I am buying my first manual tranny car and I am a rookie-any ideas how to learn it in a week?

Question

The car is a 94 plymouth sundance duster and it has 150,000 on it-but the body is MINT-except that the ebrake is busted-I have to travel a steep hill to work-stop light halfway up the hill-I fret rolling back into the car behind me-I have been told the heel on brake-toe on gas technique but I still think about it a lot. PLEASE HELP!

The ebrake on this car is foot operated and will be hard to use while driving-I am planning on fixing it so I can use it to park my car at night.

Answer 1

My car is a standard. My dad test drove it for me before i bought it cuz I had no idea how to drive it. I had to be at work at 3 and i bought it at noon. Youll manage. Of course you will stall out some but who cares. For practice, I went driving early early in the morning or late at night when nobody was on the roads. I would purposely stop on an incline and then try to take off without rolling back to much. Just keep your engine revved a little, and ease off the clutch. Each standard is timed different. Youll figure it out.

Answer 2

You ***MUST*** fix the e-brake, without it you risk getting stuck on a steep hill where no amount of footwork will get you moving.

Practice in an empty parking lot until you are comfortable with moving off and changing gears.

Next find a shallow hill with no traffic and practice your hill starts.

First, never hold the car on the clutch for more than a few seconds, you can heat the clutch to the point where it will not grip in just a few seconds with moderate throttle. Even if you don't do that you wear the clutch out fast. Get used to using the e-brake for almost all hill starts.

Hill start technique: put the e-brake on, ease the clutch up to the bite point, give it a little gas and ease the clutch up just a touch so it tries to pull forward then release the e-braike. With practice you'll find just how much gas and clutch you need to move off on any hill. Don't sit with the clutch slipping and the e-brake on, that just heats up and wears the clutch for no reason.

Answer 3

Everyone telling you to FIX E-BRAKE asap is right on ,and practice is also great advice but here is a little trick that might come in handy -LEAVE EARLY and find an alternate route ,there has to be another way to top of that hill and if you can find a way to the top it will be easier to head DOWN the hill to yuor destination or if you must go up go over a block or 2 so you can pull up to a red light on the street you need but be in a position to TURN RIGHT ON RED and end up on the proper street just not in the exact block ,but if done correctly you will be 1 or 2 blocks away at worst-find parking lot with LEAST LAMP POSTS so you can actually WATCH your feet and not hit anything

Answer 4

1) get e-brake fixed
2) take the car to empty parking lot on a sunday morning and practice.
3) 1st gear is always the hardest, once moving it is usually cake.

4) ****When you have clutch full on (clutch foot pedel to metal) you are in FULL neutral and will roll****

5) Motions should be smooth not fast

HILL TRICK..when at a stop as u go up hill you can hit e-brake (when you fix) and hit gas+clutch just enough to see car try to move..hold and then when green light comes release e-brake and off you go

Answer 5

first gear is the hardest. ease it. take turns in 2nd. as for the hill thing, you can take your foot off the brake but you should be letting the clutch out at the same time. This will make the car sit still or go forward depending on how much gas you are giving it. don't let it out all the way or you will stall (clutch), ease it out.

Answer 6

Fix the ebrake and practice with it. You will learn in one day. Don't worry about hitting cars behind you, not your fault they are too close