Finally drove my first Stick, Boring for many of you, but exciting for me! Options

[solidxsnake]

Ever since I've been looking to drive, I've been hell-bent on getting a stick (being the kind of person I am, there's just no other match).

My dad wasn't too keen on the idea of me getting a stick for my first car. I wasn't too keen on getting a slushbox =_=

He won out luckily enough, because my brother was nice enough to go buy himself a new car and give me his '95 Celica ST (he decided on a brand new '09 Corolla SE). So I'm not going to complain about my first (free) car's transmission.

Still, finally got behind the wheel of my friend's '08 Corolla S 5spd yesterday. It was only for 5 minutes or so just to get the hang of taking-off and shifting (small parking lot, couldn't even get to 3rd), and only stalled it twice. I can see why sticks are so much better just from that. I'm not sure if it's just the ST's auto trans., but it is incredibly sluggish in comparison.

So, excitement for me, annoyance for (most) of you. I just felt the need to share =_=

When did you guys learn to drive stick? When you first started driving, or later? I feel like I'd have been better off learning stick at first, as when I was driving the Corolla yesterday, I had some trouble breaking the habits of driving an auto. I consciously knew about the clutch pedal, but my muscles were a different case.

This post has been edited by solidxsnake: Aug 15, 2009 - 11:30 AM

[lagos]

when i had my celica i thought the auto was great, till i drove a stick and i fell in love. i was determined to get my next car in stick. i chickened out and got an auto tc, supercharged it because i wasnt happy with it, then i was good for a while.

while i had the tc, my gf at the time had a stick corolla so i learned on that and loved it. i'd drive it for long periods of time but it would become very annoying. i'm sorry, maybe fort myers traffic isnt as bad as miami, but it sucks here. call me lazy. back in high school, i hated when the ricer boys with autos would say they dont get stick because of traffic. i thought it was a silly excuse (looking back, it still was because i doubt they had driven one)

then i moved on to my current car, 370z. i test drove the stick (6spd) and the manumatic (7spd). i spent a lot of time in both cars and found that i liked the auto more (really). a lot of people say the manual is more fun, and i get it. i have more fun in the auto. honestly, the feeling is very "manual" minus the clutch part. i know that sounds weird but the feeling, kick in your stomach, sound when shifting, is very manual. it's hard to explain. i find that i use manual mode 20% of the time and the other 80% im cruising in auto. i like the luxury and i guess the flexibility of being able to switch when i want. the paddles shift faster than a human can shift a manual (average people on the z forums swear they can shift faster than 500 milliseconds. i dunno about that... there have been a few articles and reviews showing the auto z running 0-60 .2 seconds faster (4.6 secs) than the manual and .3 secs faster in the 1/4.

anyway, my intentions arent to turn this in a transmission preference war, i just remembered the excitement of driving my first stick and just looking at how far autos have come technologically to the point where they're similar.

If you found a manual trans to be annoying than it just means that you only drove it a handful of times and never quite got good at it.
Once you've owned one for a few months/years it becomes second nature and something that you dont even think about doing. Its as silly as someone saying they dont like automatics because they have to press the gas and the break from time to time.

Its also not about how fast a auto can shift through the gears vs a manual. Automatics generally add a lot more weight to the car, have more of a drive train loss and have totally different gearing. Go put your automatic on a dyno and compare it to the same car with a manual and you'll see what I mean.