My instructor says manual isn't for me.

If your paying the bill I would stay with the manual and if you don't feel comfortable at the end before the test just use the auto.

 

The school my nephew attended , a community college, let students stay after class and come on some Saturday’s if they needed extra practice time

you can do it .
Just be smooth ,
When you take your foot off the accelerator, don’t just lift up suddenly like you do in a car . ease off gently ,

Any jolts to the driveline will make it harder to slide into the next gear .

 

Stay manuel....

 

Everybody has to learn. Keep after it. Practice every chance you get. One day things will just fall into place and you'll wonder what the big problem was.

 

if he tests on the auto, he gets the restriction.......

best he keep at it with the manual and TEST on the manual.

 

My first truck was a 81 Ford with a 4 speed manual, I grew up running old Farmall H’s putting up hay every summer and driving pickups in the hay field by the time I was 10.

When it was time to get my A license a buddy from work was showing me the ropes of floating gears and I was absolutely confident I would pick it right up. I was wrong.

I didn’t go to school, just got my permit and had my buddy ride along with me helping me out. I pissed off a lot of motorists while I was learning due to losing my gear and having to come to complete stops to get going again.

Luckily my boss was very understanding as my buddy was the only A licensed driver at our company and he wanted to get another tractor. It was probably a good 6 months before I started to really get proficient at it. Took me 3 tries to get my license though that was mostly due to my pre-trip skills.

I would absolutely stick with learning the manual, you will have more opportunities in the future, plus the pride of learning something that is not easy in my opinion.

 

I passed my road test on a manual, just barely. Then I went 4 years before thrown into a manual truck and deserted.

It took me about a week to learn how to shift outside of a road test scenario in favorable conditions... at the expense of road public safety. I stalled my truck countless times, one time I was "broke down" on the Atlanta bypass right on an overpass. It really, really sucked.

But I figured it out. And you can figure it out too. It's just a machine. It will do the same thing every time. You just need to learn the rhythm. Keep at it, don't give up.

 

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong (that's why many spend time here, I think)....but.....truth be told -- most fleets by now have gone mostly, or completely...over to automatics, anyway.

However, there are some exceptions to that: most of the off-road CDL crowd still drive manuals, as do the oversize/overweight carriers; ditto for the loggers (again, offroad). I'm sure I'm leaving someone else out -- but it's not coming to me just now.

Past all that -- I would agree with post #6 above; if you can test out on a manual for your final CDL exam -- you won't have that restriction on your CDL license.

This will make you potentially more attractive to other carriers, later.

I'd make that my end-of-class goal.

You can do it.

-- L

 

My guess is that once you got on the real road you let the adrenaline control things and you started rushing.

Stay calm, slow acceleration, plan your shifts, then execute.