Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General Teaching wife how to drive MTX

Okay here is my problem...

My wife is arguing with me since I usually park behind her car and in order to get her car out of the driveway she has to ask me to move it or figure it out herself (which currently she is afraid to do since she doesn't know how to drive stick).

We got into a pretty big argument the other day over how stupid stick shift cars are - and what a waste of time they are to drive. For those of us who choose to drive only MTX cars - let me tell you I had to bite my tounge.

Anyway, here is my quandry...
I'm in the market for an STi or WRX this Feb, and I'd really like to get top dollar for my Contour SVT.

So do I let her practice moving the car out of the driveway into the grass with the SVT (where she might do something mechanically and I'd have to pay for before trading it in) or do I let her experiment on the STi or WRX where it would still be covered under the initial bumper to bumper warranty?

Either way, I'd definately be scared of letting her take any car with MTX on the road to drive, especially with the way she likes to park nearest to the store - even if it means next to the cart return area.

bumper to bumper doesn't cover damage done by neglect.

Take her to a shopping mall parking lot (flat & level) after they close and teach her. After a couple of days of that try a road (not heavily travelled) The hardest part of learning a stick is a hill... do that last.

Unless she has the big lead foot I don't think she can damage the car while learning.

Now about driving on the road.. that's a different story.

Taught all the girls in my high school to drive a stick. I was popular.

Most recently, I bought my daughter a ZX-2 with a manual tranny & taught her to drive a stick shift. She hated it at first, BUT after a month she told me she'll never own an automatic - stick shift is waaaayyy too fun! That was back in February less than a year ago.

IMHO, the best way to teach anyone to drive stick, if they've never tried it before:

drive them yourself to a big empty parking lot with few obstacles or anything to hit.

have them figure out how to launch the car (into a slow rolling speed in 1st) from a dead stop using the CLUTCH ONLY - no gas. any properly running car should have the juice to do this. have them do this over and over until they get the feel for the clutch engagement. once they learn that the clutch is not an on/off switch and understand the finesse involved, everything else flows from there - but in traffic or any traveled roadway is NOT the place for someone to figure out how to use a stick, from scratch.

true story: when I was 13 years old, one of my father's friends was giving me a ride home and he pulled over in the neighborhood about a mile from my house (in a 1974 Alfa Spyder which was only a few years old at the time) and let me drive it around - the first car I had ever driven... and of course it was a fickle Italian manual. He talked me through the above, the best driving lesson I ever had. I don't think I got out of 2nd, but I "got" what driving a manual was all about. It was like 6 years later before I got my own car with a stick, the first one in my family; but in the interim, I could jump into any other manual car and drive it with confidence.

my 2c,
-Peter

first car I ever learned to drive was my mtx mystiqe. As many others stated above an empty parking lot would be best. That is the way I learned. Once first gear is mastered the rest are fairly easy. At least that was the way it was for me.

I taught my wife to drive a stick, in the SVT, in traffic, in one day...It is a breeze to drive, I don't think she'll have a hard time learning...She'll just have to want to do it, otherwise it's a waste of time...

yeah stick shift is addictive.. but you do have to want to learn it to be able to truly master it ..

my first experience was with a double trailer (LOL, i swear im not lying to you) i was working for uhaul at the time and they had no one else to transport this trailer from melbourne back to miami.. lol i volunteered.. i figured, its all highway anyway .. whats the big deal.. turns out, they were in the middle of town and I95 was outside the city.. i cant tell you how many times i stalled it, before i got it going .. i mustve cut off at least a dozen cars, and rolled back and almost hit at least 6 people.. haha.. i'll never forget it, the trucks mirrors were loose too, so i had to signal wayyyy before i changed lanes.. i think god was with me that day ..

A friend of mine (Had a Supercharged 98 Cobra, now has a built 351 in a 95 Cobra ) and he's taught people to drive manual in them...

Both of these cars move... The Supercharged 98 ran low 13 sec. quarter miles and the 351 powered 95 hasn't been to the track yet...

But, as everyone else has said the person must have some desire to learn.

I learned on my dad's old truck (92 Ranger 2.3l 4cyl.) That was pretty easy to learn on...