SO is everyone like this first time they get in a car?

willhub

willhub

willhub

Caporegime
Joined
3 Jan 2006
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Chadderton, Oldham
Hi.

Well I am not planning on learning to drive anytime soon, maybe a year or so if I get a job, but today I went out with a friend and he said do you want a drive? I said I don’t know but we went to this like old unused car park on private land and I had a go. And well.... tbh it's massively harder than I thought it would be, I must have tried to get the car moving about 8 times and gave up for one day, I kept stalling it.

The accelerator was so sensitive I never expected that, just a couple mm pushed down and it's already revving up!! :eek: , so I tried to get it steady around 2-3revs, I was struggling to keep it steady, I was trying to slowly take my foot off the clutch, then it started moving but was all rocking madly then stalled, made me think I must be abit dumb and at the moment I can’t imagine ever being able to drive a car. I started thinking about everything, so what when you're breaking? You press on the clutch and then brake and change down gear? What about changing gear whilst the car is in motion, you keep on the accelerator? Won’t you either go too slow or start going too fast when you push down on the accelerator when you have changed gear?

Lots of silly thoughts to most people I know, but its things I really don’t understand, pretty much a n00b.
 
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If you get the car lurching about then just de-clutching will instantly stop that... then you can re-engage the clutch at your own pace :)
 
firstly most people will probably have been just as rubbish (assuming you drove a petrol car) learner cars are much more learner friendly, they tend to be new cars and diesel which makes learning clutch control far easier than in an older car especially a petrol when changing gear in motion you let off the accelerator otherwise itll make the ride pretty uncomfortable and will wear out the clutch quickly, cars are heavy things and dont slow down that quickly!
 
I tried the same thing before I learned to drive and had exactly the same experience. As soon as someone who knew how to teach taught me, I was fine.

You found that you need a certain amount of throttle to hold the revs at a certain rate, eg 2000rpm. But, as the clutch bites, you'll need more throttle just to hold it there and pull away smoothly. Balancing it is a skill and takes some time to get used to.

When braking, you brake in gear to the point when it might start to stall (about 1500~1200) then push the clutch all the way in to prevent you from stalling.

You generally would take your foot off the acellerator when changing gear, and balance in a similar way as pulling away (but easier) when coming back into gear
 
willhub said:
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LOL
 
piece of cake when you know how, it's all down to practice. Don't think about it too much, with practice you will get a feel for what you have to do at any one time.
 
I knew exactly how to drive a car, what to expect and the mechanics behind it all before I ever drove.
I really didn't need lessons, but I took them anyway and it helped with some theory stuff with the instructor, who was actually a work colleague at the time too :p

Maybe it's just me, but I often like to know how things work when I use them, or be passenger of them.
 
Not really, car control was rather easy ( though steering correctly was harder than expected), imo the hard part is just being part of traffic. Got my final exam up in 2 weeks, and today I had my pre-exam thingy so I won't have to do any special maneuvers any more on my real exam ( parking, reversing, etc). My problem is not taking my time with things like looking ( apparently I did check everything correctly but not ''properly'' examinator said I looked like I did it because was forced to do it rather than actually doing it for the sake of it.

But clutch & gears is easy to get used to, expectable if you have problems at first but after just a few lessons you won't think about that at all any more.
I was trying to slowly take my foot off the clutch, then it started moving but was all rocking madly then stalled, made me think I must be abit dumb and at the moment I can’t imagine ever being able to drive a car. I started thinking about everything, so what when you're breaking? You press on the clutch and then brake and change down gear? What about changing gear whilst the car is in motion, you keep on the accelerator?
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You use the clutch always when changing gear, or generally when you want to disconnect the engine from the wheels. So when you brake to lights you also use the clutch then once you're standing still you can put it into 1. And of course always when you're standing still unless in neutral. You release the throttle when changing gears yeah.
 
ChrisJSY said:
I knew exactly how to drive a car, what to expect and the mechanics behind it all before I ever drove.
I really didn't need lessons, but I took them anyway and it helped with some theory stuff with the instructor, who was actually a work colleague at the time too :p

Maybe it's just me, but I often like to know how things work when I use them, or be passenger of them.
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Yes this was the case for me when I took lessons. I'll admit though when I first tried to drive a manual aaaaaaaaaaaaaages back when I was young I found it overwhelmingly difficult. Transpired that car has seized brakes though which goes a long way to explain why I could hardly make it move without stalling :p
 
ChrisJSY said:
I knew exactly how to drive a car, what to expect and the mechanics behind it all before I ever drove.
I really didn't need lessons, but I took them anyway and it helped with some theory stuff with the instructor, who was actually a work colleague at the time too :p

Maybe it's just me, but I often like to know how things work when I use them, or be passenger of them.
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I knew a lot about how cars worked, much more than most people my age but the first time for most people is always going to be a bit tricky as you dont know what to expect in terms of feeling
 
15k posts and can't work out how to post an image :p

I took to it straight away but my mate stalled my then-girlfriend's car constantly for 3 or 4 trips to the car park until she told him to **** off :D
 
Janesy B said:
LOL
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What is that?........ I never even tried to post an image :confused:, oh that one, I dont know what happened there, I just clicked it, firefox must have messed up. weird.


Thanks everyone, I had a go in TDU too, I know it's not a car sim but I think it might have helped abit with the clutch :p


The car was a 1.4 Rover 25 I was in.
 
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It's probabaly fairly common, I had a go in a car park when I was about 15 with similar levels of success :p Once you get the hang of it, everything becomes second nature and you do it without thinking. A lot of people take around 40 hours of tuition. That's enough time to pull away hundreds of times and make a lot of gear changes, once you get a bit of practice under your belt you will get the hang of it and start to get fairly smooth with time. My instructor explained to me how the different things worked, such as the clutch. As mentioned already, understanding that helped me a lot. You might want to have a read if you don't already know.
 
Earlier rover 25's tend to have quite a high clutch with less travel (I think rover addressed this and sharpened up the breaks in the facelift model) so I can imagine it would take a while to get the hang of it and be easy to make it lurch if you were driving an older one.
 
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