Taught someone to drive stick in their tour...
Today, I took the bold step in letting someone else drive my car... I let my girlfriend get behind the wheel of my contour, without any prior experiance of driving stick, and I taught her how to drive it... Even with her bad left knee. She did a really good job, only stalled a couple of times... How many other people have taught people to know how to drive stick in their tour?
For some reason that would worry me... Invested to much money into the car for it to be a teacher...
I tried to teach my brother. He only stalled once, and it didnt leave the parking lot. I was just teaching him how to feather the clutch, because after first its all downhill
He did decently, but his legs were shaking because he was nervous, knowing full well if he broke the car id have to do the brotherly thing and whip the [censored] out of him.
My parents had 5 kids learning/relearning how to drive stick on the mystique and it was still on the orginal clutch/transmission when my brother totaled it at 150,000 miles. So I had no problems teaching people how to drive stick in my tour (142,000 miles on orginal clutch/transmission before that damn volvo rear ended me)
i taught my 14yo little cousin to drive a stick in my tour when our family when to glamis(desert) over xmas. she was not the first person i have taught but she was the youngest and the only one to use the tour to learn. she actually did very well and only stalled it once. the only bad thing she did was accidently dump the clutch at 3000 rpm, a stock diff btw. thank god we were in the desert and not on the road where the tires might have caught enough traction to start hopping.
I don't even like my parents driving the car, let alone teaching someone
~Alex
Aw, hell no. Clutches are too expensive in our cars. When someone wants to learn stick, they need to provide they're own car.
as much of a hardass as i am with most people i am pretty much a big softy when it comes to my little cousins
WAnan teach someone, rent a car, plus it's more fun anyway, or borrow someones zx2, those things are supposed to have some of the strongest tranny's around, jsut cause it's a younger target market, so they know it's gunna get a beatin.
~Alex
Originally posted by my csvt:
as much of a hardass as i am with most people i am pretty much a big softy when it comes to my little cousins
I'm a big softy when it comes to chicks that want to drive my car. 
How could you say no to that?
Other than that, no one drives my car but me.
Originally posted by CSVT1214:
Originally posted by my csvt:
as much of a hardass as i am with most people i am pretty much a big softy when it comes to my little cousins
I'm a big softy when it comes to chicks that want to drive my car. How could you say no to that?
Other than that, no one drives my car but me.
i'll let any good lookin girl touch my stick
I taught every chick in the St. John River valley to drive a stick in my car. 'Course that was my VW Rabbit in 1980. Smart ladies & fast learners those Maine-iacs up in Aroostook County.
Originally posted by SVT Driver627:
... borrow someones zx2, those things are supposed to have some of the strongest tranny's around
Nope. The MTX-75 is easily stronger. Spider gear in the ZX-2 is weak, blows up. The ATX in a ZX-2 is tougher than the manual. The manual ZX-2 that I had was fun to drive though! God, that little car had such potential...
I would let someone learn to drive stick in my car for $20,000. Maybe $15k if I really, really liked them.
Hell I would not even let someone that knew how to drive get in and drive my car.
I let my girlfriend drive my csvt.. she was REALLY good til she stalled it out... it was a long walk home for her that night.
j/k
Originally posted by Kokopellian:
Aw, hell no. Clutches are too expensive in our cars. When someone wants to learn stick, they need to provide they're own car.
Well, I drove your cars 
when i got my drivers permit, i just bought the contour, but wasnt under my name, so legally couldnt drive it, its ATX, but my parents both have MT, so the car I learned to drive on was a 94 Escort 1.9L MTX, I did VERY Good, my dad let me drive home on my first time (Drove around in a parking lot that was abandoned at the time)
I wont teach a friend stick in my FUTURE cars, but in their own yes, now a g/f, different story
Sorry the SVT is not a Teaching car, maybe the Probe. But that does remind me I was behind someone that had just bought a used Sentra R the other day and they were having trouble learning to drive a stick. At first I thought he was trying to race until I saw him stall it, then I just started to laugh.
Originally posted by CSVT1214:
I'm a big softy when it comes to chicks that want to drive my car. How could you say no to that?
Other than that, no one drives my car but me.
hahaha exactly!!! I do the same as well 
girls love it, its better then their hyuandai or civic
I've taught a few people. Taught a friend of mine a few years ago in a parking lot, then on some back roads. She did fine (a bit nervous) but actually chirped the tires shifting into second (I cringed).
The biggest mistake I ever made was letting one of my coworkers drive the car because she had never driven stick on a car before. Working for a bus company, we all drove 6spd buses. She was essentially double clutching my car (which is fine, because i do it all the time)... the problem is that she was putting the gas all the way down during every shift. I swear I felt like trying to reach over and turn off the car! I'm sure that is why my clutch is chirping on hill starts at only 88k miles.
learned stick in the tour? no. but i did drive a 95 atx tour when i was 9... learned stick in a vette, that was interesting.
Originally posted by Goonz SVT:
Originally posted by CSVT1214:
I'm a big softy when it comes to chicks that want to drive my car. How could you say no to that?
Other than that, no one drives my car but me.
hahaha exactly!!! I do the same as well
girls love it, its better then their hyuandai or civic
Hey, I used to drive a Civic and a Kia which is worse than a Hyundai.
The chicks used to love the Civic too. Those were back in my "rice" days. But they loved it even more once I got the SVT.
My son had just gotten his learners permit when I started teaching him the manual in my CSVT a couple of years ago. Great practice for me forcing myself to be calm and patient, great practice for him to be grateful and respectful of the opportunity and the equipment. He got a lot more out of our sessions than if someone had thrown him to keys to a slushbox 5.7 Firebird.
I learned in the car I have now at 16, when it was my dad's. Since then I've taught:
2 Girlfriends
1 Cousin, a lot more are in line.
1 Sister - her first start was perfect. Mimimal slip, nice and smooth. I thought she knew how and was messing with me. Then we got to hills, and I realized she was a newbie.
My current roomate (2000 Maxima driver) wants to learn, so does this girl I know. I only have 30k on this clutch, and the old one that I learned on was 2/3 gone at 110k, so maybe I'll let them. The key is to start them in a parking lot, and let them start the car with no gas about 20 times. This gives them a feel for the clutch while keeping the revs down enough to limit clutch wear. Once they know the friction point, the rest is easy. I think being relatively powerful, having a somewhat soft clutch, and relatively slow throttle response make the contour an easy one to learn on. Imports tend to have less clutch feel, and you need to slip it a lot more, since they have no low-rev power in the 4 cyl engines. Plus the engines rev very fast, meaning an anxious newbie has to work harder and controlling their right foot.
I managed to get it through to my mother than you stay between 2k and 4k during street driving. She had a 2 Honda Civics in the 80s, and a Vega before that, so power below mid-range rmps was new to her. Heck, power of any sort was new to her! She routinely got 5mpg less than my dad and I, who tended to drive it faster.
i have let my gf try it a couple of times...the hardest part for her is finding the gears. Her first car was like a 98 metro with a stick, she had that for a week then got rid of it. Her dad taught her mom how to drive a stick on his 68 shelby. I bet that was fun! I learned first on my moms 92(ish?) tempo. Then when I was good enough at that I "relearned" on the tour. Just a little bit of a difference.
I taught my 10 year old son & (at that time) 15 year old daughter in my '91 Escort. I've since let my daughter drive my '98 'Tour a couple of times and let her fiance use it for a week while his '98 Honda Accord was having its tranny replaced (not his fault btw, he bought it from his uncle just three months earlier). Haven't let my son (now 12) use the '98 'cause I got him a '94 Escort to play with and he gets to drive the F-250 alot. I think everyone should know how to drive a clutch just-in-case.
Originally posted by Ford Love:
I taught my 10 year old son & (at that time) 15 year old daughter in my '91 Escort. I've since let my daughter drive my '98 'Tour a couple of times and let her fiance use it for a week while his '98 Honda Accord was having its tranny replaced (not his fault btw, he bought it from his uncle just three months earlier). Haven't let my son (now 12) use the '98 'cause I got him a '94 Escort to play with and he gets to drive the F-250 alot. I think everyone should know how to drive a clutch just-in-case.
So your daughter is engaged at 17?? 
I learned to drive stick in my dad(CMAC)'s contour before we got mine.