Drive A Car

This is a very brief guide on how to drive a manual car. It's going to include how to move, how to change up gears and how to stop. The first thing you need to do is turn the engine on. Now there's two stages to turn the engine on. The first is your ignition. So if you turn the key, normally the first click, little lights come up on the dashboard, these little symbols. That means your ignition's on and when your ignition's on, your electrics work. You have electric windows, your fans work, your stereo, your lights, etc. But your engine isn't running and To get the engine running, what I recommend you do is hold the clutch down, which is this left pedal here, clutch to the floor, all the way to the floor when you press it down. And then turn the key all the way and then the engine fires into life. As you can see, the engine is now spinning. The reason I recommend holding the clutch down when you turn the engine on is not only some cars require you to do this, but if your car was in gear and you turn the engine on, the car would shoot forwards in a forward gear and backwards in reverse gear. Okay, so once your engine'started, your gas is now going to work. This is your gas pedal here, but you're not going anywhere and that's because you're not in gear. So to put it in gear, make sure you press the clutch down. As my clutch is already down, I'll just leave it down or if it wasn't down, I'll just press the clutch down. Then I'll move it into gear one by pushing the gear stick all the way to the left and forwards. Most cars are I want to say most cars, nearly all cars these days are Some have what's known as a dog leg gearbox, but you really don't see them these days only in older performance cars where first would actually be where second is, but left and forwards for first. And what you need to do next is take the handbrake off. Now, if this was a hill and you took the handbrake off, the car would roll. So I don't recommend practicing driving a manual car on a hill until you first of all practice on a flat. The way I'm going to teach you here is not going to work on a hill very well. So I'll take the handbrake off. To do that, this is the handbrake. I'll lift it up. That allows me to press the button in. Now hold the button in as I push it down. Now the handbrake is off. Now I need to set the gas. And what I mean by set the gas is give a little bit of gas so there's a little bit of power. So this is the right pedal. This is my gas pedal. I'm going to press that gently until the revs build up somewhere between 1 and 2000 rpm. Some underpowered cars may need you to have as much as 2000 rpm, but most cars are okay. Somewhere between 1 and 2 as I have now. Practice keeping that steady before you try setting off because it's quite a hard pedal to keep steady as there is a delay. You move it a bit, it then increases later. You come off the gas a bit, a little bit later it goes down. So you end up sort of chasing your tail, but going up and down all the time. So press it a little bit, wait, and it will gradually build up. Normally about the thickness of a pound coin seems to do the job nicely. The next stage is to move. Simply all I need to do is lift the clutch, this left pedal that I'm currently on at the moment, up to the bike point. Now Once I reach the bike point, it's really important that I stay at the bike point. If I continue to lift the clutch, the car will kangaroo up the road or it may stall. Holding the clutch on the bike point will give the clutch chance to do its job. Of course I'm going to make sure no one's coming before I do that. I'll turn my windscreen wipers on as well as it is raining here in sunny England. There's a car behind, so just wait for that car to go past. And another car behind, I'm waiting for that one as well. I check my right blind spot to make sure there's no one on my right. And it looks clear now, so I'm going to gradually lift the clutch until the car starts to move. So I'm slowly bringing the clutch up with my heel in the air, and when it starts to move I'll hold it steady. And I'll put my heel down just so I can support my leg. Now I'm going to hold the clutch steady until the engine starts to go up in pitch and the revs start to rise Now I can come fully off the clutch and I'moving. I'm not moving very fast, I'm not trying to move fast. I'm a learner doing their first lesson, don't forget. And now I want to change up a gear. So to change up a gear, what I need to do is when the revs reach around 2000, I'm just above 2000 now. So that means I'm overdue a gear change. I will come off the gas pedal, I'll press the clutch to the floor, I'll move the stick into gear 2, and then I'll gradually come up to the bike point again. So I'll do that now, I'll come off the gas pedal gently, clutch to the floor, move the gear stick to 2. I bring the clutch up gradually until I feel the bike point. And when I feel the bike point, I'll hold it there, add a little bit of gas and gradually come all the way off the clutch. I'll have to hold it for about a second or so just to make sure it'smooth. And now I'm in gear 2. And I want to go to gear 3, as the revs have already gone up to about 2000. So I'll do the same thing again, I'll gradually come off the gas pedal, clutch all the way to the floor. I'm going to move the gear stick to 3 which is into the middle, make sure it's properly in the middle, then forwards, that's gear 3. And then I bring the clutch up until I feel the bike point. I know the bike point's there because I can feel there's a connection, it starts to slow a bit. And then I'll add some gas as I gradually bring the clutch all the way up. And I'm coming up to some temporary traffic lights now. So I'm not going to do the demonstration on how to stop. I'm going to go past these traffic lights and find somewhere else and I'll be back with you in about one second. Okay, now that I've gone past the traffic lights, I can show you how to stop a manual car. It's actually really easy, just check your mirrors behind you, signal to anyone that you're going to pull over by singing left. Say I'm going to pull over on the left side of the road, there's no one behind me so I don't need to do that. All I need to do is cover the braking clutch, the car starts slowing down. Start adding brake to stop where I want to stop and the clutch must come down and stay down once the revs reach a thousand. Line up with the curb, modulate the brake so that you don't stop too early or too late. So I'm just giving myself enough time to line up nicely, then I'll finish the braking and stop completely. And now you cannot come off the pedals. If you're to come off the pedals, the car would stall or shoot forwards. What I first must do is pull the handbrake up. So hold the button in, pull it up when it's firm, let go of the button, then it should stay up. And that means I can come off the footbrakes. The handbrake has taken over the work of the footbrake for me. And I must put it into neutral before I come off the clutch. And so now I'm in neutral, is I'll put the gear stick in the middle and to double check, I'll go from side to side. And if I can go from side to side If it's in gear, it will go from side to side, but not very much. So that's a good way to know you're in neutral, definitely in neutral there. So I'll come off the clutch and I'm secure and stopped. I'm going to go quiet now and let you watch me drive. I'm going to move away, go up to second gear, then third gear and then stop again. That way you can pause and rewind and watch it as many times as you The first thing is they don't give enough gas. They don't give enough gas because they're afraid of the noise. And they think if they give gas, the car's going to go shooting forwards out of control. But actually giving more gas will help you keep the car slower because you'll be able to hear the bite point a lot earlier. This is a demonstration of trying to move away without enough gas. So clutch down, first gear, handbrake off. I'm going to cover the gas for good luck and I'm going to bring the clutch up to the bite point without any gas and I've stalled. Now if I had gas, I would have heard the clutch bite point a lot easier and been able to pause on the bite point. And that brings me on to the next problem. The next problem is they don't pause on the bite point. They come off the clutch slowly but continuously and that's not how the clutch works. I'm just going to restart the engine now. I'm holding the clutch down and turning the key. So now it'started again. The handbrake is still off and it'still in gear so I'm still ready to go. This time I'm going to use gas but when I bring the clutch up, instead of holding it on the bite point when I feel the bite point, I'm going to keep lifting it higher and see what happens. So it moved away but it was a very big kick and there certainly wasn't any control there. So I'm just going to stop now. So clutch down and brake. Handbrake up so I can come off the foot brake and neutral so I can lift the clutch up. Now that would be a big problem moving away You need to be able to control your car and control it slowly for the tighter, more tricky situations. Don't hold the clutch indefinitely at the bite point though. The beginner should aim to hold the clutch for about 4 seconds when moving away and about 1 second when changing gear. Here is an example of kangarooing. This happened because they lifted the clutch up too high without giving any gas. Another common reason people struggle with the clutch is because they keep their heel on the floor as they lift the clutch. What I mean by that is when the clutch is down, the heel stays on the floor and as they lift the clutch, this pedal now gets a lot lower under the foot. When you are in traffic, you have to lift and lower the clutch many times without fully coming off it. So you come up to the bite point and now you have to push the clutch back down again. The pedals lower under your foot, you have to lift it again as you want to move. You get to the bite point and start moving and the pedals even lower. Now you go to press the clutch down and you struggle to get it down. The next time you do it, you have no control over the clutch at all. So it is really important not to keep your heel down How you want to do it is keep the ball near the bottom of your pedal and the toe near the top of your pedal. Keep your heel up and that way you can lift the clutch up and down without the pedal moving under your foot, which is really important. When you get to the bite point, if you want to stabilise your foot instead of using all your leg muscles, then put your heel down just to support yourself. And then you can do small adjustments because the pedal doesn't really move much for the small adjustments. And if you need to press it back down again, you lift the heel up, down, and then when it wants to come back up to the bite point again, with the heel up, bring it up to the bite point, support your foot with your heel, and when you want to come off the clutch fully, just lift your heel again and gradually come off. This video is by no means a replacement for a driving instructor. You really need to practise and you need to practise where there's no traffic. Also make sure you're in a road legal car. If you're practising without an instructor, make sure you have insurance. Get u00a320 off via the link in the description to Collingwood who provides specialist learning insurance that allows you to practise in a friend or family member's car without risking their no-claims bonus. If you want to ensure your own car, click on the link to Confuse. com. I have found that they have the widest selection of cheap insurers for young drivers. Well that's all for this one. I'll see you on the next one.