And I thought I was an exception with crappy learning curve
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Here's how it was with me: First week I was somewhat fine - not very smooth, occasional stalling, then one night I went to my office parking lot and drove around for almost 2 hours, mostly 1st gear starts, and uphill starts. You could smell my clutch 2 miles away. I sucked. I was frustrated, I was thinking about what big mistake I made getting a 5-speed. I called my buddy and he said that yes, I suck and I should have gotten an auto. I told him to go screw himself and went home.
Then in a day or two I understood what I was doing wrong - I wasn't giving it enough gas, thus all the stalling. So it's "more gas" and "less panicing" - these are main things. 3rd main thing is practice. I sucked till about 1200 miles or so. Now I'm at 1800, I still think I suck, but I suck way less, and I'm not as nervous. I also noticed if I don't look at the car behind me when doing uphill start I do much much better (again "panic" thing).
Smooth shifts are a thing of practice - you need to start feeling the right RPMs for the smoothest shifts. If you are trying to accelerate fast it will be much harder to get smooth shifts - granny mode is much easier. I was in granny driving mode for the first month. Only now (almost two months later) I am starting to really enjoy my car, and dude - when you get to that point you will love yourself to death because it's 10x the pleasure of steering an auto.
So keep practicing, don't listen to people that say that it only takes a week to get used to 5-speed (maybe it does when you change cars, but not when it's your first 5-speed). Give it another month or so, practice on parking lots, or malls with a bunch of stop signs, find a little hill for uphill start practice, and be patient.
Yeah, and a month from now let me know how you are doing.
Here's how it was with me: First week I was somewhat fine - not very smooth, occasional stalling, then one night I went to my office parking lot and drove around for almost 2 hours, mostly 1st gear starts, and uphill starts. You could smell my clutch 2 miles away. I sucked. I was frustrated, I was thinking about what big mistake I made getting a 5-speed. I called my buddy and he said that yes, I suck and I should have gotten an auto. I told him to go screw himself and went home.
Then in a day or two I understood what I was doing wrong - I wasn't giving it enough gas, thus all the stalling. So it's "more gas" and "less panicing" - these are main things. 3rd main thing is practice. I sucked till about 1200 miles or so. Now I'm at 1800, I still think I suck, but I suck way less, and I'm not as nervous. I also noticed if I don't look at the car behind me when doing uphill start I do much much better (again "panic" thing).
Smooth shifts are a thing of practice - you need to start feeling the right RPMs for the smoothest shifts. If you are trying to accelerate fast it will be much harder to get smooth shifts - granny mode is much easier. I was in granny driving mode for the first month. Only now (almost two months later) I am starting to really enjoy my car, and dude - when you get to that point you will love yourself to death because it's 10x the pleasure of steering an auto.
So keep practicing, don't listen to people that say that it only takes a week to get used to 5-speed (maybe it does when you change cars, but not when it's your first 5-speed). Give it another month or so, practice on parking lots, or malls with a bunch of stop signs, find a little hill for uphill start practice, and be patient.
Yeah, and a month from now let me know how you are doing.
