by OppositeLocK
I've been driving for about 12 years. Covered plenty of miles, with many different types of vehicles, in all kinds of traffic, roads, and situations. From Wranglers, to Minivans, to F-150's, to RAMs, to Corollas, Altimas, etc. But... I've only ever driven automatic.

Well...I bought a brand new WRX with a manual transmission. Needless to say, I've never felt more emasculated in my life. I've driven it about 3 days and put about 60 miles on it. For the life of me I can't master clutch control. It's always either too much gas or not enough, or I miss the friction point. Always a clunky start, with a jerky shift... and that's good because it means I haven't stalled it...

Feels like I'll never get good. I've only been driving it on the weekend on isolated country back roads. I refuse to commute or drive it in general traffic until I can drive it like I do any other car. It's honestly been very a demotivating, disheartening, and disappointing experience for me. Feel like an idiot through and through.

STart driving it every day a lot. That is how.
Go to PUMA store, they have good Puma shoes for BMW and Ferrari with very thin bottom for clutch drivers. Once you rack up 100k, you will be a master.
 
Originally Posted by JHZR2
Depends upon the car.


Very true! Some are a lot easier than others. It really takes a few months until you can mindlessly drive a stick, a few weeks to get the hang of it.
 
Every one learns at a different pace.

I started working with my 13 yr old 2nd cousin last year. We putted around my house for about 45 minutes back in October. The day after Xmas I took her ( yes her!) To a dry lake bed. We made 2 laps from the gas line sign to the stack of tires. I showed her where the gears were. This was her 3rd loop and her first with me not really coaching her.

We spent the whole afternoon on the lake bed. At one point she had us going 65 mph! Since then we have driven on dirt roads out in the desert. She can take off like a pro now.


https://youtu.be/ebcdQnBowfU
 
Originally Posted by e55amgbenz007
However, even after the half million mark, I still feel uneasy with the manual navigating the hilly streets of San Francisco. Thank God for e-brakes...

Yep, starting from a stop on steep hills is always going to be a bit more challenging than an auto even when you get good, but you'll be able to handle it.
 
We are also learing vehicle maintenance!

IMG_20190209_113041.jpg


IMG_20190316_194740.jpg
 
The WRX has a tough clutch and a jerky shifter. It's not all that easy even for experienced MT drivers. I learned on an old VW beetle which was pretty easy to shift. Look on YouTube for some training videos. It will take you several weeks to become comfortable with the transmission. Even after a month or two you won't be that great because a lot of driving an MT is muscle memory. Some tips:

Try running the shift pattern with the car off (up and down) and your eyes closed. You should be able to shift entirely by feel. You should know what gear your are in at all times without looking

Use the hand brake when starting only any hill (especially uphill).

While fully depressing the clutch, shift into 1st and engage the accelerator to 2000-3000 RPM. Do not engage the turbo. Try not to use the turbo at all until you get better with the MT.

Slowly disengage the clutch while releasing the hand brake (if on hill) just before the clutch engages. Give it a bit more gas as the clutch engages. Try to match RPM with your shift point to the next gear - usually in the 2000-3000 RPM range. The WRX has so much power that you will be able to skip gears (e.g 1-3-5-6) once you become more familiar with the car.

Engage the accelerator lightly when downshifting to match RPM's.

Good luck! Stay out of hilly areas and heavy traffic for the first few weeks if possible.
 
My first car was a manual 2.slow Golf: easy to find gears and hard to stall. I drove it flawlessly during the test drive and then struggled for weeks after.

Just start commuting in it. Your confidence is shattered and you need to build it up. If you stay in your comfort zone you will never learn anything.

Don't be afraid to let the clutch out slowly. I definitely let the clutch out too slowly when I started and didn't realize it until I had improved my skills. I would never give it enough gas to launch and just feathered the clutch to take off. If you can't match throttle and clutch inputs, let the clutch do the work until you can. Who cares about the slight extra clutch wear.
 
I bought a Taurus SHO new, "for my wife", and she learned in about 1 hour. My sister learned how to drive a manual in a MGB when she was 16, but it took her a few days to get comfortable. I learned when I was about 14 in the same MGB. In those examples, I think they had heavy flywheels. I have a performance biased car with a very light flywheel, and it requires a great deal of finesse to launch it properly: both my sons complain it is a difficult manual trans car to drive. My older son has a Mini Cooper S with a manual and it seems more forgiving than my car.

My suggestion is to get one of the salesman at your dealer, or a friend, or a mechanic or service writer , to go out with you and watch your style. Make sure they KNOW how to drive a manual trans: plenty of people do it wrong, or do it badly, and you do not want those people to influence you. The sales guys are supposed to make sure your comfortable driving the car, so I think they would welcome an opportunity to help. If it was a used car with many miles on it, then I might suspect something wrong with the clutch, but in this case you just need practice. Certainly get some help, because doing it wrong or badly might ruin the clutch.
 
Every manual is different. Some are intuitive, some not so much. My 370Z was a nightmare coming from a TKO500 in a Mustang GT 5.0, T56 in a WS.6, and TR6060 in a Z06. The WRX felt super intuitive to me when I drove my friend's '18, even though I haven't touched a manual in about 5 years. Rev-matched downshifts blasting down the freeway like a boss.
 
I taught my daughters on a 1988 Chevy S-10 F.I. 4cyl 5 speed. The first thing was to go thru "all 5 speeds" with NO gas pedal, only the clutch. The little engine would go back to it's idle, when they didn't kill it. This taught them clutch control, this taught them feathering the clutch pedal. Both were mad as heck at first.......but when they got it....big smile. Next was down shifting with NO clutch, only a little blip on the gas. Yes, they were mad again, but when they got it, there was that smile again. "Now" we started learning the gas with the clutch. This part took only 20-30 mins as now they understood clutch engagement with throttle control. When I had my 2016 Challenger R/T 6 speed, they both got in it and drove it like they had been driving a manual all the time. Yes I was nervous at first. But I don't know who had the bigger smile......them or me.☺
 
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Originally Posted by OppositeLocK
I've been driving for about 12 years. Covered plenty of miles, with many different types of vehicles, in all kinds of traffic, roads, and situations. From Wranglers, to Minivans, to F-150's, to RAMs, to Corollas, Altimas, etc. But... I've only ever driven automatic.

Well...I bought a brand new WRX with a manual transmission. Needless to say, I've never felt more emasculated in my life. I've driven it about 3 days and put about 60 miles on it. For the life of me I can't master clutch control. It's always either too much gas or not enough, or I miss the friction point. Always a clunky start, with a jerky shift... and that's good because it means I haven't stalled it...

Feels like I'll never get good. I've only been driving it on the weekend on isolated country back roads. I refuse to commute or drive it in general traffic until I can drive it like I do any other car. It's honestly been very a demotivating, disheartening, and disappointing experience for me. Feel like an idiot through and through.


One of the reasons you feel as you do - is that the WRX is tuned by the factory to be very non-linear... so that it passes emissions and to the extent it is driven easy, it gets shall-we-say reasonable gas mileage. It apparently has a hair-trigger throttle.... Very hard to drive smoothly... cannot be driven with a sense of abandon. You always have to pay attention to that throttle.

The fix is a Cobb Tuning... tune. A tune not for the sake of more HP / torque... but a tune simply for the sake of "linearizing" the response, for reason of making it drive much smoother.

That's my sense...
 
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Originally Posted by Cdn17Sport6MT
Originally Posted by OppositeLocK
I've been driving for about 12 years. Covered plenty of miles, with many different types of vehicles, in all kinds of traffic, roads, and situations. From Wranglers, to Minivans, to F-150's, to RAMs, to Corollas, Altimas, etc. But... I've only ever driven automatic.

Well...I bought a brand new WRX with a manual transmission. Needless to say, I've never felt more emasculated in my life. I've driven it about 3 days and put about 60 miles on it. For the life of me I can't master clutch control. It's always either too much gas or not enough, or I miss the friction point. Always a clunky start, with a jerky shift... and that's good because it means I haven't stalled it...

Feels like I'll never get good. I've only been driving it on the weekend on isolated country back roads. I refuse to commute or drive it in general traffic until I can drive it like I do any other car. It's honestly been very a demotivating, disheartening, and disappointing experience for me. Feel like an idiot through and through.


One of the reasons you feel as you do - is that the WRX is tuned by the factory to be very non-linear... so that it passes emissions and to the extent it is driven easy, it gets shall-we-say reasonable gas mileage. It apparently has a hair-trigger throttle.... Very hard to drive smoothly... cannot be driven with a sense of abandon. You always have to pay attention to that throttle.

The fix is a Cobb Tuning... tune. A tune not for the sake of more HP / torque... but a tune simply for the sake of "linearizing" the response, for reason of making it drive much smoother.

That's my sense...


The Cobb tune also adds 20whp or so. It's legit. I've seen 3rd party track testing, and was shocked.
 
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