Hello Everyone! Name is Caitlin and I just bought a 2003 Mini Cooper with 88,000 miles on it! I am STOKED!

My husband is having a blast because he can finally teach me manual!

Has a few minor scratches on it, other than that, I feel that it's in perfect condition!

I can't tell you how excited I am! I finally own my own car at 20 years old. FEELS AMAZING!

Today my husband took me out in the rain with my car Murphy, and I think I did pretty good. Once I was going in first gear, shifting after that was flawless.. Until then, poor Murphy! Lol..

If you have any tips for driving manual, let me know! Just sad because I won't be driving her to work for a few weeks, or until my husband feels comfortable with me driving w/o him.

Meet Murphy!

 

Just practice. Stop and go.

 

Congratulations!

Murphy is a great looking car...We have an '04 and love it.

MINIs are actually easy cars to drive and you will be fine. Confidence is the name of the game and you are half way there with having taken the "dive" to learn a stick.

The best way to learn to drive a stick is to go to a parking lot with a little bit of "free space" in it. A mall parking lot will do. Sunday morning is a great time when there are not a lot people there. It is best if there is an area with a little bit of a slope to learn how to start out on a hill without the fear of hitting someone behind you.

Before you hit the slope, start your learning by first finding where the friction point of the clutch is. This is when you let out the clutch to the point it is starting to engage but not fully engaged. Then push it back in again. Repeat this process until you have a good feel for where that point is. Then do it with a little bit of gas, to about 1200 RPM or a little more. Without giving it more gas, let the clutch out to the friction point and start the car rolling. Once the car starts to roll, let the clutch out slowly until it is out all the way. Keep the gas where it is for this practice. Push the clutch in and then bring it back out to keep the car rolling slowly, but not all of the way out. Do this a few times to get the feel of "slipping" the clutch. Practice this to get the feel of how to get the car rolling and keep it rolling by slipping the clutch. The end objective is to use as little gas as necessary and slip the clutch as little as possible get the car rolling. Once the clutch is out, then give it the gas. In reality, slipping the clutch is not good for it, but to learn about driving a stick, you need to do that to learn where that friction point is.

For a slope, hold your foot on the brake and let out the clutch until you feel the friction point and the car wanting to pull forward but not so much you stall the engine (don't worry if you do the first couple of times; that is what learning is about). Then slide your foot off the brake and onto the gas. Give it gas but not a lot of gas and use the clutch friction point (slip the clutch) to get the car rolling. This requires some amount of slipping the clutch. Not good, but necessary. Once the car is rolling, and the clutch is all of the way out, give it more gas.

Hope this helps.

Good luck with it.

Let us know how it works out for you. You are going to love zipping around in that little car...

 

Take your time and you will learn, I learned on a stick. Once you get it, its easy.

 

Welcome to NAM, Caitlin! Happy to hear your husband is teaching you a manual. I suggest he takes you to a pretty good inclined hill, in a not so busy neighborhood. (If this is accessible to you). Have you stop on the incline and learn how to engage the "sweet spot." My mother taught me this way and I learned very quickly. Once you get a feel for that sweet spot, it should be pretty easy from there.

 

Hey guys.. Horrible experience, and now my confidence is virtually gone.
Husband is teaching me to drive in our neighborhood because of the slight hills we had... 10 Minutes into it, lights behind us..
"Having car troubles?" - "No, my husband is teaching me stick."
"Okay, why is your car stated as a BMW?" - "...... Mini is made my BWM ....."
"Oh okay, can I have your license?" - "I have a permit, and all of that is at "blah blah" (we were less than a block from our house) but my husband has his on him..." We hand him his license, and he walks away. Another patrol cars comes up...
"Okay I just documented this down, have fun, and let me pull up far ahead of you."

Okay, I BROKE down crying because I was so upset that I SUCKED that bad for an undercover to pull me over. FML.
I made my husband drive us the rest of the way home. I won't be driving her again until I get my license (should be this Thursday)

Yea....

 

They were just busting your chops. Don't let them get to you. It is great you want to learn and once you do, you'll love it. It will just take a bit of time. Chin up. You'll be great. : thumbsup:

 

You'll have a funny story to tell your friends one day (far away from now, after you're a stick shift pro).

My mom taught me how to drive a stick on her 2002 VW Diesel Beetle. That was one of the hardest cars to stall in because of how long and obvious the friction point was, yet I just kept stalling in it. I haven't stalled a manual in probably 6 years (I'm 26).

Just keep trying. You'll get it! In the mean time, there are lots of good videos on the internet about how to drive a stick. It also helps to learn how the clutch, engine, and transmission work together. Understanding how it works helped me drive better, I think.

You'll get there! Nice MINI

 

Don't let that deter you from learning. Just keep truckin' along and you'll get it in no time. As said above, it's a great story to be able to share with others. Now, get back into the MINI and keep practicing.

 

Yes, dont worry about it, they just through something funny was going on. You will get it, test out in a closed parking lot with hills , also take cones and set up a parallel park test, then people will know whats going on.

 

No one is born knowing how to use a manual transmission. Everyone goes through the same thing when learning, all the stalls, gear crunching, lurches and the rest. If they tell you otherwise, they're not telling the whole truth! It's like anything else, just keep practicing and it will surprise you when you smoothly shift through all the gears. Don't overthink it. I've been driving manuals since I was a kid (a long time ago), and even now I can still get something wrong, but it's not a big deal.

You'll laugh your head off telling that story to people one day. Hang in there and practice, practice, practice! You'll do fine.

That Mini of yours is definitely worth the learning curve!!

 

Its hard to find a manual anything today.

 

It's even hard to find someone that's interested in learning the art of the manual anymore.

 

I've driven a manual on and off for a long time, currently not doing so. It kind of reminds me of many Asian friends over the years who were first generation American born and would be amazed at how proficient I was with chopsticks. They always wanted to know why I was bothering with such outdated technology.

Manual transmissions are going to be cult status like the turntable, if not already there.

 

Its a shame too. I grew up dreaming of an Audi TT one day, and I went to go build one (just for fun) and they only offer some "dual clutch, tiptronic, fancyword, whatever B&*^SH*T".

Such a sad day.

I will say that I live in Chicago, and there are times when it would be nice to have an automatic because most of the time the car doesn't even get out of 3rd (or even 2nd) in the city because of the hundreds of unnecessary stopsigns scattered throughout. I can't wait to finish school and move to some place with more space.

 

There's definitely a place for automatics, especially in crowded city traffic. You're right on the money with the availability of manual transmission cars today... so many nice cars that I won't consider just because they're only available with an automatic. But it has been going that way for years. Too bad for many of us who like that interaction with the machine.

 

I like the interaction, you feel more with the road and the MINI

 

It's always hard learning something for the first time. Driving stick is no exception. I learned how to drive on a stick R50 much like yours when I was 14. I was doing pretty well until one day about a week after we started. I couldn't stop stalling the car. It was very disheartening and I wanted to quit. I'm really glad I didn't. Maybe I'm on the extreme end of the spectrum, but I think driving stick is one of the most fun things to do; period. I look for any excuse to go to the grocery store just so I can spend some time in my car rowing through the gears. The MINI would be nothing without a manual transmission, IMO. Its personality demands a stick.

As for tips, keep the car in neutral when you're sitting at lights. You don't want to be holding the clutch out (foot depressing the clutch pedal) as you'd be causing some unnecessary friction on the throwout bearing.

My dad likes engine braking, which is where you put the car in a lower gear to keep engine revs high with the throttle closed. This generates a big vacuum in the intake that can help slow the engine down (consequently, your car), without having to touch the brakes. If you want to downshift to engine brake, do it with rev-matching. This is where you drop the car into a lower gear and, with the clutch still disengaged, hit the accelerator pedal until the engine RPM's are in the same range as they will be in the gear you've selected. This will reduce friction on the clutch assembly. When you get more experienced and comfortable driving, learn how to rev-match downshift. Once you've practiced a bit, it's a very easy and quick motion that you'll do without thinking.