Long story short: I’m (24M) American, and I’m visiting my long-distance Romanian boyfriend for the first time soon. In Romania, most cars are manual - including all the ones owned by my boyfriend’s family (I’ll be staying with them). I’ve never driven a manual before. His dad told me he can give me a quick lesson, and that I’m welcome to use their cars if I want; otherwise, I can rent an automatic. I don’t have access to any manual cars here in the U.S. to practice on, so I’m not sure what to do.
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hm i think you will need at least lime 3h of controlled practice tp get used to it. My gf learnt to drive automatic and after 3 lessons of 30min, she can barely start moving the car by herself lol.
Why do you need to drive in the first place?
Yeah, just take their well known public transport system, or take six months and tour the country by bicycle. \s
Can’t his boyfriend drive the car
It’s really hard, I tried for a while and gave up. Way too many things to pay attention to and get right at once, while doing something dangerous.
Learning to drive a stick is really easy if you have somebody to teach you well, but waaay too many people are like, “here, keep fucking up until the car doesn’t go anymore or you figure it out, whichever comes first”.
Hardest part is getting the car to start moving from stopped. Changing gears once moving, you can fuck it up a bunch and nothing much happens except funny engine noises and the owner starts making constipated-looking facial expressions. But if you fuck up starting from stopped, then you lurch around a bunch, stall the engine, and don’t go anywhere.
To get started from stopped, without horrible lurches or stalls, do like this FROM A FLAT PLACE – don’t try anything with hills until you can make the car go on the flat first:
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IMPORTANT: adjust your seat so you can easily push the clutch (left pedal) in – all the way to the floor – without uncomfortable stretching
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In your driveway when there’s nobody going to honk at you, start the car, put it in neutral, and practice pushing the gas pedal just enough to hold the engine at 3000 RPM or so. Not making crazy racing noises, just a nice steady “the engine is running normal-fast-ish” and hold it that way. Practice a couple times until your foot and your ear know what it feels like
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Put it in gear without moving – gas off, clutch in and put the car in first gear.
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Gas on, steady at 3000 RPM, slooooooowly let the clutch out until you can just barely feel the clutch is engaged. Engine revs down a little bit, car starts crawling forward. Practice that a couple times, just let the clutch out until it barely starts doing anything, then put it back in, until your foot knows what it feels like.
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Now do it again, engine held at steady revs, clutch out until just barely engaged, then let the clutch out just a little bit more, so the car wants to crawl, and hold the clutch there. Car starts crawling. Keep the engine steady like you’ve been, let the car start crawling, don’t even change anything, just let the car crawl. It will slowly accelerate until you’re moving at some steady 1st-gear speed. Once it’s come up to (slow) speed you can let the clutch out the rest of the way.
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Congratulations you moved a car
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No more difficult than using a phone while walking, except looking around while doing it is even more important. I’ve taught several people how to drive a manual transmission in an afternoon. Different afternoons of course.
Like riding a bike. If you’ve never done it it’s going to be hard but give it a few hours of deliberate practice you’ll be fine.
And again like with a bike you should probably practice away from traffic to begin with…
It’s quite hard for someone who haven’t done it before. It’ll take months if not years of daily driving for you to get good enough that you don’t need to constantly think about it. There’s differences between vehicles too, especially with how the clutch feels. I’ve been driving manual for over 15 years and if I jump into a unfamiliar car it’ll take me a while to get the handle of it as well.
I’ve found the hardest part is suddenly having any health issue with major extremities. Broke your finger? Crucial. Broke your leg or foot? Crucial. Having 2 functioning legs and 2 functioning hands is ideal.
I took my driving lessons with a manual, but have been driving automatic for over a decade now.
Whenever I do need to drive a manual, I usually need a while to get used to it again. At those moments I make use of the guidelines that were taught to me by my driving instructor:- Is for getting the car going and getting in or out of a parking spot.
- Is for speeds up to 25 km/h
- Is for speeds up to 45 km/h
- Is for speeds up to 75 km/h
- Is for anything beyond
It’s a simple helper that matches most of the common speed zones in the Netherlands (30, 50, 80). From what I can quickly read, the 80 zone is 90 in Romania, so it should still work?
Anyway, don’t worry too much. It is also nice not having to drive at all if it comes down to that, your boyfriend’s family sounds nice :)
Enjoy your trip!Not quite that simple. Speed is only a rough guideline. When you shift depends largely on how hard you’re accelerating. In a typical car if you’re trying to get up speed to get on the freeway, 25 is way too soon to shift into 3rd. I wouldn’t until at least 30. Same if you’re going up a hill, at 25 the car won’t have enough torque for 3rd gear.
It was just a basic guideline being taught to me back then. And I guess it’s mainly for cruising speeds. You might want to stick with a lower gear for accelerating. There are of course all kinds of exceptions. And NL is basically flat, so I don’t know about hills :)
But the km/h list gives me something to fall back on when in doubt. Driving is stressful enough for me as it is.
Visit a AAA location and get an “international drivers permit”. It’s super easy and a good insurance policy for yourself. I highly doubt the police speak much English and aren’t corrupt, so it may save headaches. Also, watch out on neighborhood streets for potholes.
Take the lesson. While learning, stay off of hills and any upward incline until you got a feel from taking the car from full stop to going in 1at gear.
While learning you will stall the car… Don’t let it bother you.
The trickiest part is learning how to ease the clutch while applying gas to go from full stop to motion forward.
Remember neutral when coming to a stop.
Manuals are great, it’s built in theft protection from like 95 % of people
Yea, getting the lesson from Dad is probably a great thing. He’ll enjoy helping, it’s good bonding time, and he’ll have stories for the future!
*yeah, not yea or nay. It isn’t a vote.
The basics are easy - half an hour with someone who knows what they"re doing should be all you need to get out and about. Getting to the point where it’s instinctual and you don’t have to think about shifting is probably beyond the limits of a short trip but depending on how much driving you do you can be fairly smooth within a few days.
The main risk you run with learning manual is that once you get the hang of it it spoils automatics for you - you might end up having to buy yourself a manual car to avoid being annoyed by the missteps autos tend to do.
It’s like riding a bike. My wife was resistant to stick shift… Then her dad got her a used car that was manual. Almost 20 years later it’s all we’ve owned.
It seems difficult at first, until it’s second nature. And I still make little mistakes here or there like staying in a gear for to long. But once you learn it, it’s super easy.
Like others said, it’s all a dance between pulling out the clutch portal and feeding fuel. I suggest learning exactly where the clutch begins to grip. Once you know where they spot is, it’s much easier to feel how to drive.
Best of luck!
No, but I’ve never driven an automatic
I had almost no driving experience. And I learnt driving a manual in 10 lessons (30 min each). So depending on how much time you have, you can think about learning. Do mind that it will be frustrating initially.
