[Closed] Any tips for driving an automatic??

Tuck your left foot under your seat to start with, classic mistake is to try to dip the clutch as you stop, only to find it is actually the brake.
You prob only do this once..
Other than that - modern advice is to us the gears so don't just leave in drive.
Coming up or down a steep hill put in 2nd for instance.
Very steep country lane - poss 1st.
Also using the gears give you engine breaking, which with most autos you do not have in drive.

as per Jerome, glue you left foot down or move it into a position well away from the pedals.

Foot thing won't be a problem as my sensodrive hasn't got a clutch ethier, although when i first got my citroen i burnt the top layer of my brake pads off still thinking i had a clutch i still remember that smell!!

My boss has just txted me saying the handbrake is a button on the dash and a small peddle tucked away! wtf?

There used to be thing called kick down, which changed down a gear if you floored the accelerator.
Modern auotos are a bit smarter and pick a gear for you depending on how hard you are pressing/ load/ speed etc..
Most have a sports setting, I just leave mine in Economy mode.

Don't know about that.
When you park you cannot take key out until you put the gear selector in park.
Park means the gearbox is locked and car is not going anywhere.
Still worth using handbrake though..

Treat it like a kart, two pedals, two feet. Left foot on the brake, right foot throttle. This can make driving an auto pleasurable.

Note: It may take a little while to develop braking sensitivity on the left, find somewhere quiet to practice.

all wrong.

put your right foot down as hard as possible, ignore the left pedal btw its pretty silly. Slows you down...pffft.

Then just concentrate on steering n stuff.

The usual Mercedes "hand"brake is applied via a small pedal tucked right up in the RHS of the footwell, and released via a button/lever on the lower RH corner of the dashboard.

Cheers guys! another reason i kept my citroen is that its like driving on the xbox! with the paddles up, down! only other problem is the size of the van! haven't driven anything bigger than a pug 206 in the past!

Americans can manage it. You'll be fine.

i can't believe someone has asked this question. ****me.

Learning to drive in an automatic in my teens,mate tied my left foot to the seat frame so i couldnt move it,driveing round for a few hours and got stopped by the Police,went to get out of car to talk to them,and fell flat on my face,much hilarity by Police(they used to have a laugh)everything worked out ok,their advice,get a manual,or wear slipons.

Drove an auto once for a week, 1st morning, up at 5am and forgot I was in it, first junction left foot down on 'clutch' - I'll never forget the look on the van driver's face behind me.

The size may cause you more problems. Just give yourself far more room. The 'left foot stays on the floor' advice is solid.

My hint - dont crash it.

Hope that helps.

P.s. use one or two feet, whichever is best for you.

Make sure you carry a set of jump leads, you cant push start an automatic.

As said:
- use only your right foot
- don't brake unless you have to, just take your foot off the gas
- all autos 'kick-down' if you press the pedal hard/sharp enough
- driving an auto means you have a spare hand and foot, use them for something else 😛
- a small engined auto is probably the worse vehicle ever
- once you've driven a large engined auto I don't think you want to go back to a manual, just a bigger engined auto
- brakes are better on auto's
- the handbrake is only there by law, and of no use whatsoever
- just use 'drive', don't use the manual bits
- auto's are what racing drivers have for their own cars!

my sympathies
we have a vito automatic at work from time to time and it is honestly the most horrible thing to drive, worse than them crappy isuzu vans

it's even falling to bits and I'm not helping by booting the crap out of the footwell

Stock pile brake discs and pads cos it will eat them. Apart from the extra consumption they are great, especially on long motorway trips. I had an old Honda Accord estate 2.2 auto, loved it. Must have a big engine!

Avoid stupid-steep hills.
I remember trying to rescue an auto Clio that couldn't drive up a slip-way. My manual diesel Mondeo rescued it in the end, but by then something had gone horribly wrong with it, engine would still run but no drive, only reverse still worked. Decent clutch control eliminated that problem for my car.

Also be warry of it changing gear mid-corner. My girlfriend crashed hers last Jan, I suspect it may have tried to change gear on a patch of ice on a tight corner, wrote the car off, she was lucky to escape with just a dodgy shoulder.
And of course they will drink more than an equivelent manual.

I will never have an auto.

Good luck with the auto - just remember that it will always move forward unless you brake. Once you get used to it you'll be fine - easy as pie to drive and great in heavy traffic or city centres. All posts above on brake wear and fuel consumption are spot on! Just leave it in drive and avoid other gears unless you're on a steep hill . . .

Ref the parking brake on Mercedes,on a right hand drive car,the foot pedal to operate the parking brake is tucked away on the [b]LHS[/b],inboard of where the clutch pedal would ususlly be.

I love my auto, might not be great in a fiesta but in a 4L jeep it works great. I wished I'd tried it years earlier, just makes driving so much less of a pain in the ass.

Embarrassing incident a few years back... flew into Denver for a work trip, arriving early hours of the morning jetlagged and absolutely knackered. Signed in at car hire desk and was ferried out in a little van and dropped off in the middle of a vast, poorly lit parking lot roughly the size of Norfolk. Wind was howling and it was snowing, and all I wanted to do was get to the hotel. Found the car and only realised it was an auto when I got in and started it up (van had driven off by now). Had never driven one before, and couldn't get the damn thing into drive. There was no-one around to ask, I had no idea which way the office was, mobile was dead, and by this time it was snowing a blizzard. Ended up curling up the car and trying to get some sleep for a few hours until I heard an airport maintenance truck drive by. Ran after it and asked the driver (a Native American lady) to help me. She pointed out that I needed to push the brake pedal to get it into drive and gave me a withering look. Doh!

^^haha! I did the same thing the first time I went to drive a friends Auto Cherokee home alone. I

sat there for a good 10mins until I clicked. I totally thought it was the alarm system or something I'd messed up with...

dont put your foot down at the junctions or lights to beat somebody autos dont acelerate like manuals if you floor it the gears just change, had a galaxy auto diesel great car towed a trailer in the lakes for a week and for work now have a auto yaris and seinna van here in the usa makes driving so much easier

[b]I suspect it may have tried to change gear on a patch of ice on a tight corner[/b]

It's the ice and tight corner that caused the problems. Transmission had/has nothing do do with it.

For fast starts in autos, hold the thing on the brake (left foot), bring the converter up to stall 2500-3000rpm on the throttle (right foot), light turns green = go! Don't hold it like this for long, as the trans fluid will overheat, wait for the orange light.

b r - Member

As said:

- the handbrake is only there by law, and of no use whatsoever

Don't be a **** all your life. If you've stopped at the traffic lights, use the handbrake rather than pissing off the people behind you with high-vis brake lights glaring at them. I hate ****s who sit on the brake pedals.

Or put the vehicle into 'park'. 🙄

If you get smacked up the arse in park you can kiss goodbye to your gearbox.

p*ss yourself for the smell-of-urine look, don't turn your lights on when driving around town at night, learn to park *really* badly and you're there.

chopperT - Member

For fast starts in autos, hold the thing on the brake (left foot), bring the converter up to stall 2500-3000rpm on the throttle (right foot), light turns green = go! Don't hold it like this for long, as the trans fluid will overheat, wait for the orange light.

I used to just stick it in 1 and then use as per manual 😈 Can only assume modern ones are the same but with more gears.

Around town sticking it in 2/3 will stop box trying to use too many gears and you can get revs/speed up and control it better.

That was a few years ago, actually did a factory course on Borg Warner 65 gearboxes. A week in Coventry for a country boy was magic, got educated on more than auto boxes 😆

Presume you have the correct licence for this?
Your worry about driving a big van would indicate not?

Buy some driving gloves and a flat cap, oh and mine's gearbox is smart enough to adapt to your driving style, and it maintains speed (rather than speeding up) if you lift off going down hill, modern autos rock!

You don't need any special licence to drive a 9 seat vito. Only vehicles with more than 9 seats change the requirements or over 3.5/7.5 tons (depending on when you passed your test).

The vito does have a normal handbrake as do all autos but it works a bit differently. On the very left of the footwell will be a small (like inch square) pedal, push this down to put the handbrake on. To release you pull a handle by the door at about the same height as the steering wheel. there is no subtly to this just complete release.

Thanks for the replies had a blast in this today, the hand brake isn't a great design, peddle is stupidly small, couldn't find it when i needed it, but yep fairy easy to drive just the sheer bulk when compared to small cars ive driven in the past.

Thing is like a tank compared to what ive driven in the past, wobbles a bit at speed but fun all the same!