[anonymousmac]

I have very little experience driving stick. Would buying a 1 with a manual tranny be a bad idea for me? could i pick it up quickly? My previous cars have been auto, i need something a little more sporty.

[atr_hugo]

I picked it up fairly quickly, thirty some odd years ago. My first car was a stick and before I bought it I had one, half-hour, driving lesson with a car equipped with a stick.

I'd suggest you find a friend with a stick that would be willing to let you practice a bit before buying a 1er. (I'd also suggest more than a half hour - the salesman may not appreciate you learning on their car. ; -)

[imported_MPower]

Anyone can eventually learn how. Some pick it up faster than others. I certainly agree with atr_hugo that you really should get with a friend and get a little bit of experience before you decide. I love manual gearboxes but others just dont see the point. You wont know until you get behind the wheel.

For comparative purposes, it took me about 4 hours of practice before I was willing to get on quiet streets. From there it was probably 3 more hours to get competent enough that I could get mostly anywhere, mind you it wasnt very smooth...

On the other hand, my girlfriend needed an entire weekend's worth of practice before she could get from her home to school (which, admittedly was about 20 miles away and required freeway driving).

Like I said, get behind the wheel and get a taste before you take the plunge.

[Lips]

It's really not to hard to pick up. I just learned about 2 years ago on my fiancee's old stick shift saturn. I would just practice in a high school parking lot and then eventually ventured onto the main roads. Now I take the manual MX-5 whenever and wherever I can go. It is much more fun then an auto as long as you live somewhere where traffic is not crazy and you don't plan on injuring your left foot anytime soon.

Lips

[joelk]

do it. you can learn in a few hours and ... well ... take a life time to master i suppose. it's not hard.

i learned to drive on one ... on actual streets. my dad had a "throw him in the deep end to learn to swim" mentality and well ... i got lucky and didn't kill anyone.

and then one time i got waaaay too drunk at some bar and my girlfriend at the time had to drive us both home. (lucky for me it wasn't a first date). she had no clue how to drive a ... eh manual transmission ... and well she picked it up well enough...although it was a pretty rough drive. okay story time over

[atr_hugo]

Originally Posted by joelk

do it. you can learn in a few hours and ... well ... take a life time to master i suppose. it's not hard.

i learned to drive on one ... on actual streets. my dad had a "throw him in the deep end to learn to swim" mentality and well ... i got lucky and didn't kill anyone.

My dad learned to drive, not just drive a stick, in 1944 in the Army. A seargent took him into a potato field in a jeep and said, "Don't you even start the dam thing until I'm outta the field and on the road. And you gotta be at the mess hall at 1100 or I'm considering you AWOL!"

[kurichan]

I know a 10 year old who lives on a big farm and drives a manual jeep all over the place.

His grandmother taught him.

Should I ask if she'll teach you too? :biggrin:

My point is, I am sure you can pick it up. Now is the time to start practicing!

[OniKoroshi]

Its pretty easy to learn for most. Its just a balance thing. Practice just putting the car into gear and playing with the clutch. Try to release the clutch slowly to find the engagement point and the car should start to move a little if you're on flat ground. If you release it too much it will start to stall. Then start trying to give it some throttle when you find that engagement point so the car goes instead of stalling.

Get a buddy to teach you or you can have a salesmen teach you on one of their beaters.

[Victor.L3IchibanM3]

I learned it by myself with a new e90 last year early in da morning.....its pretty easy