I ordered my first car a week ago (2000 1.8T) now comes the fun part I have to learn how to drive a stick. Should I just get a friend to teach me or should I get a few hours with a pro? is the A4 a forgiving ride? I know this seems stupid but please respond

Since I am the first to respond, I won't flame you. Actually, I think it would be a good idea to learn from some sort of professional. Like any mechanical skill from shooting pool to swinging a golf club, the fewer bad habits you start with, the better. I have never had any instruction, and I am sure I would be better at it if I had gotten some from the beginning.

Good luck and congrats...

ie. guys who autocross, go to track events, and drivers ed. events on a regular basis. If so, they should be able to give you pretty solid instruction. Actually, it's pretty simple to learn and the biggest issue is practice, practice, practice. Avoid hills at first, practice on them when there is no other traffic (or very little). Also, the A4 is a very forgiving setup.

Regards,
Rodney

'99 A4 1.8tqms

I have some 300k miles on the clock, most on Audis. Tomorrow I will be teaching a friend on my 98.5 30v. Audis are very forgiving, even tho many people find the clutch "hard".

Where I come from (Switzerland) A4s are commonly used for driving ed (which is by orders of magnitude more strict than here in the US) and the school A4s are usually sold around 80k miles with the clutch feeling like new, so if you actually try to be nice, you won't damage your car.

My 1st "exercise" is always: stand still in the flat, insert 1st, slowly let go off the clutch - no gas. Then you will reach the point where the clutch grips. Get the car slowly rolling in this way. Learn finding this spot; once you know precisely where it is, you are halfway done - at that point you start adding gas and releasing the clutch more. At that point you are driving :-)

It's pretty simple. Patience is the key.

Good luck, and don't be afraid - you can't hurt the car unless you try to.

- Stan