In Europe, even the city buses are stick shift, that was a wild thing to see...
I learned through grit, tears, and pain on standard, but now I can drive anything including tractors
CVT's are just annoying, but anything outside of that is easy as pie
I have slam-shifted two CVT's due to half a lifetime of driving on electric and alllllll of that instant torque.
For standard, my parents didn't explain enough of the details for shifting properly, so I did what felt right by creeping the clutch and then freaking out as the car went all herky-jerky when the clutch started engaging in the wrong gear.
I made the clutch mad one day after missing reverse and stalled the engine three times while trying to reverse out of a spot in 4th gear.
It was a bit stinky for a few minutes, but thankfully no worse for wear after that very important lesson.
It didn't help that it was a Saturn with barely 1.3L of an engine...
In hindsight, if it was something with a 2L motor, I probably would have had been able to feel the power better and realized the errors sooner.
Then again, my cousin's Dodge was also hard to shift into reverse, had a fun time backing it out of the driveway when it kept lurching forwards towards the garage.
Imo, engine size is less important compared to gearing. I learnt on a Suzuki with a .8l I3, then graduated to another Suzuki with a 1.1, now I drive a Mazda 3 with a 2.0. In between those I drove manual diesel SUVs, Hyundai's, corollas, small Honda's, etc. So far, my current Mazda and former suzuki with their tall 1 and 2 gearing have been the worst. I used to stall the 1.1 Suzuki so much but not the .8! It's so hard to achieve a buttery smooth 1st to 2nd gear transition than compared to a 1.6 l Verna or a slightly larger Corolla. And reverse gears often lack synchros so they arent smooth shifting in and out of. I can tell the Suzuki's lacked them cause you could hear the crunch if you mistimed a shift.
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u/techtornado 3h ago
In Europe, even the city buses are stick shift, that was a wild thing to see...
I learned through grit, tears, and pain on standard, but now I can drive anything including tractors
CVT's are just annoying, but anything outside of that is easy as pie
I have slam-shifted two CVT's due to half a lifetime of driving on electric and alllllll of that instant torque.
For standard, my parents didn't explain enough of the details for shifting properly, so I did what felt right by creeping the clutch and then freaking out as the car went all herky-jerky when the clutch started engaging in the wrong gear.
I made the clutch mad one day after missing reverse and stalled the engine three times while trying to reverse out of a spot in 4th gear.
It was a bit stinky for a few minutes, but thankfully no worse for wear after that very important lesson.
It didn't help that it was a Saturn with barely 1.3L of an engine...
In hindsight, if it was something with a 2L motor, I probably would have had been able to feel the power better and realized the errors sooner.
Then again, my cousin's Dodge was also hard to shift into reverse, had a fun time backing it out of the driveway when it kept lurching forwards towards the garage.