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What is a stick shift/manual transmission?
Home » Automobiles » Stick Shift Manual Transmission » What is a stick shift/manual transmission?A manual transmission - aka stick shift, straight drive, standard or stick - is a type of transmission that often uses a driver-operated clutch and a moving gear selector.
There are generally two types of manual transmissions, one allows the driver to select any gear at any time, the other only lets you go to the next higher or lower gear.
Most cars with manual transmission come with four to six forward gears - five gears is the norm - along with one reverse gear. Some manual transmissions have been built with as few as two forward gears and as many as seven.
Manual transmissions come in two basic types: simple unsynchronized systems, where gears are spinning freely and their relative speeds must be synchronized by the operator to avoid noisy and damaging "clashing" and "grinding" when trying to mesh the rotating teeth; and synchronized systems, which eliminate this necessity while changing gears.
There are many people that feel like every new teenage driver should learn how to drive in a car with a manual transmission. That way if they ever are in a jam and need to drive stick they're ready. Driving a manual transmission is like riding a bike, you never forget how to do it once you learn.
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