Drive a Stick
Driving a stick shift can seem hard at first, but after some practice you will be operating your manual transmission car with confidence. Sure, you'll stall a few times in the very beginning, but that's only to be expected. Brush yourself off, get the fundamentals down pat, and you learn how to confidently drive your stick in a matter of days, if not hours.
Steps
Basic Techniques
- Make sure your emergency brake is on and you're on flat land.
- Hold your left foot all the way down on the clutch.
- Make sure the gear shift is in neutral. Neutral is the middle position in which you can move the shifting lever freely around.
- Turn the car on.
- Put the car into first gear while still holding down the clutch with the left foot. First gear is usually the leftmost gear on the top.
- Put your right foot on the brake, and release the emergency brake.
- Check all mirrors and front and back sides of the car.
- Slowly release your left foot off the clutch at the same time as you accelerate with the right foot. This will get you moving. The basics of putting the car into gear with a manual transmission is this: letting off on the clutch while you depress the accelerator. You need to master this movement in order get the car moving.
- This technique will take a while to master. In the beginning, you'll let the clutch off too early, causing the car to stall, or you won't let the clutch off early enough, causing the engine to rev and the car to shoot forward when you let the foot off the clutch.
- If the car stalls, brake and put the shift lever back into neutral. Put your right foot on the brake, press your left foot down on the clutch, and start the engine. Try not to get flustered when you stall.
- If you stall while on a busy stretch of road, put on your emergency flashers as you start your car up again. This will let other drivers behind you know that they can pass if you are safe, or wait for you get the car up and running again.
- Know how to shift from one gear to the next. The basics of shifting into a different gear are pretty easy, but they need to followed accurately each time in order to work.
- Take your foot off the accelerator. Your foot needs to be off the accelerator before you shift into another gear.
- Depress the clutch. This disengages the spinning engine from the spinning wheels, allowing you lock into the teeth of a different gear.
- Move your shifting lever into gear while clutch is still depressed. Usually, you move from one gear to the next, or back down.
- Release the clutch. You can rest your left foot again once you've shifted gears.
- Accelerate in first gear until your RPM reaches between 3000 to 4000. Once it does, take your foot off the accelerator, depress the clutch, and bring the shift lever into second gear with your foot still on the clutch. Second gear is usually right below first gear.
- Once in gear, remove your foot from the clutch completely. Resting your foot on top of the clutch causes unnecessary pressure and could result in premature wear on your clutch.
- In order to stop the car completely, release your foot from the accelerator and depress the brake pad. If the car starts to shake, begin to press down on the clutch. When you have slowed to under {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}, you can shift into neutral and take your foot off the clutch while still holding down on the brake pad.
- Alternately, you can shift into neutral, take your foot off the clutch, and press down on the brake pad until your car has come to a complete stop.
- Note: if you don't hold down the clutch (or use neutral) as you brake and as your RPM lowers, your car will start to shake and your engine will stall. While riding your clutch while your engine is going is not a good idea (it'll wear out the clutch), you also don't want your engine to stall. Once you're comfortable with the technique, get in the habit of shifting into neutral instead of riding your clutch.
- Note: if you just want to brake a little bit, you don't have to depress the clutch. If you're in gear just need to slow down a little, your car isn't in danger of stalling.
Advanced Techniques
- Learn how to decelerate by downshifting. You can brake or decelerate your car by downshifting instead of applying pressure on the brake pad. In order to do this:
- Remove your foot from the accelerator and let the car naturally decelerate.
- Depress the clutch and move the gear lever into the gear immediately below the gear you're currently in.
- Continue allowing the car to decelerate naturally.
- When your speed hits the next lowest gear's wheelhouse, downshift again. Continue downshifting until you've hit first gear. Using this technique requires more space and more time to decelerate.
- Know what gear you should be in based on your RPM and your speed. If you're in second gear and your RPM is through the roof, you should shift into third gear soon. If you're in fourth gear and your RPM is really low, you should probably downshift into third gear. Here's a rundown of approximately what gear you should be in according to how fast you are going. Speeds and gears will vary depending on what car you drive:
- {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}: First gear
- {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}: Second gear
- {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}: Third gear
- {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}: Fourth gear
- {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} and above: Fifth gear
- {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} and above: Sixth gear (not all cars have six gears)
- Know that you can kick into any gear from neutral provided you are going fast enough. One cool thing about having a manual transmission is that you can kick your car into neutral very easily and just "coast." Perhaps you reached the top of a mountain and are now going downhill. Instead of accelerating by shifting, you can let the car accelerate by putting the car into neutral.
- If you're in neutral and going {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}, you should shift directly into fourth gear. If you're in neutral and going {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}, you should shift directly into second gear, and so on.
Warnings
- Do not coast. You don't have as much control of the car, it is illegal in many countries including the UK and the US, your engine is more likely to cut out too and if you have a modern stop/start feature car your engine's stop start function can break. If your engine cuts out you will lose power steering and will lose control of the car!
- The gear recommendations on this page are fairly optimistic. In a car with a petrol engine, for example, driving regularly at {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} in second gear will use more petrol than is necessary and eventually damage your engine. Most cars would feel best in 3rd and more powerful cars even 4th gear at 30mph.
- Do not attempt to learn to drive a stick shift while on or near any hills.
