Driving a Manual Transmission.

Don't have a friend that can drive stick and drive it to your house?

I wouldn't do it if you'd have to drive to work the next day in traffic. Stop and go is all 1st gear and it could be really hard on someone just learning.

 

Is that true? I have always wondered about this. Can any body else confirm that it is bad to hold the clutch in while sitting still? I've asked several people over the years and never got a reliable answer.

 

I heard about this too when I did have the manual transmission car.

 

To repeat my version of the good advice that cannot be repeated too often.

I taught my son a year or two ago. Go to a parking lot. Practice going from stopped in neutral to going say 50 feet first gear. Do it over and over till it is fairly smooth. Don't use any other gears till you master this. This makes it easier than trying to actually drive around with several gears.

The rest is comparatively easy.

 

When I used to drive a manual full size school bus back in my student days, we were taught in safety class the opposite-- that pushing the clutch in is the safest. If you have the clutch in and are hit from behind, while stopped at an intersection, when you are forced into the intersection (assuming you are in first and your foot comes off) you won't go as far into the intersection as if you are in neutral and pushed into the intersection.

 

That's interesting. So there is a safety consideration too. That does make sense.

But what about for mechanical aspects? Is it damaging to have the clutch pushed in at a stop light?