The art and science of driving stick

Why learn how to drive a manual transmission (stick shift)?

It’s more work than an automatic. You won’t be able to accelerate as quickly. You won’t necessarily get better gas mileage. You will be a lot more focused when driving in traffic than you would have to be otherwise. This is all true — but driving a manual transmission car in the twenty-first century is about having fun, or at least some people’s idea of it.

Driving stick, you’re more connected to the machine. More of your brainpower is involved in driving, yes, but the act of driving itself becomes something elevated. The mundane becomes an opportunity to live in the present moment, fully involved and mindful of what your body and mind are doing. It can be a deeply meditative experience.

Gears and how they work

First, second, third, fourth... let’s take a step back and ask: what are gears, and why do we use them?

If you’ve ridden a bike with high and low gears, the concept is similar. What we call “gears” on bikes are really sprockets, but I’ll use them interchangeably. You use a low gear when starting off from a stop or charging up a hill. When coasting, you use a high gear so that your legs don’t have to pump so quickly. You use mechanical advantage to reach and maintain high speeds. The is true in a car.

When riding a bike, why are some gear settings more comfortable at a given speed? Let’s start by looking at the gears on our bike. We immediately notice that the size of the drive sprocket is a different size than the “driven” or output sprocket. We can count the teeth: let’s say the drive sprocket has 16 teeth and the output sprocket has 32. The ratio of this system is therefore 1:2; the drive sprocket needs to make two full rotations for the output to make one rotation.

Without getting too deep into the physics of it, suffice to say that speed is inversely related to torque, a rotational force.

When a large gear drives a small gear, the small gear spins faster; it must make more rotations in the same amount of time. (This is the opposite of the previous example.) The output torque decreases with the increase in speed.

To understand torque, consider this story. During elementary school, I was in a LEGO-building club that met after school on Mondays. We learned all about gears, and had these Technic sets which had gears, wheels, and electric motors which were compatible with normal LEGOs. One day, the instructor posed to us a challenge: build a “pusher” cart that can move a six-foot-tall tower one foot across the ground without knocking it over.

Some kids, reasoning that faster = better, scaled up the output speed using gears (>1:1 ratio). One of these carts would zoom up to the tower, smack into it. If the cart was heavy enough, it would knock the tower right over. If the cart was lighter, the wheels would screech and skip on the slick floor while the tower held steady. But I built a comically slow cart which I called The Snail. It had huge, grippy wheels and you could count 30 seconds while it lumbered up to the base of the tower. It started to move the tower, very slowly but without any wobble. The motor’s tone changed but it didn’t stop. The secret was to take advantage of a <1:1 gear ratio, probably closer to 1:50, to get extremely high torque.

For another explanation of torque, think of gears as spinning levers. For a normal, stationary lever used to pry something heavy off the ground, like Archimedes lifting the world, consider that it might only take 20 lbs of force to lift something which is 200 lbs; but the input side travels much farther than the output.

Similarly, in a low gear, the input travels much “farther” (rotationally) than the output in the same unit of time. On the output side, the same amount of work is being done over less distance. The torque has increased. We will see later that relatively high torque is essential for getting a heavy object like a car to start moving, or to continually move it against the force of gravity as it does when traveling uphill.

The practice of shifting gears is primarily about selecting the right gear ratio for a particular situation.

The transmission (gearbox) and its control

The primary difference between a stick shift and an automatic car is the gear selector, usually marked with R, 1, 2, 3, and so on. The “Neutral” space is the horizontal zone between all the numbered gears, and there is no “Park” built into the transmission.

All the gear selector does is let you choose which gear ratio to use. First gear has the highest output torque and is used for getting started from a dead stop. Fifth or sixth gear usually has the highest speed and is used for cruising efficiently at highway speeds. Reverse has another gear on its drive mechanism to reverse the output direction of rotation, and its ratio is usually somewhere between first and second.

Something else you won’t see in an automatic is the clutch pedal, to the left of the brake. The clutch disk is coated with a “grippy” material that binds it to the flywheel, which is the engine’s output. The clutch pedal should be depressed when shifting gears. When the clutch pedal is pressed in all the way, it is equivalent to being in neutral; the engine spins at idle but is completely disconnected from the transmission. When it is fully released, the engine is fully connected and providing power to the wheels.

Take care to note there is a whole range of “semi-engaged” action in the clutch. Just as the brakes are not a simple on/off, the clutch can be partially engaged; this is called slipping the clutch. From a dead stop in first gear, it is necessary to gradually release the clutch from the fully depressed position to the point where it engages. This causes the clutch to slip and not transfer all of the engine’s speed to the transmission. As a result of the lower speed, even more torque is present, which is required to get the car rolling.

Many automatic cars have distinct gears as well. A hydraulic system “decides” when to shift for you, but the shifting is still there. However, rather than using a clutch, automatic cars have a torque converter, which is a mysterious liquid-filled mechanism that allows you to be fully stopped while still in “Drive”; it is like a clutch that operates when it needs to, and does not mind being slipped. Some efficiency is lost as heat in the slipping action but it does not matter much at speed.

There are also Continuously Variable Transmissions (CVTs), commonly found in hybrid cars. In a CVT, the gear ratio changes continuously rather than in a few steps.

In a stick shift car, you cannot be fully stopped while the engine is running and the car is still in gear (i.e. the clutch pedal is not being pressed down), because the wheels are directly connected to the transmission, which is in turn connected to the engine. One side being fully stopped implies the other side is too.

Getting a move on

Possibly the hardest part of learning how to drive stick is getting a feel for how to roll from a dead stop in first gear. Again, we talked about how “slipping the clutch” is essential here, even if just for a few moments.

Every car is different in how the clutch handles, but there is a distinct “biting point” where the friction between the clutch and the output drive is enough to overcome the inertia and static friction holding the car in place. (An object at rest tends to stay at rest.)

A typical way to find the biting point of your particular car’s clutch is to begin in first gear with the clutch pedal pushed all the way in, then release, slowly, without touching either the brake or the accelerator. At a certain point the engine RPM will decrease and the car may shudder and start to crawl forward.

If you have the clutch pedal all the way in and then suddenly release it all the way, the clutch will slam against the flywheel and make full contact. The car may lurch forward a bit and the engine RPM will drop all the way down to zero under this excessive load. When it stops completely this is called a stall. Stalls happen all the time when you’re learning.

A stall just means you have asked too much of the engine. There are really two ways to prevent a stall from happening; one is to fully stomp the clutch in, which disconnects the clutch disk from the flywheel (asking less of the engine). The other way is to add a touch of gas, which of course makes the engine deliver more power. Two sides of the same equation.

Typically, you release the clutch gradually and at the same time add a bit of power. This part is all feel, but to use an example from the car I drive, a MK5 VW Jetta, the idle speed is about 700 RPM. When I start rolling from first, I gradually increase the power and start releasing the clutch. The clutch should be fully released around 1200 RPM or when the car reaches 5-7 MPH.

You don’t want to hold both the clutch and gas simultaneously for any significant period of time. All this does is let some engine power come through while at the same time restricting how much of it is effectively transferred, literally burning the clutch material because of the excessive friction. There is no benefit to remaining in that slipping state, for any length of time. You have to slip a little bit in order to get rolling, but once you do, get off that clutch. You should also not rest your left foot on the clutch pedal when you don’t need to shift.

That being said, slipping the clutch is a consequence of driving manual and some amount of it is unavoidable. Clutch disks are designed to be replaced, though not often. Since you won’t have great muscle memory for the biting point yet, it may be preferable to let it slip a little bit while you search for that point, if it means you don’t stall with a line of traffic behind you.

Shifting into second gear is done once you’ve started rolling; I like to do it once the RPM reaches 1500-2000 RPM and the car is going at least 5 MPH, but exact numbers will vary by car. Let your foot off the gas entirely. Press the clutch all the way in, and then pull the gear selector (shifter, stick) straight down toward you, into second. Then, delicately release the clutch and add some gas. You won’t stall here so long as you stay moving at a decent speed and you don’t accidentally shift into fourth instead.

Driving at “city” speeds

Accelerating and upshifting

Once you’re moving, it’s pretty easy to keep going! The clutch generally gets more forgiving as you shift into the higher gears.

How do you know when to upshift? Remember the mental image of the bicycle. You upshift when your legs and knees seem to be spinning around frantically but you’re still not moving all that fast. If it feels too easy to pedal, you make it “harder” which in turn lets you pick up even more speed.

Similarly, you upshift in a car when RPMs get too high. This varies by car and by driving style, but you can generally upshift to third gear by the time you hit 2000-2500 RPM and a speed of about 15 MPH.

I like to think of the speedometer as having “bands” of acceptable speeds for each gear:

• First: 0-7 MPH
• Second: 5-20 MPH
• Third: 15-35 MPH
• Fourth: 30-50 MPH
• Fifth (+): 45+ MPH

They overlap a little bit, in part because when you upshift, you release your foot from the gas pedal and let the RPMs come down. During the time it takes to shift (1-2 seconds) you’re basically in neutral and you may lose a little bit of speed. The engine takes a few hundred milliseconds to spin down (“rev hang”, it varies by car). But if you keep that clutch depressed for too long without power, the engine will spin all the way down to its idle speed even while you’re cruising along. You may be in neutral, but don’t let the RPMs all the way down to idle if you want to shift smoothly!

Slowing down and stopping

Something which is really important to note, and which applies to all cars, including automatics, is that the car will slow down on its own if you take your foot off the accelerator pedal and do nothing else. So many people don’t seem to get this and go quickly from the gas to the brake. Not only does this make for an uncomfortable ride, but it is also less fuel efficient and wears the brakes down quicker.

In stick-shift cars it is perfectly fine to coast, in gear, all the way down to 5-10 MPH so long as you’re in an acceptable “speed band” for that gear. Once you get down to a near stop, you should be in neutral and getting firmer on the brakes.

A question a lot of new stick drivers ask is why they see someone wiggling the stick side to side. It’s not just boredom or some Freudian thing. Usually, you do this when coming to a complete stop, as a way to verify the car is really in neutral. Recall that if you come all the way to wheels-stopped while still in gear, you will stall. In gear, it won’t wiggle, but in that horizontal neutral area it will.

Downshifting

Sometimes, when driving around at moderate speeds, you come across situations where you have slowed down somewhat, but not all the way to a stop. Revisiting the “speed bands”, if you cross from one band down into a lower one, you should downshift if you know you’ll need to speed back up again.

Common situations when you might need to do this would be: Rounding a corner at about 15-20 MPH in third gear, you lose some speed naturally in the turn — you should downshift to second gear by the time you get down to 12-15 MPH if you plan to accelerate in the straightaway. Or, coming up a hill, your RPMs are decreasing fast and you hear the engine starting to work hard — downshift! You will need the extra torque to accelerate back up again.

Running the engine in a higher gear down at lower RPMs than it should be is often called lugging the engine. The engine will have a low rumbling sound and produce much less power than you expect. Don’t just mash the throttle when this happens: downshift and then speed up.

Highway driving

Driving on the highway quite similar to driving an automatic. The majority of the time spent above 45 or 50 MPH, so long as you’re not trudging up a hill, you will be in the highest gear and not even thinking about shifting. The differences in driving here are therefore quite subtle but important to mention.

The first point is that downshifting can be even more critical here — and it is often used to actively decelerate the car in addition to, or even instead of, the brakes. Downshifting when the purpose is to come to a complete stop is totally optional; the engine won’t mind if you coast all the way down, in gear, to 5-10 MPH, provided you don’t lug the engine when the light suddenly turns green and you need to accelerate again. Downshifting can be applied to slow down the car by transferring the work of slowing the car from the brakes to the engine.

If you’re cruising at 60 MPH in top gear and anticipate the need to stop at the end of a highway off-ramp, for example, you can throw it in the next lower gear and slow down to 35 MPH in a handful of seconds while hardly touching the brakes.

The controversial aspect of downshifting with the intent to stop is that it transfers wear-and-tear from the brakes, which are easily replaceable, to the clutch and engine/transmission internals, which are less so. The is to “rev-match,” which means, when downshifting, you add a little bit of gas while you are in neutral to put the RPMs up higher than they were before. Once you get into the lower gear, you will slow down smoothly. It seems counterintuitive to press the accelerator when trying to slow down, but again, since you’re applying the gas in neutral it won’t make you “speed up.”

Downshifting to stop is a great way to maximize braking power as well. In a situation when you need to react fast to a suddenly stopped car ahead, the combination of downshift and firm braking will stop you sooner than brakes alone.

Highway safety

The last point about highway driving is that it is imperative to leave a good buffer distance between yourself and the next car, and to look far into the distance. Even moreso than in an automatic, you have to predict what other drivers will do, and drive defensively, because as a new stick-shift driver you have a couple of extra steps to think about if you need to stop or accelerate suddenly.

Remember also that braking distance, and impact force if you crash, increase with the square of the speed. That means that although 90 MPH is only about 40% faster than 65 MPH, it will take 603 feet to completely stop from 90 MPH versus 354 feet at 65 MPH, which is 70% more distance. Braking distance (in feet) is given by d = 2.2v + (v^2 / 20).

Driving stick is incredibly rewarding but it can also only be done if you’re alive! This is an attitude that carries over into my approach to flying airplanes as well. Hope you enjoyed this guide! Save the manuals!