Long story short: I’m (24M) American, and I’m visiting my long-distance Romanian boyfriend for the first time soon. In Romania, most cars are manual - including all the ones owned by my boyfriend’s family (I’ll be staying with them). I’ve never driven a manual before. His dad told me he can give me a quick lesson, and that I’m welcome to use their cars if I want; otherwise, I can rent an automatic. I don’t have access to any manual cars here in the U.S. to practice on, so I’m not sure what to do.
It’s not too bad. You can get passable in a manual with less than a day of practice.
There are a lot of good tips in here, but I’ll add a few that seem to be missing/less prioritized.
Practice rev matching while down shifting. You’ll be a lot more comfortable with the car if you can get into a lower gear faster. This will allow you to pass and accelerate smoother and with confidence.
Practice recovering from a stall (although you’re probably going to do this accidentally anyway). Foot on brake, push the clutch all the way in, shift to neutral or 1st (I prefer 1st to get into gear faster), start the car, and get moving. This process should be fairly automatic and done within a second or two.
On that note, don’t worry about stalling the car. It feels terrible, and embarrassing, but it’s not really damaging the vehicle (might wear out the engine mounts a little faster, but no one really cares).
Most important, have fun!
Check local driving schools. They might have one.
If you’re like me then you drive it right away no problem. if you’re like my sister svenika then you will never drive it once
hm i think you will need at least lime 3h of controlled practice tp get used to it. My gf learnt to drive automatic and after 3 lessons of 30min, she can barely start moving the car by herself lol.
Like riding a bike. If you’ve never done it it’s going to be hard but give it a few hours of deliberate practice you’ll be fine.
And again like with a bike you should probably practice away from traffic to begin with…
Why do you need to drive in the first place?
Yeah, just take their well known public transport system, or take six months and tour the country by bicycle. \s
Can’t his boyfriend drive the car
Learning to drive a stick is really easy if you have somebody to teach you well, but waaay too many people are like, “here, keep fucking up until the car doesn’t go anymore or you figure it out, whichever comes first”.
Hardest part is getting the car to start moving from stopped. Changing gears once moving, you can fuck it up a bunch and nothing much happens except funny engine noises and the owner starts making constipated-looking facial expressions. But if you fuck up starting from stopped, then you lurch around a bunch, stall the engine, and don’t go anywhere.
To get started from stopped, without horrible lurches or stalls, do like this FROM A FLAT PLACE – don’t try anything with hills until you can make the car go on the flat first:
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IMPORTANT: adjust your seat so you can easily push the clutch (left pedal) in – all the way to the floor – without uncomfortable stretching
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In your driveway when there’s nobody going to honk at you, start the car, put it in neutral, and practice pushing the gas pedal just enough to hold the engine at 3000 RPM or so. Not making crazy racing noises, just a nice steady “the engine is running normal-fast-ish” and hold it that way. Practice a couple times until your foot and your ear know what it feels like
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Put it in gear without moving – gas off, clutch in and put the car in first gear.
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Gas on, steady at 3000 RPM, slooooooowly let the clutch out until you can just barely feel the clutch is engaged. Engine revs down a little bit, car starts crawling forward. Practice that a couple times, just let the clutch out until it barely starts doing anything, then put it back in, until your foot knows what it feels like.
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Now do it again, engine held at steady revs, clutch out until just barely engaged, then let the clutch out just a little bit more, so the car wants to crawl, and hold the clutch there. Car starts crawling. Keep the engine steady like you’ve been, let the car start crawling, don’t even change anything, just let the car crawl. It will slowly accelerate until you’re moving at some steady 1st-gear speed. Once it’s come up to (slow) speed you can let the clutch out the rest of the way.
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Congratulations you moved a car
IMPORTANT: adjust your seat so you can easily push the clutch (left pedal) in – all the way to the floor – without uncomfortable stretching
The person of the driving school who thought me how to drive told me to push in the clutch completely, and put your seat in a way that you would have your knee bent just a tiny bit.
practice pushing the gas pedal just enough to hold the engine at 3000 RPM or so. Not making crazy racing noises, just a nice steady “the engine is running normal-fast-ish”
Depending on the type of car, this might usually be somewhere between 1500 and 2000 RPM (even lower for a diesel), 3000 RPM are more typical for a sports car.
especially in a diesel even 1500 is too much.
Overall (and this is from a lifelong manual driver), I go much more by feel than I do any particular number on the tach, under normal driving circumstances.
i can imagine. i’ve mostly had automatics, but when i was looking for my first car one of the candidates was an old saab with no tacho, it only had little indicators on the speedometer for where to shift. in that situation i imagine muscle memory is created pretty quickly.
There’s some of that, but you really do get a feel for the car, where it likes to be, how it likes to be treated/driven, where its limits are, and so on. As others have said: it absolutely does help you forge a more detailed perception of what your car is doing, and where the limits really are.
Indeed.
It’s also typical for a Honda fit
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I’ve found the hardest part is suddenly having any health issue with major extremities. Broke your finger? Crucial. Broke your leg or foot? Crucial. Having 2 functioning legs and 2 functioning hands is ideal.
Take the lesson. While learning, stay off of hills and any upward incline until you got a feel from taking the car from full stop to going in 1at gear.
While learning you will stall the car… Don’t let it bother you.
The trickiest part is learning how to ease the clutch while applying gas to go from full stop to motion forward.
Remember neutral when coming to a stop.
Manuals are great, it’s built in theft protection from like 95 % of people
Yea, getting the lesson from Dad is probably a great thing. He’ll enjoy helping, it’s good bonding time, and he’ll have stories for the future!
*yeah, not yea or nay. It isn’t a vote.
Manuls aren’t super hard, but there’s definitely a learning curve you can’t avoid. Since you’ll be in a new country you’ll have enough going on and don’t want to add to any stress, I would really recommend renting an automatic.
Yeah, you’re going to stall the engine in the beginning. A lot. That means turning the engine back on in traffic in unfamiliar surroundings.
Also, if you’re going to be driving on any hills, you’ll need a separate new skill set for a manual car.
Stick to automatic, but take the offer to learn.
This. It takes a bit to figure out the rhythm, but it’s not hard once you know how it feels. If you do try it, definitely be prepared to be frustrated at least once and stall the car at least more than once (I know I did)!
Once you figure it out, though, it can be much more fun and engaging (and sometimes more annoying) than an automatic.
EDIT: that said, if you’re really concerned about it, don’t be ashamed to rent the automatic!
No more difficult than using a phone while walking, except looking around while driving is even more important. I’ve taught several people how to drive a manual transmission in an afternoon. Different afternoons of course.
The basics are easy - half an hour with someone who knows what they"re doing should be all you need to get out and about. Getting to the point where it’s instinctual and you don’t have to think about shifting is probably beyond the limits of a short trip but depending on how much driving you do you can be fairly smooth within a few days.
The main risk you run with learning manual is that once you get the hang of it it spoils automatics for you - you might end up having to buy yourself a manual car to avoid being annoyed by the missteps autos tend to do.
Modern autos with cvts are kinda at the point where it is basically magic. They feel like driving a golf kart that can reach 200km/h.
Are you sure you will be allowed to drive a manual car in Romania with your American license if you didn’t take the test with a manual car? I live in a different European country and here if you take the test with an automatic car, you are only allowed to drive automatic cars. You should research this.
It’s definitely different from an automatic car and requires more concentration. Once you get used to it, it’s not difficult. I was older than you are now when I learned to drive at all (which I did on a manual car) and managed it anyway.
US licenses don’t differentiate. There’s no way to tell by the license which transmission you used on the test. Shouldn’t be a problem.
For that exact reason some countries (my country included) don’t accept an American license unless you do a test here first.
Though IIRC, that applies for both manuals and automatics, because American drivers education isn’t really trusted here.
With the Geneva convention on Road Traffic they must recognize it, at least for visitors. However you are probably right if OP tried to move there and get a local license, they’d need to retest.
I have my US (state) driver’s license & my IDP, neither which specify manual/automatic, so there’s nothing stopping me from driving a manual legally. In Romania, from what my bf told me, if you pass your test on an automatic you can de jure only drive automatic as you have a marker on your license, but de facto you can drive whatever as there are no actual legal penalties mentioned in the law for driving a manual with a marked license.
When I was in Romania last year the rental company (enterprise) wouldn’t accept my US driver license…not sure if it is Romanian law or company policy though.
You also need an IDP: “U.S. citizens who wish to drive in Romania must have an International Driving Permit (IDP) in addition to the valid U.S. state drivers’ license (DL).” https://ro.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/additional-resources-for-u-s-citizens/driving-in-romania/
Ah missed you said you have your international drivers permit. You’re good then, and there’s a lot of country roads in Romania to learn on…I say give learning manual a shot :)
You might want to check the details here: I know that in some European countries, you’ll have trouble renting a car at all with an American license unless you pass a driving test in a European country first to get certified. In fact, in several countries I don’t think an American license is valid at all until you pass a test. It’s probably worth checking out the details for Romania.
Generally you are allowed to drive whatever you could at home. Since US licenses allow you to drive a manual you can drive a manual even if you never had. By contrast if you are from a country that makes the distinction you can’t drive a manual even if you have been practicing (how?) and just need to do the final test to drive a manual. (I’m not sure how someone without a manual endorsement would go about getting it in such countries, but whatever that process is)
I don’t really think there’s any “generally” here: It differs quite a bit between countries. I believe in some countries they won’t allow you to drive a manual unless your license specifies it (i.e. an American license isn’t valid for a manual).
The US doesn’t have licenses differentiated for automatic or manual, well, none of the 8 states I’ve lived in anyway, so there’s no way for Romania to know.
It is, in fact, very easy for them to tell whether you license specifies that you can drive a manual or not. If it doesn’t say anything, then it doesn’t qualify.
That’s exactly the point: If there’s no way to differentiate, the country is free to say “welp, that’s your problem. Your license doesn’t specify manual, so no manual for you.”
No it’s pretty general. Check out the following international treaties:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Convention_on_Road_Traffic
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traffic
As a benefit of these treaties, if I so chose (and we’re rich) I could even ship my car to Europe and just drive it around (up to 6 months) without really doing anything! It doesn’t need to meet most any of the EU car rules either.
Now if I tried to permanently import it, I’d have to make modifications like light colors and such to make it legal.
But really for visitors the rules are pretty lax. You need an international driving permit which is really just a translated license.
You can forget these international treaties. No Romanian policeman is supposed to know or observe them.
Romanian law is what counts.
Soon there will be some EU law regarding driver’s licenses, but not yet.
Foreigners driving around isn’t that uncommon, especially in Europe…
Sure it’s possible that if stopped you may get hassled more than usual, made to wait while the officer asks the station what to do but there’s no real risk of anything more than that.
I took my driving lessons with a manual, but have been driving automatic for over a decade now.
Whenever I do need to drive a manual, I usually need a while to get used to it again. At those moments I make use of the guidelines that were taught to me by my driving instructor:- Is for getting the car going and getting in or out of a parking spot.
- Is for speeds up to 25 km/h
- Is for speeds up to 45 km/h
- Is for speeds up to 75 km/h
- Is for anything beyond
It’s a simple helper that matches most of the common speed zones in the Netherlands (30, 50, 80). From what I can quickly read, the 80 zone is 90 in Romania, so it should still work?
Anyway, don’t worry too much. It is also nice not having to drive at all if it comes down to that, your boyfriend’s family sounds nice :)
Enjoy your trip!Not quite that simple. Speed is only a rough guideline. When you shift depends largely on how hard you’re accelerating. In a typical car if you’re trying to get up speed to get on the freeway, 25 is way too soon to shift into 3rd. I wouldn’t until at least 30. Same if you’re going up a hill, at 25 the car won’t have enough torque for 3rd gear.
It was just a basic guideline being taught to me back then. And I guess it’s mainly for cruising speeds. You might want to stick with a lower gear for accelerating. There are of course all kinds of exceptions. And NL is basically flat, so I don’t know about hills :)
But the km/h list gives me something to fall back on when in doubt. Driving is stressful enough for me as it is.
Visit a AAA location and get an “international drivers permit”. It’s super easy and a good insurance policy for yourself. I highly doubt the police speak much English and aren’t corrupt, so it may save headaches. Also, watch out on neighborhood streets for potholes.
