training manual transmission ?'s on time, and skill

[idanity]

i know 2 brothers who just got a 2002 540i sixspeed.

and i am instructing them on how to drive.

what steps have you done to learn,
any tips on training them


so far,
we can get into 1st and also learned to take off on an incline w/out rolling backwards.


next i was thinking of
parallel parking and reverse uphill.

but what else is there, (ive never had a auto, so i don't know the skills i naturally use, i know i rarely use my brakes, but i want to be a better teacher.

btw, i get to keep the car at my place until they learn it...( just nice to look at it)

[stevofthahill]

I mostly picked up driving stick on my e30. I had driven a few manual cars prior to that, but by no means was I skilled in driving manual. Teach them the basics, and they should be able to pick it up fairly quickly.

Remember: Practice makes perfect.

[Raxe]

Parallel parking should be no different, assuming they can already drive.

I've taught a manual transmission to a few people. Practice rolling around on just the clutch with no gas a lot. Practice rolling in first with no pedals at all.

[xphiledan]

- take them to a flat empty parking lot, and teach them how to start from a stop
- once they get the hang of it, get them used to backing up
- then take them to a street/parking lot with inclines, and see how they do from there
- once they feel comfortable, take the car out in traffic and see how they do

are they going to learn on the 540i? in my experience from teaching others, the easiest car to learn on has low-end torque and low gearing. i haven't personally driven a 540i, but i believe it's harder to stall out on that than an e30.

i had a lot of difficulty teaching my girlfriend to drive my gti 1.8t. that car had high clutch effort and little torque, and she hated learning to drive on that car, so we pretty much gave up. a year later, we checked out a TJ Wrangler 4.0 at the dealership. a mile into the test drive, i stopped the car, had her switch seats with me, and told her she would have no problems - that car was geared to crawl at 1 mph. at the first launch, she didn't stall out, and this was a good long while since i took her out last in my gti.

[xphiledan]

when i teach others how to take off from stop - i tell them to visualize the clutch and gas pedals as going in opposite directions. as you're slowly pressing down on the gas pedal, you want your left foot to do the exact opposite and slowly release the clutch the same distance.

also get them used to coasting in neutral especially when pulling into parking spaces. that's a foreign concept for those with automatics.

[NC325iC]

learning in a 540i 6 would blow, drive by wire gives you no gas pedal feel
the hydraulics on it are light and it has that damn clutch valve giving you no clutch feel

let them drive your e30, i learned in my e30. my brother started in my dads 540 and had a hard time of it

[woodisgood]

burnouts.

[HarryPotter]

I find it helps to teach them how the clutch actually works. Most people have absolutely no clue what's going besides you push in da pedal and shift da car yo. I find a simple understanding of how it works goes a long, long way.

[88SuperETABD]

I learned on my friends old ass suzuki samarai when i was 13 haha...That piece of shit made me feel like the e30 was like impossible to stall. We would steal it from his dad and go driving in the middle of the night.

[ortholithiation]

This must be a joke right? I mean these are men? Not your girlfriend?

Literally my 81 year old grandmother can drive a 70's stick shift Toyota up mountains in a 3rd world country.

I think the lesson plan should go like this:
Step 1) Practice growing some balls
Step 2) Drive the car

[e34john]

so far,
we can get into 1st and also learned to take off on an incline w/out rolling backwards.

Thats all you need to teach them, they can figure the rest out with practice. I tried teaching myself, stalled out and couldn't get it going again so I pushed the car back home. Learned how to drive the very next day my legs were sore too.

[gtarwiz]

The best way to learn how to drive a manual is from all of your mistakes and stalling outs. My first car was a craptastic civic 4 speed. The only lesson that was given to me was how to turn the car on. Everything else I was left to fend for myself and didn't have anyone baby me through all my fuck ups. Its driving a car, not rocket science. Let them jump into themselves.

[Nic01101011]

as long as you teach them to get going, they can figure out the rest on their own