Yea, I can see that that is good advice. Ha but I guess that helps when you are no on a street with lots of traffic, polls, or obsticles.

It helps to learn to ride a quad/dirtbike first. I think you will get it with ease since you know the concept.

 

You will never stop learning how to drive stick. I am amazed at how much more I learn every year.

I know what you're really trying to ask though. Within a week, you should feel comfortable enough to do your daily driving.

.

 

took me 2 days to learn on my modded 97 Mitsu eclipse GST. word of advice... take it somewhere where there's no cars around that has a decent incline slope, and go up the slope atleast 20 times with out stalling and you'll be good to go.
-GP-

 

+1, a week should be enough.

 

i learned at about 12 took maybe 2 hours

 

Learned to "drive" a manual in about 30 minutes of practice. Comfortable after about a week. Been driving one for 5 years, but as some people say, always things to learn & improve.

 

gdupg35sedan do u still have ur eclipse? my 95 tal is for sale. i had it 10 years. tired of pulling around it to get the other cars in the garage

 

I drove my first manual car when I bought the 94 del Sol....

I went to San Diego (La Jolla) to pick up the car and drove back to Orange County..... on the spot.

So yeah.... I didn't get a chance to actually "learn". I just did it... cuz I had no choice. lol

Well... it probably took me about a week to get really comfortable with the clutch tho'.

 

took me a few days with my crx. i left it at my brothers house and had to take the bus there everyday after school so i can practice with it all day. but i got to take it home in like a few weeks bc my bro wanted to make sure i knew exactly how to drive it. he kept testing me and everything.

still have the car actually. imo, hondas are the best cars to practice stick in. hondas ftw!

 

nope, sold it 4-5 years ago and got a truck. Then got rid of the truck for the G.
-GP-

 

The first time I saw a stick in action was when I was 12 years old. I was riding in my parents' friend's car. In 15 minutes I was able to figure out how it worked... Then when I turned 16 my parents bought me a new honda civic si stick and I drove home from the dealer driving stick FIRST time in my life. I don't know how I got it... guess it came naturally, it's kinda like 10 speed bicycle, the derailer and lever system....
____________
2008 G35 journey ivory/stone+prem&sportpkg.

 

For time I drove stick was in a VW Golf TDI,
Came home on break and it was sitting in the driveway, got the keys, jumped in and went. It may have been a little easier on the diesel because it's torquey down low, I don't know. One thing to keep in mind is when you leave from parking make sure you remember to take the handbrake off (because with automatics you might not always be used to using the e-brake) and if you ever feel the car start to shutter throw on the clutch and gear down.
Now this G35 6MT that I'm looking at getting could prove to be quite a different beast!

One thing for the other posters,
Whenever I park a stick car I always leave it in neutral and throw on the e-brake as long as the ground's level. If it's on a hill of course I put it in gear and throw on the e-brake, but if the ground's level does it matter if I throw it in gear or not? I think I should be but I just find it more convenient to start the car without having to take it out of gear and put it in neutral.

 

to be SAFE, you should aways leave it in gear just in case the e-brake fails (my .02)

OP.....it took me 2hrs to learn. i purchased a brand new Jeep Wrangler while home on leave from the Marine Corps. my salesman threw me the keys to a used Jeep and told me to go out and practice while they finished the paperwork on mine.

 

Same type of deal for me. When I was very little, my dad would let me steer his truck while I sat on his lap and he worked the pedals. Then when I was a bit older we went to the beach parking lot and I got to practice working a clutch on his porsche 944 turbo. It was difficult with all the speed bumps in the parking lot. Just as you got going, you'd have to slow down or turn around. Not the best place to learn.

 

I started learning at 13 on my parent's '98 Mustang GT... NOT an easy clutch to learn on! Burned out a few times when I first started learning how to start on a hill. Probably took me a few hours over the course of a few days of my dad teaching me to get to the point where I was comfortable driving a stick.

My dad also wanted me to be comfortable with the extremes of a car, so when I was 14 he took me out to a stretch of highway with no one around at about 11 PM, told me to get off at an exit, get on the next on-ramp, then stop and launch full speed up to about 90. I looked at him wide-eyed, and he goes, "Well? I'm waiting." So I took a deep breath, hit in in first, slammed it into second and got a second gear scratch - which started my Dad laughing his *** off. Slammed it into 3rd and got up 90, then backed off. My heart was POUNDING!

That was the biggest rush of my life up to that point and I've owned nothing but manuals ever since - and probably always will!