I seen someone asking this question on Reddit and get different answers, I’m thinking of doing the same thing this year and maybe more people here have more experience.
I did my diving test and passed in Taiwan in an automatic car, like most people. My home license is unfortunately expired and I want to take a holiday in Europe and manual car hire is much much cheaper than automatic.
To upgrade to a manual Taiwan license some people say only special parts of the test need to be done again like the hill start and straight part to third gear and other people are saying the whole test needs to be taken again.
Does anyone have any actual personal experience of upgrading?
BTW I checked the website to apply for a driving test and everything in the centres I wanted is completely book out for at least a month! I guess backlog from Covid or something.
I recently (Nov) changed my DL to manual.
You will only need to do the outer ring of the test ( Signalling, up the little hill and stopping in the correct area, shifting from 1st to 3rd in a certain distance, etc…). You are not required to do the parallel parking, s-turn, reverse parking, all inner testing. But you will also have to do all the pre-drive inspection which has an order in which to inspect first. So, either watch a YouTube video and watch the pre-drive inspection and outer ring of the test, or go to a driving school and ask them if you could use their track to practice first, or both. I did that, they charged me $1000nt to use their van for one hour on the course. That included an instructor on the first lap who explained everything needed doing. It’s really easy, but you have to follow the rules exactly or points will be deducted and they can add up quickly. My wife and I passed easily.
Thank you so much, this is perfect information! I did my driving test in Taiwan so am familiar with the stupid things we need to do to pass! It has been many years since I drove with a manual so will take your advice and go to a driving school for an hour or two! You need to do all the traffic light and training cross and these things too, only the middle part with parking and S is not required? Did you apply for normal driving test or some special application? Thank you so much again!
Just applied to convert from auto to manual. Yes inner course is not needed. Those schools are private so there’s no guarantee you will get the same deal as I did about using their vehicle.
Also, the government testing place gave me a list of everything that would be tested and the point value for each one.