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

[that-one-girl]

I got my celica when I was 15... and as much as I hate to admit it, I was completely terrified to drive it because it was a stick. So being the coward that I was, I let it sit in the garage while I drove my mom's hideously enormous 98 concord, haha. Thankfully, I was tricked into driving my car by a guy I was dating (he asked if he could drive it one afternoon, then took me across town and refused to drive it home). To my surprise, I actually LOVED driving it... even though I went through the awkward "stall out in front of everyone" phase. Now I wouldn't trade a stick for anything... every time I have to drive an auto I find myself so bored that I keep trying to push the invisible clutch and reaching for something to downshift. When I took my husband's SUV on an extended trip a couple of months ago I was so ready to be back in a 5spd that I jumped in my car the second I got home... even though I had already driven 10 hours that day. So long story short... I guess I'd say that I was glad I got the basics of driving down in an auto (cause lets face it, as a 15 year old blond girl it was probably a good thing that I learned on the simplest platform, haha) but IMO everyone should learn to drive a stick as soon as they have the opportunity. I've never met anyone who thinks its a waste of time. Besides, who wants to go to a car lot and fall in love with something just to realize its a stick and they can't even test drive it?

Oh and I had a bunch of people tell me I would hate it in traffic, but really after you get through the awkward learning stage you don't even notice. I've driven in some extremely heavy stop and go traffic, and I've never thought "gee this would be so much less annoying if I didn't have to push the clutch..." The only time I even notice it is when I drive something with a super stiff clutch. But even then I think you'd get used to it if you drove it everyday.