About the BMW 320i

It’s been almost five months since the BMW 320i arrived at our home. Has it really been five months already? It doesn’t feel that long. And since the 320i is a manual, that means it’s been five months since I started using a manual car as my daily driver.

At this rate, I’m sure the year will fly by in no time… and before I know it, it’ll be time to pay the car tax again (laughs). The other day, my husband, who hadn’t driven the 320i in a while, said,

The engine feels way more responsive now. It actually feels better than right after delivery. Maybe the quirks from the previous owner have worn off.

I don’t notice much change myself since I drive it almost every day, but if my husband says so after a break, it must mean the driving feel is evolving. I’m really looking forward to getting even more familiar with it going forward.

About Driving a Manual

I used to have a mental block about driving manuals and couldn’t drive them at all, but once I started using a manual car regularly, I got used to it much faster than I expected. I think it took about a week before I could just “drive normally.”

However, the journey to driving smoothly and skillfully was long and deep. Not long ago, my husband advised me,

With manuals, it’s easy to focus too much on the clutch, but throttle work is just as important. Basically, you have to do every operation carefully and without rushing.

I understood that in my head, but I kept struggling to get it right.

The thing is, when I focused on being gentle with the throttle, I lost focus on the clutch; and when I tried to be gentle with the clutch, I lost focus on the throttle. As a result, I’d get shift shocks and couldn’t drive smoothly (-_-).

Sometimes it would go well, but for a while, it was always a bit off.

While driving recently, I was reminded again of how amazing automatic transmissions are, thinking, “PDK is really smart, automatics are incredible. They’re so much smoother than what humans can do.” Then suddenly, a moment came when I finally got the feel of it.

I realized, “Ah, so this is what it means to operate both clutch and throttle gently!” and finally got the sense of coordinating both feet simultaneously. Practice really is everything.

Then it struck me that driving a manual car regularly is definitely a great way to keep your brain sharp. For example, playing piano is said to help prevent cognitive decline because it requires using your brain and coordinating both hands and feet separately. Driving a manual might be similar.

This goes completely against the trend of advancing autonomous driving technology, but even if not every day, I hope to keep driving manuals for a long time to come.

A Side Note

I was so happy to finally get the feel of driving a manual that I parked the car and was fiddling with my phone to tweet about it when I sensed something moving outside. I looked up quickly and saw two adult wild boars casually walking right in front of me.

What?! Wild boars, seriously?! (ﾟдﾟ)!!

They had very gentle eyes and walked lightly, nothing like the reckless charge you’d expect. They slipped through a torn section of the fence and disappeared into the trees beyond.

If I hadn’t been on Twitter and had gone outside right away, I might have run into them. Getting hit by a wild boar can be really dangerous. I guess I should start thinking about how to handle encounters with wild boars from now on lol.