If you have a car with manual transmission, driving wouldn’t be the same as it is with the automatic ones. To add to that, it becomes your responsibility to keep your car parts in a good shape, especially the tires, the brakes and the shift stick, as in manual cars, these parts are directly exposed to wear and tear as there is no automatic mechanism to take care of them.
You might have heard that driving a manual car is a task that needs some special training, but you need not get worried, as that is a kind of accomplishment you can achieve in time with practice and an eagerness to learn.
How Manual Transmission Works
Manual transmission in a car, as described by the Mazda Phoenix dealer experts, works on a driver-operated clutch pedal that regulates the torque by transferring it from the engine to the transmission. One has to drive select the gear by hand to shift them.
Driving Different Vehicles
To achieve a smooth driving style on a vehicle with manual transmission, would surely ask for different driving skill especially while driving a truck or any large vehicle. In comparison to family cars as larger vehicles would be tough to drive, as they would have larger engines, more rigid transmission with heavier flywheel, but with proper training and practice, it won’t be difficult.
The Basics of Driving a Manual Transmission Car
Learning a few basic driving techniques that are described below would prepare you well in advance, how to drive a manual transmission vehicle smoothly.
The Clutch: The pedal placed on the far left of the pedal bar needs to be pressed down to shift the gears up or down. One should press the clutch down fully every time during a gear shift to avoid the that grinding noise.
The Gear Shifter: it is a stick like component that shifts the gears in the manual transmission.
The Tachometer: it is a gauge placed on the dashboard that displays how many revolutions per minute the crank shaft of the engine is taking. Generally the rule is to shift the gears up as soon as the tachometer reads “3” or 3,000 RPMs and shift it down when the tachometer reads “1” or 1,000 RPMs.
While driving, follow these simple methods suggested by the Phoenix Mazda dealer, for a better driving experience:
- To start the car, you need to press down both the clutch and brake.
- To shift the gears, press down the clutch while shifting and release the clutch while you press the gas again. Too soon shifting of gears, the car can start shuddering, and then you would need to downshift it to prevent it from stalling.
- The thumb rule of driving a manual car is never to ride the clutch. Saying this it is meant that one should fully remove the foot from the clutch when it is not on use to avoid undue wear and tear.
Practice to Perfection
With a strong will power, anything can be learnt with excellence. Manual car driving isn’t a tough game, as this was the only option for driving a few decades back. One should practice through the actions of shifting the gears and using the clutch before heading towards a busy city road or a highway to test his driving achievements.