Automotive imposter syndrome

Just the fact that you can actually operate a manual transmission car makes you not an automotive imposter.  A few summers back, I was stopped at a convenience store off I-75 just outside Ocala, FL.   While my wife was in the store buying scratchers, a kid pulls up in the next parking space over in a  tastefully lowered Volvo 240 with the sunroof open and all the windows down.  He jumps out the car with the keys in the ignition and the car still running and walks into the store.  My wife passes him on her way out of the store walks up to our car and says, why did he leave his car running?  Then she looks down, sees it has a manual transmission and says; "oh, he's not worried about anyone stealing it, nobody can drive stick anymore."   So, you aren't an impostor, just a member of a dwindling minority.  Kind of like folks who know how to dial a rotary phone.. 

Being proficient at driving a 5 speed, manual automobile does no make you (me) automatically proficient at driving a big diesel with an Eaton Over/Under 10 speed.  

I've done it, rarely but not that pretty.  

Start in 4th, then 5th, then throw the flipper making your 1 gear location your 6th gear.  Traditional 2nd gear location is 7 th gear, etc. 

Non synchro so double clutch and rev matching needed as well. 

John Welsh said:

Being proficient at driving a 5 speed, manual automobile does no make you (me) automatically proficient at driving a big diesel with an Eaton Over/Under 10 speed.  

I've done it, rarely but not that pretty.  

Start in 4th, then 5th, then throw the flipper making your 1 gear location your 6th gear.  Traditional 2nd gear location is 7 th gear, etc. 

Non synchro so double clutch and rev matching needed as well. 

First time I drove one of our road tractors, my confidence level in "I can drive anything" went way, way down. Exactly what you said: I went, I got the trailer spotted where we wanted it. None of it was pretty. Even the braking side when you're not used to air brakes; I wasn't exactly smooth.

In reply to SV reX :

Both trucks I've owned that were manual (Ranger & Hombre) had foot parking brakes. I always wanted to try one of the tacomas (or the CRV) with the hand brake in the dash and see if that was usable. I learned to drive illicitly on farm and construction equipment that generally had unsynchronized gears and it made sense pretty quickly (even tractors with a hand throttle), all the torques made it much easier. The 4 banger ranger was impossible for me as I was terrified of slipping the clutch.
I was happy I didn't drive my manual trucks in cities with hills (had a manual SL2 in college in Pittsburgh, handbrake highly necessary). 
 

edit to add: I feel like an imposter just being here. My skills extend about as far as changing a cooling system, so I'm in awe of what many of y'all do!

My 914 has a shift pattern with reverse where first should be, first where second would be and so on.

One day many years ago I made the mistake of handing the keys to a valet parking guy at a casino in Central City, Colorado. They guy almost backed into the car behind him and then screamed at me that the transmission in my car was broken. I ended up parking it myself. My girlfriend at the time couldn't stop laughing. I used to let her drive the car.

A couple of years ago we had to wait about 15 minutes at a fancy restaurant in Downtown because the only valet who could drive a 5 speed wasn't available to park the Miata. Current wife not so happy. She can't drive a manual. There was no way they would let me park it myself.

Back when I was in graduate school in Colorado, I was looking at buying a 1970 Porsche 911S from an Independent Porsche Shop in Downtown Denver. The guy at the shop started to explain the unique shift pattern of the early 911 to me and I waived him off, telling him I already had a 914. All of the early 911s. 912s and 914s had the same transaxle with the same weird shift pattern. I guess that makes me not an Early Porsche imposter. They wanted $6,000 for an early 911S. I should have bought the car and kept it. There was some minor rust that concerned me. I loved driving the car. I had the cash. Nobody ever thought they would be worth what they are worth today.

I can't believe how much the world has changed.

Come to think of it, I also owned two different early MG Midgets with non-syncro first gears. One was an old SCCA Production race car. The other one was an old oilburner I drove as an undergraduate in California that spent more time broken on the side of the road than running. I never owned a working top for either car. When it rained I just threw a tarp over it the street legal one. Those were entirely different animals.

Each of those Midgets cost me less than $1,000. The race car even came with a trailer.

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

I had four Midgets in a row, each costing under $300.  When taking off from a stop, I still have a habit of pushing in the clutch and shifting into 2nd and then into 1st before letting the clutch out because of those non-syncro gearboxes.

This belongs here:

We're all imposters. 

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

My 914 has a shift pattern with reverse where first should be, first where second would be and so on.

 

alfadriver said:

In reply to RevRico :
 

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

Agreed, but for different reasons.  Low engine feedback + TBW + terrible throttle programming can sometimes lead to a car that is really difficult to drive.

When I had my turbo Veloster, I had to put it in performance mode, because in "normal" driving mode the throttle mapping was such that I would stall the car 9/10 times.  I have a lot of experience driving manuals.

Most new stuff isn't that bad, but there are definitely a few that seem like the manufacturer tuned the engine+throttle for an auto then just tossed in a manual without changing anything.  I recall there being an article specifically about this and how a particular car (a... Camry?) on paper was really nice, but the programming + manual basically ruined it, but I'll be damned if I can find that article now.


Regarding heel + toe... I was never able to do it until I got on track and basically had to do it.  Trial by fire.

When I was in high school one of our class mates per her car into a 7-11 due to being in an unfamiliar car......grabbed first rather than reverse.

My parents only drove stick up until my dad's Colorado in 2016 so I had a good basis watching them as a kid. My first car was a 74 Beetle that would stall when cold so I learned the hand brake trick to not look like a fool pulling out of my highschool parking lot. My second car was a 62 Comet with a sticky throttle and a sticky Zbar so I learned how to modulate gas and clutch as to not do burnouts everywhere. My clutch hydraulics went out in California and I limped my XJ back to NC flat shifting. I like to think I'm pretty good but my wife's 2013 VW makes me look like a fool because I can't find 1st gear where she just slots it right in. I really want to learn how to drive a non-syncro truck transmission but I don't see somebody(other than my father-in-law) letting me just go for it.

Driving a manual is like cooking. Some families pass their knowledge from generation to generation, others are self-taught. Some are naturally inclined, others are not. Some find it rewarding to keep improve their mastery, others are happy with wherever they're at. Some find great joy in performing it themselves, others would rather have it done for them. There's no, or at least very little, right or wrong in any of it.

With a pull handle (rather than lever) type parking brake, the car I learned manual on was awkward to use it for hill starts. So I was taught to not need it, but it's also still a tool I have if I ever do. I teach others similarly.

IMO the most important manual driving concept that many people never learned, is starting on an incline without using the throttle and without rolling back.

I'll drive anything with a clutch, hill, no hill, doesn't matter. I picture all the parts from the crankshaft to the drive shaft in my head. My heal/toe is really just an ankle roll. When I drove a semi truck the only time I used the clutch was from a dead stop or to a dead stop. The rest of the time you shift by rev matching (floating the gears).

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

My 914 has a shift pattern with reverse where first should be, first where second would be and so on.

 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rQf2MYU5QC0?rel=0

 

Is that a stock gearbox or did the put some kind of racing gearbox in it. One of them mentioned a racing gearbox.

It wouldn't surprise me to see something like that in a really old Mercedes.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

Is that a stock gearbox or did the put some kind of racing gearbox in it. One of them mentioned a racing gearbox.

It wouldn't surprise me to see something like that in a really old Mercedes.

It's a late-80s 190E, which was kinda-sorta the Mercedes version of the E30 M3 only not as good.  A homologation car to let them run something in DTM.

Back in 1970 our driver's education trailer simulators were, I think, some kind of Chevy sedan half dash which had both automatic and 3 on the column manual shifting which included a clutch pedal. When it was time to learn how to drive a stick, every guy in the class was drag racing from light to light and when little Johnny shot out into the street riding his bike on the video, we all ran him over going some 100 mph.

My first time driving an actual car was my older sister's VW Bug. I was doing quite well until I messed up and drove up a very steep street with a red signal light at the top. Every time I tried to get going, I would stall the car and wind up farther down the street than before. Eventually the 8 or so cars behind me had to back half way down the street and after many attempts, I finally revved it up enough and somehow got going without killing it. 

I eventually got pretty good at manual shifting but never got good at shifting a 2 speed rear axle farm truck smoothly.

In the other recent manual transmission related thread, I mentioned teaching lots of people to operate a manual transmission car. My trick is to first teach them to get the car moving from a stop without touching the gas. That lets them concentrate on one think at a time, and get a feel for the clutch without distraction. I found that it drastically flattens the learning curve. 
 

I also said operate rather than drive. Driving a stick shift car takes a lot more training and practice. I'd say once you get good at the basics, then practice rev matched downshifts. These are easy to practice and you can't really mess up. Once you can consistently apply the right amount of throttle to rev match, then add in heal and toeing. I made myself learn after a track day. I was experienced enough that I was charging hard into corners and trail braking, but when I screwed up a down shift it really upset the car. I figured I had to learn at that point. So I made it a habit in my day to day driving. I heal and toe every time I slow, it's automatic now. Assuming the car is set up for it. My '95 Miata is great right out of the box. My Legacy GT had great pedal positioning, but response to blipping the throttle was horrible. It wasn't the e-throttle that I suspected, it was the heavy dual mass flywheel. Replacing it with a lightened flywheel made it a dream to drive. My Galant VR4 was impossible with the stock pedals, the gas and brake were way too far apart. 

Everybody's different. Everybody has different experiences and different skills.

My first manual transmission experience was my Honda XR75. Fantastic little bike for a twelve-year-old, and I got in an awful lot of practice modulating the clutch and throttle. We lived in a very rugged area and I had no choice but to develop mechanical sympathy.

My first car was an MGB with overdrive. Lots of gears to play with. Lots of fun. After the B, I spent too many years as a delivery driver in RWD, stick-shift Corollas. Slick shifting cars with the little T50 transmission. I logged around 30,000 miles a year, most of it in town, and threw heel-toe downshifts by default, usually while wearing Vibram soled work boots.

For fun, I play trucking sims, loaded just as heavy as i can get, trying to float gears up and down and keep the thing moving. This is made more difficult by the lack of feel, but I'm pretty good at it. Good enough that I could probably pick it up in real life without undue drama. 

So where's the imposter part? I'm not a great driver. Safe, yes, and skilled, but not great. I have never been on a proper track and would, without question, suck at racing. Don't have the reflexes, don't have the competitive spirit. Hell, I haven't even watched a race on TV in probably twenty years. It doesn't interest me. That part of me died when it became obvious that I'd never get anywhere close to any of my automotive dreams. And yet I'm hanging around a place called Grassroots Motorsports, pretending like I belong here. There's your imposter syndrome for you.

I'd say I have the "grassroots" part down pat, but given the number of genuinely wealthy people here, I'm not sure I've even reached that standard yet.

Have fun and build skills, man. 

I learned to drive a stick in an old VW Beetle.  They're probably the easiest manual transmission car to learn in, which helped a lot - I was able to figure out the basic procedure before trying anything less friendly.

As for imposter syndrome...I did do some road racing for some years in a Spec Racer Ford, and was mediocre by any standard.  However, there was one time when I actually got on the podium, and was flying home afterwards with the trophy sticking out of my helmet bag.  A young boy came up to me in the airport terminal with wide eyes and asked, "are you a race car driver?"  I maybe laid it on a little thick telling him about my exploits.  

I taught myself to drive manual 20+ years ago when I was in the military. I had plenty of buddies in the barracks with manuals so I understood the concept. Lots of trial and error and a few close calls- my first manual was a 1991 Toyota MR2 Turbo that I bought right after my first deployment- in hindsight, not the safest car to learn on, but I managed to survive without putting it in a ditch. 

Right after I got the hang of it, I went straight to the local drag strip for Friday night Test N Tunes with said buddies. I got pretty good at launching/power shifting/drag racing, but it was at the expense of a couple clutches and a gearbox over the course of a year or so. 
 

I didn't know about heel toe until shortly thereafter when YouTube was invented. Once discovered, I then started heading to my favorite local canyon road every weekend to practice until I got comfortable with it. It still puts a big stupid smile on my face every time I manage to get it right, even if that's far from 100% of the time! 
 

The past couple years I've been trying to learn left foot braking. I still suck at it, but there's certainly been an improvement since I started. 
 

I'm of the mindset that with enough practice and experience, you can get pretty good at just about anything. 

In reply to roninsoldier83 :

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a whole book about it!

I hear you! I learned mostly on my own on how to drive a stick. Funny story, I found a brand-new, but 1-year-old Mazda3 fully loaded with like $10k off. I asked, "What's the deal with it?" They said it has a stick. I jokingly said to the salesman, "I'll buy it if you give me lessons." He said, "Be right back." Fifteen minutes later he said, "You got yourself a new car - and you got lessons tonight." It was like 30 minutes of lessons, but it wasn't adequate. Fast forward like 15 years later and I'm still learning things. I daily drove a manual for years, but admittedly I'm a bit rusty as most cars these days come with automatics. However, whenever I have the chance, I try to go for a manual car to stay fresh.

Funny how this turned into a manual transmission post but WTH here is my story.  Learned in a field driving some farm truck with a granny first gear.  And reading so many books about the early 5 speed racecars having a similar pattern the die was cast.  Then at 16, a few months with my license, the neighbor let me drive his pantera with the same pattern.  Then 914s, which were like golf.  No one can get every shift perfect but it was fun trying.  Also not the car to try clutchless shifting.  I had to, on a trip from Phoenix back to LA the cable broke so I had to do the whole drive with 2 pedals.  Luckily it was 1AM so I ran a lot of lights.  

Heel and toe was a necessity in the early years, my bug would not idle when cold.  Also, learned that bottom hinged pedals are the best for this skill.  During the track junkie part of my life I was surprised how many PCA instructors could not do it.  Not at all!

On clutchless shifting, I mastered it in an Opel GT as this box was just so good.  Aside from the 914, every car got driven that way and it is very rewarding to do it right.  Up or down thru the pattern, third pedal for stop signs only.

Now at almost 70 I still feel the need to have a manual trans car available.  Every time I don't I end up buying another one.  Shifting has turned into a reflex action, most times it just happens, especially for heel and toe downshifts.  I know automatics are now faster and more fuel efficient but my brain just needs to exercise those old actions sometimes.

I was raised on a farm during the 50s/60s. Driving tractors, a 1928 Model A field car and the family car introduced me to manual transmissions. The high school driver ed car was also equipped with a manual transmission. My 16th birthday was the day after a major snow storm. My father and I headed for the county court house for my drivers test in the family car (1961 Ford with 292 V8 and 3 on the tree transmission). The roads were plowed, but still snow covered and icy in spots. The court house was in an unfamiliar small town on top of a hill. Upon entering, we stated the reason for our visit and waited. After a few minutes an Iowa state trooper came out with his clip board. He told me to go down the hill to the main street. The street was snow packed and slippery. There was a stop sign at the bottom. The tires kept locking/sliding as I attempted to stop. I slowly turned the car to the snow piled on the side of the road and was able to stop at the sign. After driving around and doing a parallel park, I was directed to take another street back up to the court house. Half way up the hill was a stop sign. I stopped. I knew if I tried to start in 2nd the engine would stall. So, I started in low with the tires starting to spin and speed shifted to 2nd and up the hill we went. Needless to say the trooper was impressed. At last count I have had 52 manual equipped cars/pickups. I have taught many students in our Automotive Technician program the basics of driving manual transmission.