• There has been a recent cluster of spammers accessing BARFer accounts and posting spam. To safeguard your account, please consider changing your password. It would be even better to take the additional step of enabling 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) on your BARF account. Read more here.

School me on.... driving a stick shift in SF

when you are riding your (manual) bike and have to sop on a hill, how do you take off? I put it in gear, step on the rear brake, and throttle - clutch out- slowly release the rear brake. this is the same technique for using the e-brake, parking brake, hand brake, whatever-you-call-it - the rear brakes.

that being said, we owned a mini turck and 2 hondas that were sticks in the city, and as long as you know how to drive it, you'll be fine. that said, when stopped on a hill, i always keep my eyes on the rear view and let my car roll back so that jerks don't jam up on your rear bumper. hell, even a heavy automatic car or truck will roll back. Even on my automatic cars or trucks, I've had to 1-foot brake and 1-foot gas.

that said, when I was learning to drive, I sucked so badly at keeping the Pontiac in the lane, my dad had me switch to his Toyota 5-speed. After a day in the parking lot for learning the clutch zone, he made me go up a hill, stopping and re-starting at every mailbox. to teach me how to find the friction-zone and learn to start (even on a very steep hill) with minimal rollback.

there's no right-or-wrong here. get what you want and then don't tell us afterwards
 
So this thread really is about driving on hills and not so much about stick shift getting in the way while trying to eat breakfast, weird.
 
if you can't hold your car, or bike for that matter, on a hill using just the clutch and gas, then you have no business with a manual transmission.
 
asthmodeus said:
if you can't hold your car, or bike for that matter, on a hill using just the clutch and gas, then you have no business with a manual transmission.
Click to expand...

I hope you aren't saying you hold your car at stoplights that way. Brakes are much cheaper than clutches.
 
no, a clutch disc is pretty friggin cheap actually. and yeah, i'll do that on occasion just for the hell of it...but what i meant was, if you can't smoothly transition from stopped without a rollback, then you need to think about what you are doing....that's why the quintessential yuppie douchemobile subaru marketed their 'hill holder' clutch...for feeble footed yuppies that want to think they are cool driving a stick without having to learn how to fully use it.
 
Some vehicles are better than others, even within the same manufacturer.

My brother in law had a manual Civic and that thing had a horrible clutch. The spring was progressive and just at the point of engagement it pushed back with more force on your foot plus had an short range abrupt engagement. Making smooth starts on a hill awkward.

Steering on this car just as weird, if you sneezed it would change direction.

At the same time I had an Integra and its clutch was smooth as silk with long linear hook up. Hard to stall.

.
 
Last edited:
Shoot, I bet a clutch is a lot cheaper than a transmission flush.
 
I daily drive a multi-disc (3 clutch discs) clutch in SF without power steering, it's definitely a pain parking regardless of skill level just from the coordination and control of things.

I think if you're limited to one car and you enjoy manual outside of traffic, you'll be fine. Stop and go traffic isn't that bad (I use the clutch pedal to crawl and don't really brake), parking becomes less intimidating, etc.
 
If you know how to do a hill start without rolling back (using the handbrake instead of smoking the clutch), it will be easy. If you don't (which I suspect is the case since you asked the question), learn, practice. Then it will be easy.
 
asthmodeus said:
no, a clutch disc is pretty friggin cheap actually. and yeah, i'll do that on occasion just for the hell of it...but what i meant was, if you can't smoothly transition from stopped without a rollback, then you need to think about what you are doing....that's why the quintessential yuppie douchemobile subaru marketed their 'hill holder' clutch...for feeble footed yuppies that want to think they are cool driving a stick without having to learn how to fully use it.
Click to expand...

Or for people who don't waste their time leaning needless skills (like holding their car with the e-brake, when most modern cars have a hill-holder feature)

And clutch disks, cheap? Sure, but the labor isn't. And most normal people don't do that kind of work themselves. Especially people in SF who don't have a garage.
 
I'm in with the people who say it's fine driving a stick in SF...I did for many years. On top of that, none of my motos were ever manual, either. If you can drive a bike, I daresay you'll be able to deal with a stick without issues.

That said, my next car will be tiptronic. :cool
 
GiorgioFurioso said:
I'm in with the people who say it's fine driving a stick in SF...I did for many years. On top of that, none of my motos were ever manual, either. If you can drive a bike, I daresay you'll be able to deal with a stick without issues.

That said, my next car will be tiptronic. :cool
Click to expand...

My old commute from SOMA back home to the Sunset took me to Stanyon along 17th St. during rush hour. You will burn clutch there. Talent has nothing to do with it. Every time you roll up that hill to the stop sign during the commute you can smell clutch from the other guys, even if you're all electric. If you commute along Gough, Scott or Divis on the Cow Hollow side you may run into similar stuff. :dunno
 
i have a manual, will always have a manual. The real point is, why the hell would you drive a car to commute in SF? Even in the rain, I take the MC.
 
thesnaf said:
The real point is, why the hell would you drive a car to commute in SF? Even in the rain, I take the MC.
Click to expand...

Too much crap to carry?
Nowhere to change or store gear securely while running errands?
Hard to keep a suit from getting wrinkled in a tank bag? :dunno

sfcootz said:
I drive a stick shift and live in SF. Granted, most of my getting around is on my motorcycle. If you buy me a beer after you can practice in my truck to see how you like it. It's not that hard to drive a stick shift here.
Click to expand...

That's a very kind offer! That won't be necessary though; I can do hill starts and crawl through the TL, the question is whether I'd want to start and end every day with a dozen of the gnarliest hill-start stop signs or if it would quickly become a drag. Based on where I live I'm starting to suspect the latter.
 
Last edited:
It will be extra fun if you pick a car that doesn't have a hand brake anymore :teeth (the foot brake on the side does not count)

A couple months ago I walked into a certain German car dealer and they didn't even have ANY manual transmission cars anymore :afm199
 
sandyxb said:
It will be extra fun if you pick a car that doesn't have a hand brake anymore :teeth (the foot brake on the side does not count)

A couple months ago I walked into a certain German car dealer and they didn't even have ANY manual transmission cars anymore :afm199
Click to expand...

it's true, BMW no longer offers manual trans in the US. What kills me most about having a BMW or any car in the City, is that so many people bumper-park.
go back until you bump the car behind, then pull forward a bit. or go forward until you bump the car in front, then back up a bit.

All SF cars have scratched-up bumpers. :x
 
I drove my MT car into the city again today (did the same on Tuesday) it isn't any big deal.

When I get into stop and go traffic I can usually crawl along in 2nd with all the AT people just easing off of their brakes.
 
Ive done it several times, but if I had to do it all the time, I would get an auto.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top