Learning to Drive a Manual Transmission Car

One of my goals for us before we leave for our trip is learning to drive a manual transmission car.  We want to do this for one big reason: In Europe, manual transmission car rentals are the norm.  And because they are the norm, they are vastly cheaper than an automatic transmission.   An automatic transmission vehicle can be 2-5 times more expensive than a manual transmission one.  For example, a quick search on Kayak for a car rental in Ireland for 2 weeks in March shows a manual transmission car as cheap as $2 / day.  The cheapest automatic transmission is $11 / day.  The automatic is 5 times more expensive.  The same search in June shows $7 / day vs $20 / day, at almost 3 times more expensive.  So the imperative to save money this was is pretty real for us.

So right after the New Year, I started calling driving schools so that we could learn.  I called 11 local driving schools to find out that none of them, not one, teaches how to drive a manual.  They all only teach on automatic transmission.   The next option was to rent a manual transmission car and prevail on the kindness of a friend to teach us.  I couldn’t find a single car rental agency in South Florida that would even rent a manual.  Not even a fancy high class sports car.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do next, so I called one of the driving schools back to explain my problem and see what they suggested.  The lady I spoke to was very nice and had what I thought was a hysterical suggestion. She suggested that we go car shopping at a high end dealership, like a BMW, and tell them we are in the market for a manual but don’t know how to drive one.  The salesperson will be keen on making a sale and will teach us how to drive it.  Then we would just say that we weren’t interested after all.

I had a good laugh about the suggestion.  But it just felt really dishonest to me.  After explaining my predicament to a group of friends over lunch, one of them was kind enough to offer to teach both Keith and I to drive a stick.  So soon enough, we will be road ready.

Though, if you are in the same position we are just visit that car dealership down the road.