How to Drive a Manual Car for Beginners - Lesson #1 - Manual transmission smart

[TITLE & MUSIC] Hi there smart drivers Rick with Smart Drive Test talking today about driving a manual transmission. This is the very first lesson that you need to put in place in order to learn how to drive a manual transmission or a stick shift. One of the reasons that students have difficulty driving a manual transmission is first of all they don't take the time to learn clutch control. You have to isolate the clutch and learn how to use the clutch by itself without...or before you add in the throttle and you add in the brake. So take the time to learn how to use the clutch. The next thing you have to do is you have to find out where the biting point is, as they call it Europe or the friction point is on the clutch. The friction point is where the clutch comes out and it begins to engage the engine with the drivetrain, and the vehicle begins to move forward. One of the reasons that students have so much difficulty with that task of finding the friction point on the clutch is because you've got big huge leg muscles that are trying to do fine motor control. Big leg muscles are used for running and jumping and kicking - they're not for fine motor control - that's what our fingers are for. So that is one of the reasons why you're having difficulty, because of the limitations of our body. So it takes time to train muscle memory in our big leg muscles to get that fine motor control and find clutch control. Once you find clutch control the rest of it is easy. The two hardest years for learning how to drive a manual transmission our first and reverse so practice in first and reverse go to a parking lot this is where you're going to start out for your first lesson in a manual transmission and learn clutch control figure out where the biting point is figure out where the friction point is on the clutch make sure you wear running shoes don't wear work boots are hiking boots just do hard you need something that you can feel the clutch and figure out where it is as well i'll give you other techniques to be able to find the friction point of the biting point i'll give you a visual as well as an audible aid for learning how to find that and listening to the vehicle and figuring out how to find clutch control this is the basic this is the fundamentals and this is for new drivers I cannot emphasize this enough it's the same thing is when I talk about driving turning holding the car in the center lane and those types of things if you're having difficulty with that go back to the fundamentals and i'll put a card up here for in the corner about the fundamentals of learning how to drive so this is the fundamentals of learning how to drive a manual transmission we're going to go over that going to give you some tips techniques and exercises that you can do so you can learn how to drive a manual transmission stick around we'll be right back with that information for drivers Rick with smart drive test welcome back talking to you today about the fundamental lesson the first lesson for learning how to drive a manual transmission now the first thing you need to know about driving a manual transmission is the stick shift and the stick shift is always a basic each pattern regardless of which side of the car you're sitting on whether you're in Australia or whether you're in Europe it's going to be a basic each pattern now most transmissions and passenger vehicles are going to be a five-speed some of the higher-end cars are now beginning to have six speeds in them but it's just another gear so you can figure out this the shift pattern for five speed 26 patterns as six-speed pattern is going to be more or less the same what you need to know is that regardless of transmission the selector always rest between the middle gears so it's designed to rest in neutral between the middle gears as you can see here in the image and to find first it's over and up to the right so to get to first and second you actually have to pull the selector or push the selector depending on which side of the vehicle you're sitting on over to the left side and that's where first and second are located and third and fourth are in the middle so you just let it go to its natural resting place pushing straight forward you'll find third back to fourth now to find fifth and six it will be over to the right side of the transmission and you'll have to push the selector over to find those gears reverse will probably be over there as well on some transmissions reverses over and up to the left depending on the shift pattern the shift pattern is usually on the top of the selector or will be on in the owners manual or somewhere else in the vehicle so that's the first thing you need to find and as i said in the introduction first and reverse are going to be your most difficult gears and that's what I'm going to help you with today now the first lesson you're not going to use the throttle you're not going to use the break you're just going to figure out clutch control you're going to figure out where the friction point is because you have to control the clutch through the friction point if you can control the clutch and you can figure out how to work first and reverse and you spend the time doing that you spend the time doing the exercises that i'm going to show you here you will be able to drive a manual transmission within a couple of hours it will be very easy to accelerate your learning and figure out how to drive a manual transmission it's not going to be pretty but you'll be able to move the vehicle forward and you'll be able to drive the vehicle in traffic out first reverse spend the time with first reverse and i'll give you some visual aids as well as some audible aid to be able to find out where the friction point is on the vehicle some basic information about transmissions regardless of whether it's a manual transmission of whether it's an automatic transmission they all have gears on them and essentially the hardest part of getting a vehicle going are any object to move it forward is overcome inertia and to overcome the inertia think of it like being on a bicycle right when you start her and you first start getting the bicycle going it's really tough to get going so we need big ears so think of it like a bicycle that has a big gear on the front and a big gear on the back and the chain connects the two gears and that allows you to get the view of the vehicle going or the bicycle going because you got a big gear and a big you here now you're limited in speed because those gears don't turn very fast it's 12 once every time you rotate the pedals the wheel goes around one time at the back doesn't work very well so in order once you get the vehicle going and overcome the initial inertia the way that you make the vehicle go faster is by taking the big gear on the front and changing it to a smaller gear on the back and the how that works is that every revolution on the big gear on the front the back one is going to turn three or four times for every time you turn the pedals on the bicycle the rear wheels going to turn three or four times so it's going to allow you to go really fast a transmission works almost identical it just keeps as you shift the gears the engine is allowed to turn a smaller and smaller gear therefore the vehicles able to go faster and overcome that inertia and the transmission manual transmission automatic transmission both work the same the difference between an automatic and manual transmission is that automatic transmission the motor is connected to the drive train via hydraulic pressure there's hydraulic oil in the transmission that turns the turbine and move the vehicle forward so when you reduce the amount of revolutions of the pump that creates hydraulic pressure in the transmission the engine will basically said they're an idol and you'll probably notice when you're driving an automatic transmission there's some residual power there when you're sitting at a traffic light its kind of pushing a little bit that's because the hydraulic pressure can't be completely eliminated in on I transmission a manual transmission is a direct drive by the clutch there's two spinning plates in the clutch assembly and when you push the question you separate those two plates and disc next the drivetrain the transmission from the engine as you let the clutch out those two plates come together and they spend and it's called the biting point it's when the there's enough friction for those two plates to connect and the engine is reconnected to the drivetrain so that's essentially what you're doing when you're finding the fighting point or the friction point in the clutch assembly as you're bringing those two plates together now if you ride the clutch those two plates never come together in contact fully and you get friction and you wear out your question that's why clutches have to be replaced now the bigger the vehicle the more important it is when you shift gears get your foot off the clutch as quickly as possible come through the friction point that zone where it's engaging moving for get your foot off the clutch as quickly as possible now we'll go over that more today this is about finding the friction point and controlling the clutch and not stalling the vehicle so the first exercise we're going to do we're not even going to move the vehicle and show you how to find the friction point with the parking brake on and not moving the vehicle that's what we're going to do first and i'll put a camera up here for you for the pedals as well so you can see what my foot is doing and again all stress we're running shoes sneakers trainers just the same thing three times in three different languages so hiking boots work boots don't wear those ok the two big the too clunky and they won't allow your toes to feel where the friction point is in the clutch so this is the first thing we're going to do find the friction point in the clutch finding the friction point or the biting point of the clutch that when the engine re-engages with the drivetrain and the vehicle begins to move forward so there's a couple ways you can do that first you can listen to the motor and here it will begin to look down you'll hear it looking down when it engages the friction point so we're going to do this with first reverse don't want you to move the vehicle at this point leave the parking brake on and use that and just control the vehicle so it doesn't stall in the friction point so essentially what we do is we push the clutch all the way in and push the vehicle into first gear up and over to the left is first gear we put it into first gear and we've got the parking brake on so we don't need to hold the break we can just take our foot off the brake pedal and you simply let the clutch out slowly slowly slowly and you can hear it i can hear the motor bogging down now the other indicator that you're near the friction point is the tachometer most vehicles in this day and age you're going to have a tachometer which tells you the engine revolutions and you can see here in this in the camera that as soon as I find the friction point the tachometer goes down you can see that as soon as it goes down i push the clutch back in now you can feel the vehicle trying to move forward a little bit right so the tachometer will give you a visual of where the friction point is so just bring the clutch out but the tachometer drop down and all engines now our electronic fuel injection so it's as soon as the engine regardless whether it's a petrol engine or whether it's a diesel engine as soon as it detects that there's torque on the engine is that more power is required it is going to torque up so it's unlikely especially the newer the vehicle that it's going to stall so you just work that ok and what I would suggest for those of you learning how to find the friction point just let the clutch out do that about 30 times ok in first gear so after you find first year which were on the brake pedals take it out of first put it into reverse and then do it again do it another 30 times find that friction point and just out on the clutch watch the tachometer go down on a petrol engine you'll be able to bring it down to about 500 rpm and then just push it back in just push it back in so that's how you find the friction point on the vehicle that you are driving just let the clutch out let it drop to about 500 push it back in you'll feel the vehicle move a little bit against the parking brake that's how you find the friction point or the biting point of the clutch once you find that and you're able to control that so the vehicle is installing against the parking brake that is the first step that is the fundamentals of learning how to drive a manual transmission is controlling the clutch teaching the big muscles in your leg pain motor control because they said in the introduction the big leg muscles are not designed for fine motor control they're designed for running jumping and kicking and big aggressive movement they're not designed for this little bit of movement ok so do that 30 times after you find that friction point and you're able to control that clutch against the parking brake then we move on to the next step which is actually moving the vehicle forward and controlling the clutch through the friction point so we've learned where the friction point is you've done your exercise both in first and reverse and you moved it out to the friction point against the parking brake now the next exercise is going to be moving the vehicle forward actually bringing the clutch all the way out and as i said in the last 25 years all vehicles manufactured are going to be electronic fuel injection regardless whether it's a gas engine a petrol engine or a diesel engine and the first to wear the same petrol and gas adjust the same I was just speaking in different languages because people in Europe hope some petrol engine so now what we're going to do is we're going to engage the transmission into first gear put your foot on the brake pedal and hold the vehicle in the first clutch all the way in parking brake costs and now we're going to move the vehicle forward just using the clutch we're not going to use the throttle this is this is fundamentals and for those of you all we got to use throttle no you don't have to use throttle you will use throttle later when you combine the clutch and throttle together but right now we're just isolating the clutch and learning how to control the clutch through the friction point because if you can learn this you can master this and you can be confident with this skill the rest of driving a manual transmission is easy p ok it's the same thing is learning how to do turns out to Center the vehicle moline you have to learn the fundamentals before you can do the advanced skills so this is what we're going to do so we're holding the brake and this is how you start off with a manual transmission hold the brake bring the clutch out to the friction point what we were doing before with the parking brake you can see it throttle down now the vehicle is being held by the clutch take your foot off the throttle bring the vehicle forward and you should be able to take your foot completely off the clutch and it won't stall because it's electronic fuel injection and I really should have my hands on the steering wheel while we're moving forward by transit purposes of this exercise we're just in a parking lot there's anybody else around here ok so that was fairly easy because we're on a bit of a downhill there now we're pointed up hill and the same thing so I'm gonna put my hands on the steering wheel this time because just going to do this now hold the brake clutch out to the friction point and you can see I can hear it I can feel it because it's vibrating a little bit i can see the tachometer has gone down a little bit i take my foot off the brake and I control the clutch out through the friction point all the way out and the vehicle just goes forward ok so that's how you do that now we're going to do a reverse same things same exercise bring the question to the friction point hold the clutch you can see that the tachometer has gone down off the brake control the clutch we're looking back control the clutch you don't need any throttle all the way out and the vehicle is reversing now we push the clutch in and apply the brake same thing again out to the friction point with the clutch you can see the tachometer has gone down it's in the friction zone where it's beginning to engage off the brake and slowly out on the clutch all the way out take your foot off the clutch the vehicle will continue to reverse the same thing push question apply a bit of break into a forward gear in the first year so over and up to the left bring the clutch out to the friction point where it starts to engage you can see the tachometer go down I can hear the motor off the break out on the clutch all the way off clutch purse question apply the brake around a bit of an uphill now out on the clutch we can I can hear it I can feel it and I can see the tachometer and started to go down off the brake control the question I have to control the clutch more than I normally would because i'm on a bit of an uphill and all the way out and that's how you find clutch control now i would suggest to you again first a reverse just using clutch and moving the vehicle forward to get you put all the way off the clutch and we suggest you do that and parking lot no less than 30 times for both first reverse suffered what you're going to do a total of sixty times before we move on to the next lesson quick review of first lesson for driving a manual transmission the first lesson of driving a manual transmission is locating the friction point or the biting point in the clutch assembly when the two plates come together and the engine reconnects with the drivetrain and begins to move the vehicle forward for the first exercises you do is have the parking brake on have the vehicle in the first year first year is over and up to the left and you simply bring the clutch out the friction point push it back in bring it out to the friction point you're teaching big muscles fine motor control that's why it's so difficult so do that exercise then put the vehicle in reverse and do the same exercise parking very gon bring the clutch up to the friction point and do that 30 times now at that point i would probably suggest that you take a break because your leg is going to be tired and you're just you're probably going to be vibrating now there's two ways that you know you're at the friction point the first way is the tachometer the tachometer is going to go down and you should be able to bring it down to about 500 rpm and in a petrol engine and easily able to bring it down much more than that because a lot more torque developed by a diesel engine so that's the first exercise the second exercise for getting going is first gear hold the brake bring the clutch out to the friction point release the brake and then control the clutch out until you take your foot completely off same thing with reverse do it in reverse as well and you can alternate between first and reverse make sure you get your hands on the steering wheel you're in a parking lot so there are going to be any other vehicles around you want to go some place that's quiet so that you can concentrate on what you're doing that's the first lesson for driving a manual transmission again first the reverse are going to be your most challenging years and learning how to drive a manual transmission and if you can get the vehicle going in first and reverse going to improve your overall driving because the rest of the gears once you get the vehicle going and overcome that initial inertia in terms of driving a manual transmission those are you to top skiers the other gears are fairly straightforward and if you've got clutch control down and you can control that clutch the rest of the years are going to be fairly easy now there are some schools of thinking out there that you have to give it throttle to take off and yes when you start driving and you get good clutch control you're going to add in the throttle and you're going to give it a bit of trouble to get going just so you can get going faster but you have to learn clutch control first you have to learn the basics of a manual transmission and the basic component of driving a manual transmission is learning clutch control once you're able to do that then the rest of driving a manual transmission is going to be fairly easy you're going to have a bit of bumps and challenges but for the most part get the fundamentals into place question for my truck drivers do you have any exercises for new drivers who are learning how to drive a manual transmission that will help them to learn how to control the clutch leave a comment down in the comment section they're all that helps the new drivers learning how to drive a manual transmission I Rick with smart drive test thanks very much for watching if you like what you see here share subscribe leave a comment down in the comment section as well hit that thumbs up on check out other videos here on the channel if you're working towards the license or starting a career as a truck or bus driver lots of great information here as well head over website great information over there and all night awesome online courses that you can purchase I'm Rick with smart drive test thanks again for watching good luck on your road test and remember pick the best answer unless they're the right answer have a great day bye hi there are drivers Rick with smart drive test it's just so is coming off the roof and rolling down the front windshield at all impossible to them like what the heck is going on person in the car in a parking lot