Automotive imposter syndrome

No, I don't mean dressing up your base Impreza as an STI, or pretending you have a running biturbo, I'm talking about skills. 

For me specifically, I'm still not sure I know how to drive manual. "But Rev, you've owned a few, there's even one in the driveway right now", yes, that is true, but I never really was taught. 

I'd had the theory down since I was a kid, clutch pedal goes down, gas goes up, and if gas goes down, clutch goes up, clutch down or in neutral at a stop. 

Way way back in time and down in nonextradition land, a friend with a Saturn SL2 decided he was going to teach me one night, after about a case of beer. Worked fine enough until I killed the starter on the steepest hill around trying to pull out without doing a burnout. 

Fast forward a few years, and I've limped an F350 dump truck around a job site, stalling every time I shifted out of low, my only other experience until being dropped off 45 minutes from home to pickup my first Miata, and first manual I actually owned. 

Working on theory alone, I made it home with one stall and a few 1-2-5 shifts. 50k miles later, that car disappeared. 

Couple more years go by, the Saturn SL2 from before is now mine, and I got a brief "lesson" in snow driving a fwd stick "stay a gear above where you think you should be". It worked, got me through that winter. 

Then another Miata, then the ranger, and now the SRT.

I've never replaced a clutch, I've only ever smelled burning clutch when I did a Miata burnout that went 1-2-5, but I still feel like I don't know how to drive stick. 

I politely decline other people's offers to drive their cars because I'm not confident I'm doing things right and I don't want to damage them, like the guys at autocross, or Angrys Impala, or even my mechanics loaner vehicle, despite passing my own cars around like a joint at a Grateful Dead show. 

I never get those butter smooth shifts up or down, although I got pretty good at no clutch upshifts. I've stopped doing those with the turbo car. Heel toe? No way, my feet have been either too big or somehow to small to make that work. 

I realize never needing to replace a clutch, getting decent wear from my tires, and winning an autocross class one year means I'm at least half decent at it, but I can't shake the feeling I'm just faking it even after all these years and miles. 

Same.

No notes.  Same.

I was never really taught to drive a manual car either.  My Dad took me for a ride in an MGA, stopped on a hill before an intersection, then traded seats with me.  He then said, "Ok, turn left at the top."  I managed to get going, stopped at the top, then made the turn.  About 30 seconds down the road, feeling pretty good about my performance, Dad said, "You smell that?", to which I responded, "Yes".  He said, "That's the clutch.  Don't do that again."  That was the extent of my training.  Daily driving an MG Midget in a hilly college town a few years later, I got pretty good at preserving the clutch in a manual car.  The only issue I ever had was with the Porsche 996 I owned.  It had a helper spring on the clutch pedal which really numbed the feel.  I stalled that car a lot until I removed the spring.

I'd say never burning up a clutch disc demonstrates you have at least some skill.  What else is there prove?

I can relate. I'm self taught and have managed to learn heel toe and double clutch fancy things.  But I'm still not sure I'm doing it right. 
 

I still have rough shifts and my transmission seems to be a little notchy/grindy sometimes. I'm worried it's me. Meh

Ive also never owned an Alfa so the argument can be made I'm not really a car guy. 

There are loads of people in the world who can't dance but are out on the floor having fun. If you are not frying clutches or breaking transmissions what's it matter. 

I know plenty of folks whose shifting is absolute garage; they don't break stuff either and they get the job done. That's all that matters

A friend marvels at the manner in which I go up and down through the gearbox in such way that one would thing the car had an automatic transmission.  I once had a former Daytona 24hr winner ride with me at a new car event; he looked at me and said "you drive a lot of old cars don't you".   I appreciated the compliment but I also laughed. We both knew it's a skill that's becoming less and less relevant.

As someone really good at heel and toe downshifts I will tell you they aren't the end all be all.

By contrast my father could double clutch an old crash box like no buddy's business............he was not a great driver. 

Don't forget we spent a lot of time watching people drive stick shift so we kinda knew what was going on.  My school bus in the 60's had a stick shift in it.  

When I was teaching my son I asked him if he was paying attention to me when I drove us around......

I guess this is one of the times that it's an advantage to be older. I was learning the ways of the clutch by 1967. To me, it's like an extension of my body. 
 

i feel the same way with heel toe.  I watch all of these automotive you tubers who all insist that rev-matching is a "must disable" and yet I truly wish my car had rev-match.  I understand the concept, and on the street when downshifting to increase acceleration or rolling to controlled managed stop, no issues.  On the track when i actually want to rev-match, trying to nail a brake marker, feel the brake pedal, try to release the brake slowly to initiate trail braking, keep a sense on what the rear end is doing, my brain runs out of CPU cycles and I end up just letting the clutch out slower which causes premature wear.  

I think my dad starting teaching me to drive a manual when I was 14 in empty commercial/industrial areas on the weekend. Practice starting from a stop, from a stop on an incline, going up and down through the gears. 

My BRZ still throws me off sometimes because it has hill assist from a stop on an incline (yes it's a manual as the lord intended), because I'm so used to immediately slipping the clutch and having the car barely move vs it staying still until you start to release the clutch.

No need to worry about being an impostor, if you can get around without damaging anything then you are doing fine.

I rarely drive manuals any more, but when I do it's no problem. A buddy let me drive his extremely cool 993-series Porsche 911 and I was sweating stalling it because I knew that he'd give me a bunch of grief, but driving it went just fine. Muscle memory after years of driving manuals (including double-clutching) paid off.

That said, I recently had a Nissan March rental car in Mexico with a 5-speed manual, and I was constantly stalling it. I had to think about what I was doing wrong, and it boiled down to a 1 liter engine with not much torque and a clutch engagement of about 5 mm at the very top of the pedal travel. Once I learned to rev it much higher than I would normally ever do, it was fine. So even us "experts" have to learn new lessons!

The first time I ever drove a manual shift car was coming home from a party in High School. I didn't have a driver's license.  My older friend (driver) pulled his 510 over 4 times in the first block to get out and throw up.  He was WAAY too drunk to drive.  He asked me "Think you can drive this thing?", and passed out. 
 

I figured my choices were to drive home without a license, or die letting him try. I drove. 
 

It came naturally (although I had driven motorcycles before, so I kinda understood how to shift with my hands).

I've  since learned a LOT.  I shift by listening.  It's the same way I run a job site (and don't want loud music). I'm very in tune to the sounds around me, and feel connected to the car through the sounds.

I love teaching people how to drive a stick. (Though very few people want to know).  I'm of the opinion that the full sensory experience of driving a stick makes people better drivers. (All 4 limbs, sight, sound, etc)

The first thing I usually teach people is how to start the car moving forward WITHOUT using the throttle at all. It's boring as crap. But it helps people learn how to use their left foot, how to listen, and how to modulate. (And how to be patient with themselves)
 

Sometimes I get them used to the footwork by taking over the shifter. I shift with my left hand from the passenger seat so they don't have to think about the "H" pattern until after they figure out the footwork.

I'm amazed how few people who drive stick shifts don't know how to start on a hill using the hand brake!

One thing I will suggest is paying attention to what works and what doesn't if you can get past feeling overwhelmed. 
 

And one key to me is smoothness matters. If you can be smooth and speed up clutch engagements (aka slip the clutch as little as possible), it will progress to be really good. Lastly, hold the gearshift as light as you can- as if it's a delicate egg shell. Don't force it into gear, remember that all boxes will have a spring to put the shifter into the middle of the box. So instead of grabbing the shifter when trying the 2-3 shift, let it go to the middle as you push forward. 
 

All of that should maximize the life of the clutch and the synchros. And smooth things out. 

In reply to RevRico :

Bottom line... you enjoy it, don't put anyone at risk, and you don't damage things!

That's a win!!

(it's much more than I can say about a lot of drivers)

Svrex said: 

I'm amazed how few people who drive stick shifts don't know how to start on a hill using the hand brake.

Hills and the hand brake. 

My very first trip to San Francisco I was in the Miata with some obnoxious shiny happy person. I'd only owned the car about a month at that point, maybe 2000 miles of mostly flat land and stop n go traffic.  We went into the city over the Golden Gate bridge and I thought things were smooth, until we got to Chinatown.

If you've never been to Chinatown in San Fran, look at the nearest wall, and you'll see what the hills look like, with convenient red lights going the whole way up. 

Parking brake on, freaking out because there was a fire truck 2 cars back at full sound, already had a broken key in the ignition so I was using a knife to turn the car on and off. 

Light turned green and I stalled, further panic as even with the hand brake on the car started to coast back down the hill at the car conveniently located on my rear bumper. Tried the gentle thing again, lurched forward and stalled again. Finally said berkeley it and did a 4k rpm clutch dump to get going and away from the loud ass fire truck. Then realized the hand brake was still on. 

It's a special dance. 

Do not recommend for beginners. 

Now the SRT brake isn't connected to anything at all so I can't use that trick, but I'm more comfortable slipping the clutch a little in those situations now 

ClearWaterMS said:

i feel the same way with heel toe.  I watch all of these automotive you tubers who all insist that rev-matching is a "must disable" and yet I truly wish my car had rev-match.  I understand the concept, and on the street when downshifting to increase acceleration or rolling to controlled managed stop, no issues.  On the track when i actually want to rev-match, trying to nail a brake marker, feel the brake pedal, try to release the brake slowly to initiate trail braking, keep a sense on what the rear end is doing, my brain runs out of CPU cycles and I end up just letting the clutch out slower which causes premature wear.  

You couldn't have summarized me and my heel-toe failures any better. For me, the muscle memory of how I have shifted manual cars on the street is hard to break (which, to the OP's point, might well be imperfect, but it's worked for more cars with clutches than I've got fingers and toes). That muscle memory decidedly does NOT include blipping the throttle with my still braking right foot and quick clutch stabs with my left. 

On my CTS-V, I was complimented by a check-ride instructor that it took him until me leaving Oak Tree to realize we weren't in an automatic, so I was definitely being smooth enough...but then he brought up that I really either needed to learn to heel-toe, or I needed to get something electronic to handle the rev-matching. I went with the electronic choice, and after the $700 and giant PITA to install, the CTS hasn't been back on track. Because that's how life works, right?! With my E46, heel-toe seems like its going to need to be a skill I learn, but so far I am struggling mightily. 

In reply to RevRico :

It is really hard. But it's possible. 
 

One other thing I will add is a general frustration with how most modern manuals are developed.

So I tried to teach my wife on a CRX, but they had hardly anything to feel- when we tried again in an Alfa- there is real feel to the clutch and the shifter. 
 

Forward to my career, and I was on a team to find a clutch flaw in a '94 Mustang Cobra. This meant driving all of them as they came off the line. It had great feel to it- both the clutch take up and the shifter. Not many years later, I was working on another project for Aston Martin, being asked to evaluate the same action- I got one that was totally awesome- not heavy but really good feel. But they went to one with zero feel in anything- because of other companies. How could one company have a great shifting mustang only to have a crappy shifting Aston?!?  For some reason, it didn't matter that feel makes it easier to drive a manual, as they thought no feel is better. 
 

The Miata is better than no feel, but it's not as good as the Mustang cobra nor any of my Alfa. Very frustrating, and it makes learning much more difficult. 

In regards to impostor syndrome for skills at large, I feel like there's always another rung to climb. I feel like I drive my Miata well at the track days I've done, usually nailing all my heel-toe downshifts, keeping what to my knowledge is a pretty good line, passing safely, and generally pushing the car close to its limit without passing my own. But then I see the videos of the pros - watching Senna stabbing the brake with his left foot while entering the corner or the fancy footwork of the rally drivers - and I'm reminded that I've barely scratched the surface of performance driving. Anything to do with left foot braking is not something I've even attempted, and I bet I have a lot of time I could make up with refinement of my other skills as well.

And don't even get me started on wrenching skills. Some of y'all do the craziest stuff and then I look at my semi-stalled stock car project with its half finished upgrades and I wonder what I'm doing.

As long as I'm improving I'm happy but occasionally I see just how much I still have to learn lol.

I learned to drive at 14 in a 76 Dodge van with a 225 and 3 on the tree. Since then I've owned manual transmission vehicles almost exclusively, and can only think of a brief time 40 years ago when I wasn't regularly driving one. In that period I've only ever had to replace one clutch, in a Rabbit, and the center hub broke. I feel pretty confident that I know what I'm doing. Slipping the clutch while stopped on a hill is something I don't even have to think about.

Whenever it comes up I tell people I never learned to drive an automatic.

This is the method I use to teach people heal and toe.

Find a big empty lot and use a paper clip oval shaped route.  

Ride along in a taller gear lightly brake, blip the throttle make your downshift, then make a 180 degree turn. After you complete the turn upshift drive down to the other end and repeat the process. By making doing the heel and toe while your going straight you eliminate the multi tasking.

You can also do the same thing when coming up to a stop light; start your braking early and make your downshift.

Finally there are multiple ways to do this; you can use the side of your foot to blip the throttle or your heel or some folks keep the ball of their foot on the brake pedal and use their tippy toes to blip the throttle.

In reply to RevRico :

I really disagree about beginners. I usually teach how to start on a hill with a handbrake within the first day or two.  Waiting longer makes it scary. 
 

Hold the button in. That way you can modulate the rear brakes with the hand brake.  They won't ever lock in the engagesd position if your finger is on the button. 
 

BTW, I've never taught anyone how to drive a manual car without a handbrake located between the seats.  I don't think I'd want to.  My left hand is always casually draped between the seats resting on the hand brake (in a way that doesn't spook the driver).  I HAVE had a couple times when I needed to jerk it into a full panic stop (and stall).  With a new driver, I don't let my guard down.

Modern manual transmission GM's are really easy to drive. They have a clutch position sensor, and the while you're letting the clutch out the ECU does a little dance with throttle position and ignition timing to keep it running, and running smoothly. On my Spark you can just let the clutch out from a stop without touching the throttle and, unless you side step it,  the ECU won't let it stall.

Reading the title of the thread, I thought it was going to be about cars trying to be other cars - or worse, cars trying to be trucks. Examples - most of the "muscle cars" of the mid - 70's through the 80's, which had no muscle, but lots of stripes, decals, spoilers, etc. Or minivans trying to be pickups (looking at you, Honda Ridgeline), or unibody, front wheel drive station wagons trying so hard to be "trucks" (Ford Maverick). Sedans trying to be SUV's (too many to list).

But, it turned out to be about shifting manual transmissions. OK.

I learned in Dad's '69 F250, on the ranch... good thing, no traffic to worry about. Then on the road, my sister's '68 VW - no problem. Then on to my own '65 VW, brother's '70 Bronco, father in laws' '64 C10  (three on the tree), then many years in my '87 Mustang 5.0 LX (autocross, drags, you name it). The highlight on my manual trans driving experiences was when the clutch cable broke on that 5.0 Mustang, miles from home. No problem: Stopped,turn engine off, put trans in 1st, start the engine in gear, rev-match by ear to shift up down on the road, in rush hour traffic. Fun. Hardest part was when I got home - steep, short uphill driveway into the garage. Slowed to a crawl in 1st, used the remote to open the garage door, chugged up the driveway, into the garage (just missing the slowly opening garage door), and got it stopped before plowing into the workbench at the back of the garage.    

My first few cars were ACVWs.

They are pretty easy to rev match (and shift without depressing the clutch at all).

I still shift without the clutch sometimes. 

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

I guess this is one of the times that it's an advantage to be older. I was learning the ways of the clutch by 1967. To me, it's like an extension of my body. 
 

It's been years since I DD a stick, though I still own a few.  Whenever I get ready to start a car, I'm at least thinking "do I need to push the clutch in?" if I'm not outright pushing in an imaginary pedal with my left foot.

My older sister of all people that drive stick in my family taught me the basics of driving stick in a 1992 Civic. My father tried teaching me first, but he's a horrible teacher and gets almost instantly frustrated. I figured out the rest on my own. Heel toe, double clutch, etc. I'm sure it helps that I've driven dozens of different manual transmission vehicles and motorcycles. 

I used to be a snob/purist these days I'm agnostic. If you dig cars and like participating in Motorsports events cool. Drive whatever you like.