Oh boy, what a pretty car. u One of my friends had gotten a standard car, but her mom ended up using it and she had to use her mother's car. xD If you stick to it, I'm sure it will be worth learning.

melaka - That's a relief to hear. I find myself getting used to changing gears but still having trouble getting it going. ;_; Hills are a major pain in my ass. I was pulling up into my driveway (which has a slight slope) and was stuck there for the longest time. I think I should have my dad do that too. :P

PUNKrose - My mom hates my car so I don't have a problem there. She's used to driving her SUV. She feels like she's "dragging ass" when she drives my car. xD By that she means she feels too low on the ground. :P I hope so, I'm so ready to roll out of here with my Midnight Beast. c:

I drive a black RSX-S so it's a 6-speed. My cousin, on the other hand, has a white Celica GTS, also 6-speed. I drove her car before so I kind of have an idea of what you're going through.

First off, drive it. If it were me, I wouldn't have gotten a brand new (term used loosely here) car to learn how to drive manual. It really hurts the car, quite frankly. I learned how to drive manual on an 89 VW Golf Cabriolet. That little car was fun and I named him Stuart. My friend gave me a two hour crash course on driving manual and after that, it was all practice.

First 2 weeks were tough since I stalled quite a few times. But the truth is, you gotta get out there and force yourself to drive the car. If not, it's really just going to sit there in your driveway, collecting dust. I stalled many many times when I first started off with Stuart. I would stall in the middle of intersections, on a stretch of road, etc etc etc. The important thing is don't feel embarrassed. Everyone goes through the same thing when they first learn how to drive manual. No one was born knowing how to do it. Whenever you stall, just turn off the ignition, and then restart the car again quickly.

First you should find out how much of the clutch you can ease off before it stalls. That's important since if you do a lot of city driving, you'll be stopping and starting and stopping.... it gets annoying. But if you ease off on your clutch while you're in first gear, the car will slowly inch forward. (Note: probably not a good idea to do this while on an incline at first.... I can do this now, but not a good move for a newbie)

After figuring out how much you can ease off, you want to start driving it around the block. The Celica is not really a powerful car, and quite frankly shouldn't be revved too high. When I drive my RSX, I usually change gears at around 4000rpm. My car was made to be "tortured" so to speak. But I noticed that a lot of Celica do not do very well when revved very high. So....you should shift up a gear when you're around 3000 - 3500rpm, max. I sometimes rev my RSX to 6000rpm just to hear the vtec kick in. :P

When you are about to shift up a gear, clutch in, shift up, and then quickly release the clutch a split second before you ease on the gas. You want to avoid stalling your car, but you also don't want to ride the clutch. When you shift gears around 2000rpm, you car won't get going because there's not enough torque. Like I said before, 3000rpm is a good place to shift up a gear on the Celica.

Really important thing to do now is to practice moving the car on an incline. Drive half way up a hill, come to a complete stop, and then start going again. This way, you practice and you learn how much clutch you can let go so that the car doesn't roll backwards. (Remember that little traffic trick I mentioned earlier?) The clutch is kind of like the trigger of a gun; you can pull back on the trigger a little and you won't fire a bullet. Same with the clutch.

If you are really uncomfortable with going forward on an incline, or you stopped at a red light on a very very steep hill, there's another way to move forward without really rolling back. First put your car into first gear, have your feet on both the clutch and the brake. Your right hand should have the E-brake up as well. When it's time to go, lift your right foot off the brakes, and cover the gas pedal. Slowly gas while easing off the clutch and lowering your E-brake at the same time. This way, you won't roll back.

However, I find that it's better if you practice the hill exercises. A lot easier than to do that whole E-brake thing. Frankly, I don't like it. :P

I hope this helped you somewhat. If you are still unsure about some things, you are welcome to send me a sMail or leave me a message on my profile. Have fun with the Celica, it's a nice ride. First chance you get, you should get some tints and drop it. :)

Anyway. I like to show off too. :P

This was Ethan almost a year ago.

And then I blacked out his eyes....and gave him new eyeballs! (HIDs) Pardon the crappy shot (it's from my phone) and pardon the dirtiness. :P I haven't had time to wash him recently.

The Celica is definitely not as powerful as an almighty RSX. I change gears pretty much within a few sec. after taking off. And I never rev further than 2000 rpm. :P

OMG I fucking hate hills. I can't even get into my driveway without stalling. xD Unfortunately for me I live in a desert/mountain area so hills are something I definitely need to get down. I pretty much got all the basics down, all I need is the practice of course. :) Thanks for the tips and such, it did help.

And nice car. Mine is dirty right now too. I'm waiting for the monsoon season to be over so I can clean it and it'll actually stay clean for more than a day. ;P

Try revving around 3000rpm. You will notice that your car gets more power going wherever you need to go. But don't stay at 3000 for too long; it drains gas. :P When I drove my cousin's car, I thought it would be like my car so I would rev it up to like 4500rpm before changing gears. And I drove like that for about a week. After giving the car back to her, she called me and asked if I had tortured her car. >___> (She found out I did...)

Needless to say, she wasn't pleased.

Just keep practicing and you'll get the hang of it. The Celica is a very nice car to drive. Take good care of it. :)

Love the car!! I've always driven manual. First few weeks I was absolutly shocking but you get used to it. Now I don't even think about changing gears and stuff, it's all just natrual. I rev to just over 3000rpm before I change gears. Just remember, always start in 1st (duh), 2nd if your turning a corner at a junction or something.. Best to go up hills in 2nd so unless you want to stall. Hill starts are fun too. I overheated my sisters car once trying to do them but now I can do it with just the clutch. Its easy, foot on the clutch, and you take it off until the car sort of drops and then you take your foor off the break. Practic it because what happens if your handbreak stops working.

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c342/anna13315/lala-1.jpg[/IMG] ^^ Thats my car, not much to show off but it does the job xD

Mum's on the other hand... I'd looove to steal that off her one day. Holden Monaro V8 supercar. [IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c342/anna13315/monaro.jpg[/IMG]

What color red is that, if you know?? I just like how it looks. Haha

I love anything car-related and custom lol :P

your celica is hottt :) i drive manual. once you get used to it, its fine. the more powerful cars are manual :D:D

It's actually orange :) Just looks red because of the light. This car full of guys ran into the back of the car the other day, they were so busy looking at the car that they forgot to break hahaha. It was so funny. Luckily didn't do any damage tho.

• knows shit about cars- I don't even drive yet, but I wish you good luck with your new car :D

Haha I LOVE HATERS!

lol When I roll up to a light in my car, EVERYONE looks. They don't expect a little white girl like myself to be driving in something so badass :D

I love cars. I love fixing them up and I love to get the worst beaters and drive them. I currently have a '90 miata. I have an '87 626 in my driveway (for sale lol) I have had a '95 626, '83 datsun 200sx, and an '88 corolla. I only drive standard.

It really does get a lot easier the more you drive them :) Nice car, by the way. I tend to like the older celicas, but I tend to enjoy older cars anyway. Not classic, just older.

... I don't even know what standard means. CARFAIL

Ooooh, right. Thanks.

LOL nice. I'm surprised that I've never seen a car thread before this! We should all post our babies up here... and share some mods and stuff. :P

I'm getting Ethan tinted soon. 20% in the back and nothing in the front. Front tint = illegal in BC. :P Stupid laws.

lol i dont do standard. i like my oldsmobile automatic with heated seats (jk its not mine., im driving it while im on my permit) but good luck!

Never heard it called standard. :p

I've never driven standard though, I just started driving. c: I don't really want to, I suck at driving anyway. I don't need more chance to crash. XD

go you for driving the way cars should be driven. more control ftw

rofl @ auto

I talk British English so I'm presuming standard means manual?

I learnt to drive in a manual car and I find it easy enough. In this country if you pass your test in an automatic car you're not allowed to drive manual cars but is you pass in a manual car you can drive both.

I don't think I'd trust an automatic car. How does it know what's going to happen? I can see ahead and know to prepare but the car wouldn't know until I slowed down/accelerated.