How to stop car juddering/shaking when taking off?

FawltyTowel

Sometimes, when I take off from first gear the car will kind of judder/shake and then cut out. Doesn't happen a lot, but I'm not completely sure why it does

I'm not sure if it's because I'm taking my foot off the clutch too soon, or I'm not putting enough rev into my acceleration

Or maybe it's something else

sillysmiles

Sit in the car, in a car park, and practice letting of the clutch and accelerating to get to a point where you car balance the car (use the clutch and accelerator to no let it move). That way you'll get to know the feeling of the car and where the bite point is. It's just practice and not over thinking it.

Alanstrainor

The answer is that it's probably a bit of both.

If you are stopped on a flat road and very very slowly and smoothly release the clutch when in first gear and apply no accelerator at all you will be able to get the car moving and have all feet off the pedals and crawl along at 4km/h. Obviously this is not advisable, but it's something a lot of learners don't realise.

So the answer is, you have to practise being smoother with the clutch and also applying sufficient accelerator to allow for a smooth and quick take off.

cantdecide

IME it's usually more a lack of throttle control.

Moving off is a balance between the applying throttle and releasing the clutch however, as above you can get the car going without any throttle if you have enough space and time. I've seen many learners being afraid of over-revving to the point where they are reluctant to input enough throttle. You find yourself under increasing pressure in real life situations because you need to move off more quickly but you can't because your release process is dependent on the clutch and can't be sped up.

If this is so in your case, the first thing I'd advise is be braver with the throttle and try to get over the panicky feeling of over revving and instantly releasing the throttle completely. If you over-rev, just swallow and try to bring the revs back down in a controlled way.

If you think this is possible with you, what you need to do is create an exercise around it. Maybe go to an empty car park and simply release the clutch then brake to a stop and release. Try different amounts of clutch and throttle input so you get comfortable with the parameters. Try if for five minutes and then take a break and resume so it's not too hard on the car but don't be afraid of revving or stalling, it's simply a part of learning.

whatawaster

When I was learning I found the easiest way to move off smoothly and not cut the car out was to release the clutch only without touching the accelerator.

The car will creep forward slowly and then you can ease on the accelerator.

Craftylee

You no doubt learnt in a Diesel, you can pull away fine just using the clutch in these cars (providing it's flat and not on a hill). However in a petrol you gotta give it some revs or it will stall.