How best to teach my daughter to drive a Miata

Well, the time has come and I am now teaching my daughter to drive my Miata.
She quickly picked up the whole concept of a manual transmission and was out
on the open roads after a short practice session in a parking lot. As with
all new drivers to a manual transmission, the most challenging thing for her
is the balance between accelerator and clutch when taking off from a stop
(e.g., somewhere between stalling the engine and spinning the rear tires).
Any advice to help her get the feel of the clutch and engine?

Gus (91 BRG)

practice makes perfect (along with constant instructional input ;-) but
after awhile, I found with ea of my 3 kids, frustration sets in and I
believe learning, for all intents and purposes ends. I recommend several
relatively short sessions rather than a couple long / grueling / frustrating
sessions. When you feel frustration coming on, find something good and leave
on a high note. Each of my kids at some point decided I'd made a big mistake
but got over / through it and now they each prefer to drive standard and
enjoy it. I'd just add that your frustration level can be the limiting
factor of the session too!

Good luck,
Chris
99BBB

"nosfatsug" > wrote in message
...
> Well, the time has come and I am now teaching my daughter to drive my
> Miata. She quickly picked up the whole concept of a manual transmission
> and was out on the open roads after a short practice session in a parking
> lot. As with all new drivers to a manual transmission, the most
> challenging thing for her is the balance between accelerator and clutch
> when taking off from a stop (e.g., somewhere between stalling the engine
> and spinning the rear tires). Any advice to help her get the feel of the
> clutch and engine?
>
> Gus (91 BRG)
>

Excellent advice. If you get unnerved by the car bucking and stalling,
it will be very difficult to endure. You have to accept this as part of
the learning experience. I also used a vacant parking lot for two of my
three daughters. They are plentiful here in Silicon Valley :-)

Good luck.

Ken


Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
> practice makes perfect (along with constant instructional input ;-) but
> after awhile, I found with ea of my 3 kids, frustration sets in and I
> believe learning, for all intents and purposes ends. I recommend several
> relatively short sessions rather than a couple long / grueling / frustrating
> sessions. When you feel frustration coming on, find something good and leave
> on a high note. Each of my kids at some point decided I'd made a big mistake
> but got over / through it and now they each prefer to drive standard and
> enjoy it. I'd just add that your frustration level can be the limiting
> factor of the session too!
>
> Good luck,
> Chris
> 99BBB
>
> "nosfatsug" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Well, the time has come and I am now teaching my daughter to drive my
>> Miata. She quickly picked up the whole concept of a manual transmission
>> and was out on the open roads after a short practice session in a parking
>> lot. As with all new drivers to a manual transmission, the most
>> challenging thing for her is the balance between accelerator and clutch
>> when taking off from a stop (e.g., somewhere between stalling the engine
>> and spinning the rear tires). Any advice to help her get the feel of the
>> clutch and engine?
>>
>> Gus (91 BRG)
>>
>
>

Ken and Chris, Thanks for the advice. I couldn't agree with you more. I
survived teaching my wife to drive a 3 speed 68 Montigo back in college
after her father gave up. The best part was the big hill on the way into
campus with the stop light at the top. She almost needed both feet to push
in the clutch. 25 years later we are still married and while she prefers an
automatic, she drives a stick just fine. My older daughter lives out east
now, takes the subway and train most places she needs to go and so doesn't
drive very much. Anyway, she never really had an interest in learning to
drive a stick and so I never taught her. My younger daughter however lit up
when I suggested she learn since I am now traveling quite a bit, which
leaves the Miata at home alone. Surprisingly, I am doing OK so far with the
lurching and screeching. She actually does quite well most of the time.
I'm more concerned about her getting frustrated and so am looking for hints
to help her get the feel of clutch. I've been holding the sessions down to
30 minutes and we have not had any boughts of frustration by either of us.
We'll keep pluggin away and I am confident she will figure it all out.
Thank again,

Gus (91 BRG)

> Ken wrote
>
> Excellent advice. If you get unnerved by the car bucking and stalling, it
> will be very difficult to endure. You have to accept this as part of the
> learning experience. I also used a vacant parking lot for two of my >
> three daughters. They are plentiful here in Silicon Valley :-)
>
> Good luck.
>
> Ken
>
>
> Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
>> practice makes perfect (along with constant instructional input ;-) but
>> after awhile, I found with ea of my 3 kids, frustration sets in and I
>> believe learning, for all intents and purposes ends. I recommend several
>> relatively short sessions rather than a couple long / grueling /
>> frustrating sessions. When you feel frustration coming on, find something
>> good and leave on a high note. Each of my kids at some point decided I'd
>> made a big mistake but got over / through it and now they each prefer to
>> drive standard and enjoy it. I'd just add that your frustration level can
>> be the limiting factor of the session too!
>>
>> Good luck,
>> Chris
>> 99BBB
>>

Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
> practice makes perfect (along with constant instructional input ;-) but
> after awhile, I found with ea of my 3 kids, frustration sets in and I
> believe learning, for all intents and purposes ends. I recommend several
> relatively short sessions rather than a couple long / grueling / frustrating
> sessions. When you feel frustration coming on, find something good and leave
> on a high note. Each of my kids at some point decided I'd made a big mistake
> but got over / through it and now they each prefer to drive standard and
> enjoy it. I'd just add that your frustration level can be the limiting
> factor of the session too!
>
> Good luck,
> Chris
> 99BBB

Where is the challenge in that?

I still remember being 17 years old and buying my '78 280Z. My Ford
Econoline was being bought at the same time, giving me the money for the
Datsun purchase.
I suddenly realized that I now owned a 5-speed without having ever
driven a manual.

I stalled it a few times, burned out a few times, , (ok, more than a
few), and stopping on hills scared the hell out of me at first, but it
didn't take too long to get it down. I had studied the concept at least,
but there was never an instructor.

The way Chris suggests is better, I think, than the sink or swim approach.
One other thing is that I found it helpful to know what was going on
with the transmission.
You don't have to show her how to rebuild a manual transmission, but if
she has a general idea of what the flywheel and clutch are doing, it can
possibly help.

Good luck!

Pat

In article >,
"nosfatsug" > wrote:

> Any advice to help her get the feel of the clutch and engine?

Take her to an empty parking lot with a moderate slope. Her mission is
to hold the car on the slope by slipping the clutch, eventually making
it creep forward and back a couple of feet at a time, without using the
brakes, under complete control...while staying under 1500 rpm. Don't
worry about the clutch--you can tell her to take a break if it starts
smelling funny. You might let her know that most drivers NEVER learn how
to do this, even though it's not particularly difficult. It just takes a
little practice.

Explain the goal, then get out of the car and leave her alone until
she's ready to quit. Just go away, don't even hang around to watch. If
she doesn't master it the first outing, don't tell her what she was
doing wrong--she knows, and just needs more practice. Motivation is
usually a larger issue than instruction; kids are just as smart as
adults, and perfectly capable of teaching themselves such simple tasks
as driving a manual transmission. Avoid criticism and embarrassment, and
she'll do the rest on her own. Probably in under five minutes.

Pat Wrote:

> I still remember being 17 years old and buying my '78 280Z.

Intersting, I learned on a 73 240Z. It was my dad's car which I started
backing in and out of the garage so I could get the mower out when I was
about 13. By the time I first drove it on the street, the first day I had
my license, I had a good handle on starting and stopping, but had never had
it out of first or reverse.

One of the scariest experiences I have had was in that car. The throttle
stuck full open when I was accelerating in first gear. Thanksfully, my dad
had tought me well and I knew just to put my foot on the brake until I got
the trottle loose. The only thing I could figure out was that the linkage
had jammed where it went through the firewall. Once I got is loose, it never
stuck again.

> One other thing is that I found it helpful to know what was going on with
> the transmission.
> You don't have to show her how to rebuild a manual transmission, but if
> she has a general idea of what the flywheel and clutch are doing, it can
> possibly help.
>

Good suggestion. I've been going slow and keeping it simple with my
daughter. She's fairly mechanical (she helped me change the fuel filter
when she was 10) and is grasping the ideas fairly quickly. She understood
right away when I explained what the burning smell was after she had
practiced a few starts on a hill.

Gus (91 BRG)

Lanny Chambers wrote:

> Explain the goal, then get out of the car and leave her alone until
> she's ready to quit. Just go away, don't even hang around to watch.


I was going to suggest the same thing, and I still would with someone
teaching their spouse, but this is his daughter.

She is going to be able to drive a manual, something that not many kids
could do at my high school. When someone asks her where she learned how,
she will say, "My dad taught me", instead of, "My dad dropped me off and
let me figure it out after explaining what I was supposed to do".

Unless he is truly intimidating her by being present, this is an
experience that goes beyond technicalities, and it will happen only once.

Pat

nosfatsug wrote:

> One of the scariest experiences I have had was in that car. The throttle
> stuck full open when I was accelerating in first gear. Thanksfully, my dad
> had tought me well and I knew just to put my foot on the brake until I got
> the trottle loose. The only thing I could figure out was that the linkage
> had jammed where it went through the firewall. Once I got is loose, it never
> stuck again.

Most of my scariest experiences were in the two 280Z's that I owned. ;-)

> Good suggestion. I've been going slow and keeping it simple with my
> daughter. She's fairly mechanical (she helped me change the fuel filter
> when she was 10) and is grasping the ideas fairly quickly. She understood
> right away when I explained what the burning smell was after she had
> practiced a few starts on a hill.
>
> Gus (91 BRG)

Have fun, there have been a number of good suggestions here, it doesn't
sound like she will have any trouble.

Pat

Are you sure that is a good car to learn to drive in? Being one of the best
handing & easiest to drive cars ever made, once you daughter is used to it,
she will come to grief driving almost anything else! It's also smaller &
has better visibility than almsot anything esle. I recently taugth my son
to drive, we started out in an 89 Hyundai Excel.


"nosfatsug" > wrote in message
...
> Well, the time has come and I am now teaching my daughter to drive my
> Miata. She quickly picked up the whole concept of a manual transmission
> and was out on the open roads after a short practice session in a parking
> lot. As with all new drivers to a manual transmission, the most
> challenging thing for her is the balance between accelerator and clutch
> when taking off from a stop (e.g., somewhere between stalling the engine
> and spinning the rear tires). Any advice to help her get the feel of the
> clutch and engine?
>
> Gus (91 BRG)
>