Learning to drive: Petrol vs Diesel

Janesy B · 20 Sep 2009 at 14:38

You can pull away in 5th in a 1.4 106? I do feel rather sorry for your clutch as you'll probably need to slip it for the time it takes to reach 30mph.

To the OP: I think your negative mental attitude is hampering you more than anything. I don't see how being 25 is an issue and so what if you do less lessons than the national average? You take the test when you are ready.

FreeStream · 20 Sep 2009 at 14:54

I passed in 8.5 hours of instructed driving.

You will be fine.

miniyazz · 20 Sep 2009 at 15:00

Justintime said:
Thats just your clutch slipping

Please explain?

Janesy B said:
You can pull away in 5th in a 1.4 106? I do feel rather sorry for your clutch as you'll probably need to slip it for the time it takes to reach 30mph.

You misunderstand - I pull away in first, clutch control only; then up into second, clutch control only; et al, up to fifth. (At which point I'm doing 25mph)

Although I did accidentally pull away in 3rd yesterday

manoeuvering out of tight parking at OcUK no less.

Janesy B · 20 Sep 2009 at 15:01

I passed after 30 hours and I thought that was pretty excessive. I did have to wait ten weeks for test so I did it to keep up on my practice really more than anything. I felt ready for the test after about 20 hours.

Hotwired · 20 Sep 2009 at 17:18

Pff, everyone's different.

I'd never driven a car before my lessons and for that matter never controlled any vehicle short of a bike. One lesson was almost entirely getting used to the steering because yes I did find it very awkward not knowing where exactly the wheels were pointing.

Yes it sounds dumb to a practising driver but there we go, amazingly restrictive and cut off in a car after being on a bike for yonks.

Paid ~£1k to pass my test including a retest. Work out the hours yourself

Oh yes, had my car swapped just before my (first) test (which I then failed) too, gears were different and it needed more gas for everything. Can't remember what it was but unlike the old car it needed gas for manoeuvres and for doing pretty much everything. I half blame it for the resit.

Scania · 20 Sep 2009 at 20:43

[TW]Fox;14924593 said:
No wonder driving standards are so low if the average driver takes 60 hours to grasp the basics pof driving

From what I see on roads day in day out, if anything mate, it takes a lot more than 60 hours, many seem to have not grasped it at all!

The_Abyss · 20 Sep 2009 at 22:19

iaind said:
The amount of throttle you'll need to use could vary from none to a fair bit, depending on a lot of factors - the car in question, the incline you're at - even how fat your examiner is..

When taking my bike test recently, my instructor pointed out in the test centre how all car instructors and examiners are, shall we politely say, the target audience for the government's diabetes warning campaign. Whereas the bike instructors and examiners were rather slimmer.

StevenG · 20 Sep 2009 at 22:21

The_Abyss said:
When taking my bike test recently, my instructor pointed out in the test centre how all car instructors and examiners are, shall we politely say, the target audience for the government's diabetes warning campaign. Whereas the bike instructors and examiners were rather slimmer.

my tester was rather large. much heavier than my instructor. didnt make any difference in the test though i was in a derv

StevenG

Pickett · 20 Sep 2009 at 22:43

I learnt to drive on a diesel, and they do seem less prone to stalling than petrol ones. Didn't take any time to adjust to a petrol after though, you'll be fine after one lesson in it.

Hxc · 20 Sep 2009 at 23:12

miniyazz said:
You misunderstand - I pull away in first, clutch control only; then up into second, clutch control only; et al, up to fifth. (At which point I'm doing 25mph)

What? Do you mean you pull away in first and then just move through the gears to accelerate or what? I don't get it.

miniyazz · 20 Sep 2009 at 23:31

Hxc said:
What? Do you mean you pull away in first and then just move through the gears to accelerate or what? I don't get it.

I'm saying that should I choose, I'm able to pull away and move through the gears without touching the gas. Obviously this is silly for anything other than experimenting. I doubt I could pull away without touching the gas in anything other than 1st, but haven't tried, and don't intend to!

Sin_Chase · 21 Sep 2009 at 00:22

Seems to be so common these days people worrying about driving a petrol because they learnt in a diesel.

It's a clutch and an accelerator pedal, you need to learn to use them. People should damn well be taught how to balance the throttle and clutch inputs in lessons even when you do not need to use power available. What happens when you need to make a more enthusiastic pull-off from a stop, you cant because you never had to use the accelerator pedal?

Re-enforces the premise that lessons teach you to pass your test and the real learning is done when you actually are on the road on your own.

Vigoro · 21 Sep 2009 at 00:26

Petrol is easy to drive, have no problems driving petrol or diesel really. Instructors car was diesel mine was petrol, so in theory i had more experience in a petrol when i passed in a diesel car, so you will be fine in a petrol

StevenG · 21 Sep 2009 at 08:21

Sin_Chase said:
Re-enforces the premise that lessons teach you to pass your test and the real learning is done when you actually are on the road on your own.

i'll agree to this tbh. when learning they teach you to drive safely and slowly.

im not one for sitting waiting for a massive gap to get out of traffic (as ive found out when driving on my own) and in the later part of my lessons i was being told to slow down my acceleration because it would affect "eco driving"

for those that havent recently taken a test, if you stay in a low gear @ high revs you'll be marked down for "eco driving, control" which is a minor iirc.

anyway now ive passed ive been experimenting with clutch and how to get a fast pull-off @ roundabouts mainly there terrible round here.

anyway. its only took me about 3-4 hours to get fully used to a petrol after learning in a diesel.

StevenG

analog · 21 Sep 2009 at 08:51

StevenG said:
i'll agree to this tbh. when learning they teach you to drive safely and slowly.

im not one for sitting waiting for a massive gap to get out of traffic (as ive found out when driving on my own) and in the later part of my lessons i was being told to slow down my acceleration because it would affect "eco driving"

for those that havent recently taken a test, if you stay in a low gear @ high revs you'll be marked down for "eco driving, control" which is a minor iirc.

anyway now ive passed ive been experimenting with clutch and how to get a fast pull-off @ roundabouts mainly there terrible round here.

anyway. its only took me about 3-4 hours to get fully used to a petrol after learning in a diesel.

StevenG

When i took the test the eco driving minors didn't actually count toward the up to 14(?) minors you're allowed.

But yeah at this stage in your learning switching should be easy enough, i passed in a diesel and went straight into a petrol with no problem, i actually prefer it.

Nomisf · 21 Sep 2009 at 10:21

Personally i disagree with the way manouvers are taught in diesels at the moment, back in college a lot of friends of mine were totally useless at parking their petrol cars, they either stalled it trying to use the clutch or shot backwards and bumped other cars.

Slow speed manouvering requires good gas/clutch balancing, and imho that should be well taught and practiced

StevenG · 21 Sep 2009 at 11:02

Nomisf said:
Personally i disagree with the way manouvers are taught in diesels at the moment, back in college a lot of friends of mine were totally useless at parking their petrol cars, they either stalled it trying to use the clutch or shot backwards and bumped other cars.

Slow speed manouvering requires good gas/clutch balancing, and imho that should be well taught and practiced

the problem with this is the government are pushing small turbo diesels as they're better for the economy than petrol cars, less emmisions and more mpg hence the £35 (£20 next year) tax for them as an incentive.

i do agree that people should be tought gas/clutch control for slow menouvers such as parking etc.

ive found in the petrol that i dont have any issue going slow with a touch of gas and clutch control, the main difference is that i was tought to reverse park when lines are at certain points on the car. so once youve passed you cant park for **** because your in a different car. i dont agree with this but it does allow you to pass your test.

i tried parking into a bay the other night (empty car park) and found it rather hard to get into the bay

more practice needed, lessons are made to allow you to pass your test not be safe once you have done.

StevenG

Liquidfox · 21 Sep 2009 at 11:39

StevenG said:
lessons are made to allow you to pass your test not be safe once you have done.

Couldn't agree more, it's once you've passed your test that you really learn how to drive

mrk · 21 Sep 2009 at 11:51

I drove a diesel for the first time some months ago when I drove my uncle's 3 litre Pathfinder. Quite a nice ride but totally not my thing, I hate high driving positions but the car itself was nice enough....It returned sub 30MPGs though which was shocking :O

Unless the computer was faulty...

It wasn't THAT much different to drive compared to any other Petrol I've driven. Just that new car feeling which you get used to in no time.

iaind · 21 Sep 2009 at 12:05

I'd expect sub 30s from a big car like that, regardless of the juice

In cars like that you're comparing big dervs with big V petrols normally so the torque difference is less noticable when pulling away - its smaller to medium size cars where the difference is more noticeable.

I learned in a diesel car (306 HDI) but because clutch control was properly explained to me, I had no problem jumping into a petrol car. Instructors these days seem to be soley teaching to pass the test, not to have a good understanding of cars and road safety