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Manual Transmissions
If you are car shopping for some kind of car other than a sports car (not a Corvette, Mustang, Lamborghini, etc) and everything else is equal (price, options, value, etc), what percentage would you assign to the likelihood of your buying a car with a manual transmission? For me, it's 50/50 in cars that are not sports cars (I've been looking at Corvettes lately and prefer a manual in it in most cases). If the 2 cars are identically equal (not likely with used cars) it would all depend on which seller I liked and/or trusted more. Sep 03 14 04:42 pm Link VW's and Smart Cars have the best of both worlds all rolled into one. Other companies probably do it too. http://www.autotrader.com/research/arti … ission.jsp Sep 03 14 04:50 pm Link It's not important to me to have a manual transmission per se. What's important to me is *not* having a torque converter. I hate the mushy feel they give. My car is currently a 5-speed manual. If/when I replace it I will pony up for a double clutch gearbox. Even if I got a sedan (my car is a 2-seat convertible) I would still forego the normal auto transmission/torque converter and go for a direct drive. But my wife doesn't drive stick.. so double clutch auto it is. Sep 03 14 04:50 pm Link Not a sports/high performance car, the likelihood is 0%. Wait.....maybe on a off road Jeep Wrangler. Sep 03 14 04:53 pm Link Lovely Day Media wrote: I have a manual, prefer it. Sep 03 14 05:17 pm Link Depends on where I live and the reason for using the vehicle. I have a Jeep TJ/Wrangler. It's a manual and I really wouldn't want it any other way (for the most part; more on that later). I used to have a XJ/Cherokee that was my daily commuter. It was an automatic. I wasn't interested in off-roading in it or anything like that. If I needed to be stuck in rush-hour traffic, that was the Jeep I was driving and driving a stick in Atlanta rush-hour is… not my favorite experience. I had one Jeep for work and one Jeep for play. One for hauling around photography gear & running errands and another for top-off/doors-off fun (very impractical for hauling too much). I sold that XJ a couple of years ago, though. So now my daily driver is my TJ. I still love the vehicle but stop-&-go traffic is chore. I can't wait to get another XJ again. I'll get another automatic so that long trips and rush-hour traffic is more relaxing. I used to have a sports car that was an automatic. It was great but I always wanted a stick because it made me feel more in control. It was psychological; the automatic was really fine in every way that mattered to me. Sep 03 14 05:30 pm Link The last slush box car I owned was 35 years ago, and I just prefer driving manuals. However, the new generation of 7, 8 and 9 speed automatics are as far removed from a Power-glide as an abacus to a PC. Sep 03 14 05:44 pm Link Lovely Day Media wrote: It depends on the vehicle and how good the MT is... I've driven some vehicles that are awesome with automatics but are a piece of shit with a MT. Sep 03 14 05:52 pm Link Depends. I drive a Chevy Cruze, and the 6 speed manual is quite nice. Its nothing special, but turns it from a boring small sedan to something a little more zippy and responsive. Next car will likely be automatic though, I want a luxury sedan and like just relaxing and driving. Sep 03 14 05:59 pm Link I prefer the stick cars, but modern "automatics" can be pretty awesome. They're not the deal breaker they used to be in terms of performance and mileage. Sep 03 14 06:29 pm Link Living in San Francisco for several years pretty much nullified any interest in manual transmissions. I'll take automatics from hereonin, thank you very much. However, if I get a yen to power up and down a set of gears, I have several two-wheeled vehicles that are perfect for the task.  Sep 03 14 06:33 pm Link I'm a stick man.  No, that's not what I mean.  Sep 03 14 06:55 pm Link I used to drive a stick. Loved it! The only time I didn't like it was when driving in Manhattan. Come to think of it, I hate driving in Manhattan no matter what. Sep 03 14 07:15 pm Link I enjoy manual shifting but it has been quite a while. My last manual transmission was a Triumph TR6 around '74 or so. But with ever increasing congestion it seems opportunities for enjoying manual shifting are decreasing. Pros 'n cons are favoring automatics IMHO. I would not enjoy getting stuck in bumper-to-bumper, slow moving traffic and having to constantly be moving a clutch pedal. For a pleasure-only vehicle I would love to have another one. But I have never had more than 4 gears though. Maybe 5 would be OK. But 6-speed seems a bit too busy to me, too much shifting... Sep 03 14 07:27 pm Link I drive a Dodge pickup with stick and V8. With a stick you can push start the old boy if needed. luv manual transmission in a p/u. Sep 03 14 07:53 pm Link For me, the answer is very clear: it depends. My Chevy Express passenger van is a very comfortable ride with an automatic transmission. It's a gas hog so I try to lay off the gas pedal anyway. I can't even feel it when I'm pulling a trailer. I can't imagine driving my 1936 Ford pickup or my 1974 VW Bug without a stick. The engine in the 36 (http://www.superchevy.com/features/sucs … 79-engine/) zips right up to 6,000 rpm with a well-matched close-ratio Muncie transmission and a big-ass 58 Oldsmobile rear end that's built like a tank. It's hard for me to imagine an automatic transmission in that application. How lame would that be? The Volkswagen is, ... well, .... a classic Volkswagen It needs a stick to do it's job. Sep 03 14 08:18 pm Link Stick 100%. I had a Nissan Altima (2002) 3.5SE with a 5-speed. Awesome car for city and highway driving. But they stopped making the manual transmission version. So when I needed a new car I got a VW Jetta TDI with the 6-speed manual. Fun to drive and great milage but there was an issue with mandatory biodiesel content in MN that in the long term will ruin the engines of VW Jetta TDI (and many other VW TDIs...). So I traded it in last year for a VW CC (2013)--6-speed turbo. Fun and I've always loved the look of the car. I got an R-line. I didn't drive a stick until I was 30--got a used Datsun 280Z T-Top 2+2. Have driven a stick ever since. Sep 03 14 08:47 pm Link Always wonder why some people have this love for manual transmission. I learned in France and pass my driving license on a manual transmission car I remember the headache parking on a hill having to deal with the hand break, clutch, gas pedal and stirring the car all at once and off course the all thing in reverse.... In the State you are either stuck in traffic or cruise on the highway at or a little over the speed limit.....Feel the same about cars that are designed to cruise at 120 mph plus..... and at best are allowed to go at 75 mph on most highways.. Sep 03 14 09:13 pm Link IMAGINERIES wrote: It's at least in part the difference in feeling between driving a car and riding in a car. Sep 03 14 09:20 pm Link IMAGINERIES wrote: I like them because they are, for me, more fun to drive. My VW CC has a great feature called hill hold. On a hill, say at a stop light, you engage the electric parking break. Then when you start up you let out the clutch and give it some gas and the parking break disengages. Viola! Sep 03 14 09:40 pm Link My first 2 cars were 4 speeds, a 68 350 Firebird, and a 69 SS Chevelle. Back then I couldn't imagine owning an automatic. If I had a sports car or old hot rod, I'd definitely want a stick. I've got a 2000 Jeep Wrangler that I bought for my ex that's an automatic, but the only off roading I do is driving down the beach. My daily driver is a 2012 Altima coupe that has some kind of automatic/manual set up in it, but I just put it in drive and go. Sep 03 14 09:45 pm Link Kevin Fair wrote: You should have kept them. You had good foresight in car choices. Sep 03 14 09:56 pm Link I don't have a "love" of manual transmissions but I don't hate them, either. My parents always had automatic transmissions until my father bought a truck when I was about 8. He let me move the truck around the yard sometimes (I obviously wasn't old enough to drive it on a road) so I learned how the clutch worked but never got out of 1st gear (relatively small yard). I was 17 before I drove one on the road. I didn't get any lessons or instructions. My now uncle (he was my aunt's boyfriend at the time) asked me to go pick my cousin up from school and said I could take his truck (a Ford F150 that had the 4.9 straight 6 and a 4 speed transmission). I taught myself, really. What I learned in that truck is to only put it in 1st gear if the truck was at a dead stop. I also learned that 1st gear was only good for about 6 mph. After that, I was no longer afraid of manual transmissions on any level so when I went used car shopping, no car was excluded based solely on the transmission in it. I've picked up a few cars that were otherwise undesirable because of the manual trans for a song. I personally think it's something that everyone who drives should know how to do. This way, when it comes time to buy a car, they might be able to pick up a real bargain, too. My oldest sister knows how but opts to never get another one. She's so against them that she wouldn't let her daughters even consider it when they started driving. I think that's a terrible thing and she has done them a disservice but as long as automatics are more desirable than manuals, they'll be just fine. Sep 03 14 09:57 pm Link Lovely Day Media wrote: since I don't mind driving either transmission type, and the car is not a sports car I would be 50/50 depending on the condition of the vehicle, and how likely the automatic transmission is to crap out. Sep 03 14 10:06 pm Link MB JenB wrote: I didn't care for a manual when I was stopped for a red light at the top of a hill in San Francisco. Sep 03 14 10:09 pm Link BlueMoonPics wrote: I take a bus into Manhattan and use the subway or walk. Sep 03 14 10:12 pm Link Jerry Nemeth wrote: Most SF hills aren't that bad, and I'm rarely in the hilly parts.... Sep 03 14 10:16 pm Link I've had several of both - daily drivers all of them. Depends on my location - the driving I do now in LA - can be murder. 91 freeway on a friday 4 hours/90 miles/half a billion clutch activations. Been there did that - it sucks. Automatic all the way. Now in the open country - it's kinda fun to drive manuals. But, I never had the ability to use a cruise control - so 14 hours with foot wedged into place - -kinda sucked. The new automatics are just fine with me - they can handle the stop and go bullshit - as well as the cross country jaunts. Sep 03 14 10:27 pm Link I started out in my teens on an old '61 kenworth with a dual stick browning (24 speed fwd and about 4 in reverse). I graduated to a 13 speed Eaton with a split axel and compound low on a brand new '79 Pete. I gave up my combo license after college but I've always missed the workout you get pulling 40 tons up a grade. It's amazing how the human brain becomes one with the machine when you eliminate all the comfort crap. Everyone who drives a stick for any length of time will probably feel more in control than with any other system. I would far rather use a traditional direct drive manual on snow and ice than with any computer controlled bs. Sep 03 14 10:53 pm Link I hate automatic transmissions. I like to do my own maintenance and there are two areas that piss me off big time. First is emission control systems (junk would be the better word). I just hate how the whole emissions control thing is an after though retrofitted pile of shit. It should be more integrated and the diagnostics should by law be clear and not a mystery even for an expert. Automatic transmissions are similar in many ways. Such a pain to deal with. Manual transmissions if driven correctly are better s far as fuel consumption goes and better for safer driving. Torque converters are really badly designed. I don't think I will ever by an automatic again. Sep 03 14 11:53 pm Link Fred Greissing wrote:
Sep 03 14 11:55 pm Link i used to exclusively drive manual transmissions, until i was about 30. enough was enough. when you sit in la traffic for untold hours every week (or just zipping through town), the value of an automatic transmission becomes instantly apparent. most people don't know how to drive them anyway. i went back east this summer, and watched both my brother in law--and my sister--drive their mt cars like fools. they were only going about 40mph by the time they were in 4th gear. my bro-in-law let me drive his car (mini cooper) for a day, on a trip up to west point. he thought i was going to blow it up, because i had the audacity to get the tach over 1k rpm before shifting.  but still...i have no need for an mt anymore. too much work. it would take valuable time from all the other things i need to do while driving (texting, answering emails, making calls, gawking, etc). one of my favorie vehicles ever (to drive) was an old ford f150, with a souped up 350, and a 3 on the tree tranny. Sep 04 14 12:01 am Link Fred Greissing wrote: How does a manual transmission make for safer driving? Sep 04 14 12:02 am Link Fred Greissing wrote: Lovely Day Media wrote: both of those claims are pure hogwash. the fuel consumption claims alone are ridiculous, considering every fuel estimate is exactly that: an estimate...and done so in a completely unverifiable (repeatable, real world) way. Sep 04 14 12:05 am Link Paolo Diavolo wrote: are you kidding? jones street from lombard to bush is some pretty hilly shit. as is most of the russian hill area of town. most of the street parking in that part of town is the perpendicular to traffic kind...ie, very hilly. Sep 04 14 12:16 am Link My daily driver has a 5 speed manual transmission. I prefer it for reasons I really cannot tell, it's just what I enjoy driving. In the past manual trannies were quicker and got better fuel economy than their automatic counterparts but now it's mostly either a wash or the automatic does better. The technology has come a long ways since I started driving in the 80s. Sep 04 14 12:19 am Link GK photo wrote: ya,... i'm never in that part of town, unless im showing a visitor the touristy parts of SF. In which case, i do it like this: Sep 04 14 12:21 am Link Paolo Diavolo wrote: is there a non-touristy part of san francisco i've never heard about? Sep 04 14 12:25 am Link Paolo Diavolo wrote: that could be jones st. looks like it. jones and filbert? Sep 04 14 12:26 am Link being in a place that sometimes gets HUGE amounts of snow, I prefer manual transmissions. Sep 04 14 02:01 am Link |
