Pretty shocking

Phate

Phate

Phate

Caporegime
Joined
1 Nov 2003
Posts
35,700
Location
Lisbon, Portugal
Hi guys,

now recently a friend of mine passed her driving test and has got herself a little car to runaround in. But she said to me she keeps smelling this burning smell when driving it and if I could have a look.

So I had a look, drove it, no smell. So I got her to drive it and I sat in the car and we are on a small hill and shes basically riding the clutch with the throttle instead of using the handbrake and the burning smell came back so she said

"there! thats the smell!" - It was her burning her own bloody clutch out...

Chatted to her abit more about it, how she was sitting on that hill was how she was taught to do hill starts! :eek:

No use of the handbrake, nothing, just sit there clutch at biting point with enough throttle to hold the car, I couldn't believe it! - So afterwards I took her to a nearby quiet road with an incline and taught her how to do a proper hill start with the handbrake and now she's fine and is 'so glad' the 'burning smell has gone away!'

I was proper stunned though, I'm thinking it's lucky my friend didn't have a hill on her test otherwise that could've failed her (I'm guessing this anyway) but at the same time Brentwood (where we live) is a VERY hilly area, how could they NOT teach a hill start?

I'm tempted to complain to the instructor, I remember when I was learning having 'hill starts' as part of the tick list of things to do along with everything else.

This can't be right surely? :confused:
 
InvaderGIR said:
Surely she had to stop the car properly for a hill start, how did she get the bite correct if she stopped on the pedal and then wanted to pull away? Heel-toeing? :confused:
Click to expand...

Basically, yep. As she was coming to a stop her foot would jump from the brake to acclerator on the off chance she'd catch the car to stop it rolling. Worrying!
 
Firestar_3x said:
However are you saying that you can't stop a car on a hill with the brake pedal, depress the clutch then come off the brake to throttle whilst raising the clutch to catch the biting point before the car starts to roll backwards?
Click to expand...

I'm saying you can't do it safely without the risk of a stall and possibly rolling backwards. Specially round here where most hills are considerably steep and also when your a new and slightly nervous driver.
 
Firestar_3x said:
Do you use the handbrake everytime or something?
Click to expand...

Nope, just go on the basis if it's more than a pause then use the handbrake :)

So like others have said, if its for just a second I'll use clutch/throttle but when waiting on a hill I'll use the handbrake, she was just using the clutch/throttle all the time.
 
Firestar_3x said:
If you can't do a proper hill start without the handbrake (as in comming off the brake then onto the power and raise the clutch) whilst getting the biting point before the car starts to roll backwards after 6 months of driving you should be forced to retake lessons on hill starts.
Click to expand...

If you can't do that in your test you shouldn't pass full stop imo.
 
Clarkey said:
Not quite sure about that, it's not exactly a vital technique. The handbrake method taught for the test is perfectly fine and indeed safer. Only reason I use the footbrake instead is down to laziness.
Click to expand...

Yes but the point is she wasn't taught the handbrake method at all :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom