Just wondering….

From Shannon:

hmm well the number of people I know who keep replacing clutches & transmissions much higher than the issues I’ve had w/autos

If you already know how to drive, learning to drive a manual transmission takes 45 minutes. A manual transmission gives you these benefits:

• Lower brake wear-and-tear
• Higher gas mileage
• Cheaper maintenance - manual transmissions have fewer parts than an automatic.
• Cheaper to purchase - cheaper to make + fewer people want a manual so they are lower in price on the used car market.
• Can rent/use cars in other parts of the world which may have only manual transmission cars
• Impress your friends with tricks like driving without the gas pedal

How to get the benefits:

• Instead of having your foot on the gas until the moment you slam on the brakes, try this: Take your foot of the gas a long way away from that red light or stop sign. Push in the clutch and let the car coast. It will slow down naturally. When you finally do brake, the car will be a lot slower and the brakes will not do as much work. This will dramatically increase the brake life and saving gas and bucks (or euros).
• When driving in stop-and-go traffic, ease off the clutch just enough to get the car rolling. Push the clutch back in and let the car coast toward the cars in front of you. (brakes and gas again)
• Ease in and out of gear. Don’t leap from the clutch to the gas pedal. This ain’t the Dayton 500. Take your time and don’t let the transmission get constantly hammered by suddenly being engaged. Learn to avoid stalls by learning how to drive a manual correctly. (saves maintenance)
• Once the gear change has been completed - get your foot off the clutch. If you leave your foot on the clutch even a “little bit”, chances are that the clutch will be slightly engaging - wearing it out faster.

Driving on hills:

Its actually pretty easy.

1. When stopping give yourself extra room to the car in front of you. They might roll backward or you might need the room for what happens next.
2. If you are the first car stop with your front tires over the lip of the hill.
3. When going up a hill rather than braking at the top, try to put the clutch in so the car coasts to the stop. Not always possible - but a goal. This will leave you in the happy situation of your foot being on the clutch and the gas.
4. Use the combination of the clutch and gas pedal to deliver enough engine power to the tires so that you don’t roll. Going forward will be a piece of cake - just add more gas and ease off the clutch
5. If you find yourself with your foot on the brake and the clutch, then you will need to get from the brake to the gas.
6. Don’t panic.
7. Ease off the clutch until you start feeling the engine engaging.
8. Then quickly transition from the brake to the gas pedal
9. Press down on the gas only enough to get you going slightly forward - you might go forward more than you intended (thats why you gave yourself the room to the next car - right?)
10. If you stall, don’t freak and don’t let the guy with the horn bother you. Brake. Clutch. Key to restart and try again.
11. If the guy behind you is really on your tail, then let his front bumper touch your rear bumper. His car will stop yours from rolling backward while you do the brake-to-gas transition Be sure to thank him properly!

The Pat Moore, patent-pending, I-will-sue-your-ass-if-you-use-it, guaranteed-not-to-fail-or-your-money-back!

If you follow these steps you will learn how to drive a stick shift in about 45 minutes. Driving a stick shift will let you:

1. get more mpg (manuals have higher EPA ratings than automatics)
2. reduce your car repair expenses. (Automatic transmissions have more moving parts and are more complex.)
3. reduce your car maintenance expenses. (You can coast up to stoplights rather than having your food on the accelerator until the moment you are slamming on the break.)

I learned to drive in Michigan and when to college in a town that had snow, ice, more snow , more ice and hills that is some cases were as bad as San Francisco’s (only with ice).

I have taught a bunch of people (~8) how to drive a stick shift this way and have had 0 failures and everyone of them could drive a stick after 45 minutes (assuming you already know how to drive).

So here is how to do it:
Get a manual transmission car to a parking lot. This parking lot will have 4 features:

1. empty
2. speed bumps
3. fairly long straight section
4. flat

Generally a office building’s parking lot on weekends works best. Not-so-good: a mall’s parking lot during Christmas.

Lesson #1:

1. Get the car so that you have the maximum empty straightaway ahead of you.
2. Do NOT touch the gas.
3. Press in clutch (and keep it in)
4. Put car in first gear.
5. Turn on car
6. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
7. Slowly ease the clutch out (very slowly)
8. At some point you will feel the clutch start to engage and the car will start to inch forward.
9. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
10. Continue to slowly ease the clutch pedal out.
11. LISTEN to the car engine. Watch the tachometer if the car has one.
12. Don’t freak if the car stalls. Just remember what the tachometer reading was when it stalled and restart it.
13. If the car starts to stall, push the clutch in - do NOT touch the gas
14. Continue to slowly ease the gas pedal out letting the car pick up speed.
15. At some point, hopefully before you run out of parking lot, the clutch will be completely out and the car will be doing about ~7 mph.
16. Without stopping, press in clutch (and keep it in)
17. Put car in second gear.
18. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
19. Slowly ease the clutch out (very slowly) until once again you are not pressing in the clutch at all.
20. Pay attention to the sound of the car engine and the tachometer reading. Try to get as close to the stall point without stalling
21. Repeat for 3rd, 4th gears (if possible before crashing into bushes)
22. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
23. Turn car around.

Lesson #2:

1. Repeat Lession #1 - each time trying to ease the clutch out faster and faster
2. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
3. Pay attention to the sound of the car engine and the tachometer reading. Try to get as close to the stall point without stalling

Lesson #3: Hills

1. Drive car to first speed bump.
2. Press in clutch (and keep it in)
3. Put car in first gear.
4. Do NOT touch the gas pedal (at all)
5. Slowly ease the clutch out (very slowly) until the car begins to creep over the speed bump.
6. Stop releasing clutch. Let the car’s engine be engaged just enough so that you don’t roll backward but not enough to actually go forward.
7. Play with clutch to rock back and forth with the front tires slowly climbing/descending the speed bump.
8. Repeat until you don’t roll off the speed bump either direction.

This is how you handle hills on a stick shift. Only with a real hill you will need to use a little bit of the gas pedal as well. But you will not use the brake. (For the most part).

Lesson #4: Jump Starting and confidence building

1. Repeat Lesson #1 - quickly getting the car going.
2. Press in clutch (and keep it in)
3. Put car in first gear.
4. Turn off car (while it is rolling about ~17 mph)
5. Press in clutch (and keep it in)
6. Put car in first gear.
7. Turn car to on position (but not to start the car)
8. Release the clutch as fast as you can by letting your foot slid off the pedal. (”popping the clutch”)
9. The car will jerk around and if you are going fast enough it will start up on its own….. and the car will be just fine.

Lesson #5: Go practice on the streets.

In summary:

1. Don’t press the gas pedal. People who don’t know how to drive stick shifts leap on the gas pedal like it is the last raft off the Titanic.
2. If the car is going to stall, press the clutch not the gas pedal. Pressing the gas pedal could send you leaping into traffic. Pressing the clutch is much safer.
3. Don’t freak if you stall - it ain’t a big deal. And flip off the asshole behind you with the horn.
4. Really feel your car and it’s stall point.
5. Relax.

That’s it .. and be sure to send your check. o.k.?

My response to Shannon’s thinking about buying a car:

Congratulations saving so much money by avoiding car ownership for so long.

Here is my feedback:

• Forget the concept of a car retaining its “value”. A car is a liability not an asset. If a car runs and operates it has value. The only time the car’s “value” will matter is if it gets totaled in an accident.
• Don’t bother buying a new car. Its a stupid waste of money. Let the other poor sucker buy the shiny new object. Unless you are trying to impress some bimbo girlfriend, forget it.
• Forget the used car guides, they talk about general trends - not your specific car.
• Figure out how much money you want to flush down the car toilet. Double that number (maintenance, license, etc.) While you are figuring out what you want to buy set that money aside to make sure you can really do without it (the money that is).
• How many times can you rent a car with the above cash? Do you still need that car?

Now that you have decided that you really must discard your cash this way. Buy your car this way:

• Find out what your minimum monthly payment would be buying a car from a dealership. (Lets say $400/month)
• Decide what your hassle tolerance is. Your hassle tolerance is how long in months the car must run with only oil changes or other routine maintenance before you get pissed off with it. Note this is a minimum - not a as-long-as-possible value. Lets say 10 months - so after 10 months you wake up and discover that the car had been crushed by a semi you wouldn’t care.
• Hassle-tolerance * monthly payment = maximum to spend. Yes - maximum. In our example, that is 10*$400 = $4000. If you don’t mind buying a new-to-you car every 10 months, then if the car lasts 20 months - the last 10 months were ‘free’
• Look on craigslist. Buy the third car that passes a basic driving test and an inspection by a trusted mechanic (or at least a mechanic that you can beat the shit out of if he screws up). Why the third car? Because you should give yourself the opportunity to get a good deal but you should not agonize and ditter yourself into indecision. If you can’t decide by the third car then you don’t really need a car - its not urgent. Update: Note that I am not saying the third car period - but rather the third car in decent shape where “decent shape” = able to run at highway speeds and your mechanic doesn’t ask if he can share in the life insurance payout. The car is decent if it is ugly or has cigarette burns in the seats.
• Buy a car that you would never want to both getting comprehensive insurance on. If you don’t care if the car is destroyed in a collision, stolen, explodes, etc. — then you will not care if it is a ‘lemon’. Even a lemon will likely last ~10 months.

As a result, you will buy a car that:

• you will not have an emotional attachment to — save emotional attachments for people not things.
• you will be indifferent to. You will not wash the car (saving money, time and clean water).
• you will not waste time cleaning the car.
• will not be hard to ditch when confronted with a huge repair bill.
• you will be able to sell for about what you paid for it - even if it doesn’t run at all you will be able to convert it to a tax deduction.
• drive it into the ground.

As background, my wife and I between the 2 of us have owned 5 cars: 1 new, 4 used. We never paid more than $4000 for a used car (or van). The car that has lasted the longest is a 1991 Ford Festiva - which gets over 30mpg. We paid $1500 for that car. The other vehicle we own is a 1994 Dodge Caravan - $4000. We have never ended up with a lemon. We have spent a total during our entire combined life span of >80 man-years on vehicle purchases is about ~$35,000. (I think that might be too high actually).