How long did it take you to learn to drive a standard?

[kris]

I can honestly say, I got the hang of things quickly. Just curious as to the rest of you.

[primera man]

I was brought up around a car mad family and was driving when i was 14.
Picked it up real easy to learn to drive

[F20C]

Took me let's see 5 second to stall the car for the first time. 5 days to drive out of town. 5 years to mastered it completely. It took me ultra long time because I switch from fwd to awd and rwd.

[Seraph]

a couple of days to learn the gears, hillstarts etc. then started practicing with skids, parking, getting the car out of a snow heap without hitting anything around you etc..

[Twist]

I'm still learning. It didn't take me long to get the hang of the gears and changing them and whatnot, but I'm still working on getting it smooth. My only trouble is getting in a hurry on a hill with somebody behind me. I don't drive a manual too often, but it is fun when I do.

[DVSNCYNIKL]

I actually learned to drive stick by myself and without much practice. I thank UPS for the lesson. One time they asked me if I knew how to drive stick so that I could move one of the delivery trucks for them. I lied and said yes. So they gave me the keys to a truck that was parked on the roof. It took me about 15-20 mins to bring the truck down because I kept stalling. But once I got the feeling, it was on. I couldn't stop. From then on, they always asked me to move trucks around and that pretty much gave me all the practice that I needed.

[KatWoman]

I've driven standard once. Alex taught me a little bit one nite on his 91 VW Fox. ..which he had only for a month. I did ok. Only stalled 2 times and ground the gears once. We drove around an empty mall parking lot then he let me drive home. A few days later he traded it in for 2001 Jetta so I am not allowed to touch it :o Another friend offered to let me learn on his 2000 Celica but I didn't want to ruin it since he's getting ready to trade it in.

[Hudson]

Originally posted by F20C
Took me let's see 5 second to stall the car for the first time. 5 days to drive out of town. 5 years to mastered it completely. It took me ultra long time because I switch from fwd to awd and rwd.

Just curious, but why would the car being FWD, AWD or RWD have anything to do with how long it took you to "master" driving a stick shift?

[Rich]

I basically can say that I still havent learned to drive standard. My friend tried to teach me in his S10, but it has a brand new clutch and rebult tranny, so I decided to stop the first time I ground the gears. The only real standard driving I had to do, was bring my uncle's Diesel VW Jetta to his place, from mine (about 60kms). I stalled at every stopsign and light except 1, and ground the gears 2x. I did manage to make it there with me and the car in 1 piece. I found it very hard, because the diesel does not rev up very much between gears, and I found it hard not to stall out when going from a dead stop in neutral, to moving away in first.

I think it is important that everyone learns to drive standard at one point, and I think that I would be able to do it if I had a car I could fool around with a bit, and not ruin it.

[Polygon]

Took me about a day to learn it, and about three months to master each of my cars.

[speediva]

It took me one week with 3 "lessons"--once by myself. I never really had problems with stalling out... My biggest prob was letting the clutch out too quickly so that there was a jolt. It would have been so much easier if someone had just let me see where the clutch started to catch before they tried to teach me how to get things moving.

I've gotten pretty good, but obviously after 2 months I'm no expert... but practice makes perfect, and I've had 4000 miles of practice since I bought my car 2 months ago!!!!!!!!

[Heep]

I already knew the "theory" of driving a stick before I actually did. When I was looking for a car, I knew I wanted one, and an automatic was not an option unless I found a SL600 or something for $1000 . Once I got it, I just went to the church parking lot behind my house and drove around a bit. I stalled a few times, and did a lot of rev up, let the clutch out real slow starts, but I got the hang of it really quickly. After getting that down pat, I headed for the steep hill part of the parking lot and practised hill starts. At first I would rollback about 6 feet, but I eventually got it so that I would only roll back about an inch. Later, when I started working, leaving my work, I had to stop at the top of a steep hill every time. Doing that 5 days a week every week, I got hill starts down no problem. Now when starting (on a level plane), I can almost let the clutch out smoothly as fast as I can push it in.

[RCer]

I learned to drive at 9 y/o. I had to sit in the edge of the seat in order to see the road where I was going, and it was a Peugeot 404, ugly car but very confortable. The gears where not in the floor, but behind the steering wheel (like the automatic cars, but it was manual). And I had a lot of fun. And curiously, I did not stall that first day. I took a lot of practice only on 1st gear (a few weeks really) before start changing.

Later, at 12, my father bought a Toyota HiLux (later know as tacoma), and it has the stick on the floor, so I was in heaven, only problem, was the emergency brake not beein between the seats, so for mastering the drive, it was a litle dificult on doing the 180 degrees turn.

So, 22 years of fun with the stick!!!! I love it, and I would never go automatic!!!!!!!!

[Darkwing]

I drive an auto, and have never driven anything else. All autos. You give me a standard, I will prolly never get the car to where it needs to go.

[Rich]

Originally posted by Darkwing
I drive an auto, and have never driven anything else. All autos. You give me a standard, I will prolly never get the car to where it needs to go.

Im an automatic fan too, but I still think that its important for everyone to know how to drive a standard, in an emergency or sumthin.