Joey…
Don’t know if automatics require less maintenance or not. My uncle has replaced automatic transmissions twice on the same vehicle. My truck is a manual, I’ve replaced the clutch once in its’ 170,000 mile history (which was cheaper than either of his transmissions I might add).
Handy sez:
Those of old might remember in the 70s VW made this ‘semi autos’, a marriage of the stick & the auto.
Well those are back, but not by VW. I know that Honda makes them for their Prelude because I have one. It is called sequential (sp?) sport shift. The idea is a little different then the old VW though. You can put the stick into automatic and drive it like an automatic or you can move it to the left and push the stick up or down to shift gears up or down. Really cool I think. IIRC Mercedes and BMWs also have them as an option.
And MC sez:
If the vehicle and the engine are turning at exactly the right speed, you can switch gears without pressing the clutch, and without any grinding
My dad claims to have been able to do this. I have no idea how to figure out when the right time to shift is, he tried to show me how and I could never do this, and he couldn’t do it either on my old car. But he still insists that he could do it in the old days in his Camero. One of the things that impressed my soon-to-be mother. Wish I could do it too… 
-N
“Strider…I must also confess that you’re one of the nicest atheists I’ve met.”
Automatics definately became overwhelming more popular in post-war 50s America. They were new and, well, automatic. In fact many were actually “push button” instead of using a shift lever at all. Also, when column shifters did arrive reverse was after drive! I’ve heard this was changed for safety reasons (reving the gas, flinging the shifter down too far and taking off backwards!) Anyway, automatics were well suited for the cars of the time: big round heavy hulking land yatchs.
Standard transmissions starting making a comeback in the US in the late 60s with the popularity of affordable sports cars like the Mustang & Camaro. But the move to small, fuel efficient cars is what really brought manual trannies back. Not even so much because of the (supposed) fuel savings but because small 4 cylinder engines were noticably more slushy when connected to an automatic.
Regardless of what its called, I assume I’d have to work a stick shift with my left hand in Australia? Eww…
I for one welcome our new insect overlords… - K. Brockman
For those who drive on the right side of the road at home, if you ever rent a car in Australia or New Zealand and probably a number of other countries, be sure you prescribe that the car have automatic transmission when you reserve the car. Because if you don’t, you will almost certainly get a standard.
I knew this, but on a recent trip to NZ, forgot. Fortunately, I didn’t have any trouble driving on the left side of the road since I’d just completed almost 3 weeks of cycling there. But despite the fact that I’ve been driving a standard transmission for over 25 years, I still made a truly embarassing number of shifting errors. I really had to concentrate on shifting to avoid them. My left hand just was not trained to shift.
“Scissors Defeats Rock”
– The Onion
Certainly not my experience of Australian hire cars, they always seem to assume that you want an automatic.
Manual transmissions are not in the majority here: it’s probably something like a 65/35 split.
On utes :
I’m pretty sure that being able to fit a keg of beer in was a major selling point.
That’s what I get for assuming that NZ and Oz are similar. I’ve never been to Australia, but from what I’ve heard, lots of things are indeed similar. For instance, they both eat strange things at breakfast (vegemite/marmite)…
From my observations in NZ, standard transmissions seem to be in the majority there. I even saw a van that had a four speed “on the tree”.
“Scissors Defeats Rock”
– The Onion
I’ve had 3 MGBs, 2 Porsches, 2 Chevy Sprints, a '48 Willys CJ-2A, a few motorcycles, and a Jeep Cherokee (which I bought last year). The Cherokee is the only one with an automatic transmission. I wish I’d bought one with a manual transmission. I’m an aggressive driver, and the automatic doesn’t shift when I want it to, and does shift when I don’t want it to. Although I don’t like holding in a clutch in L.A. traffic, a manual transmission would give me more control in thses traffic conditions. The automatic is okay on long trips with little traffic, though.
Porsche now has the “Tiptronic” transmission. It’s “semi-auto”, in that it can shift itself or you can run through the gears with the stick or with sterring wheel-mounted buttons. I’ve never driven one, but I’m told you can actually accelerate faster in it than with a manual transmission.
My first MGB, a '66 I got from my mom years after she was done with it, didn’t have synchro between 1st and 2nd gears. I had to “double-clutch” when I was slowing down. That is, I’d put in the clutch and shift from 2nd to neutral, then rev the engine to about 3,000 RPM, put in the clutch, and shift into first. It sounds awkward, but it was actually very quick and worked quite well.
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?
When Tom~ says “olden days,” he means 1960’s suburban Detroit where all cars were either automatics or “sticks” (regardless where the gear shift was located).
I figure it was the “olden days” because I recently saw the make/model/year car my folks bought two years after I started driving with “Classic Auto” license plates. After all, 33 years ago was prior to the birth experience of a large number of contributors to this MB. (Not that I’m touchy about my age or anything.)
(I don’ know nothin’ 'bout motorcycle shifting. I assume that it is some sort of rocker/lever foot pedal since the throttle and the brakes are on the handlebars.)
Tom~
Yes to both statements…I had the “privilege” of living in the Ozarks for 2 years, where I learned to drive and received my license. When I got a job in town last summer, I inherited my dad’s 1990 Nissan SX-6 (??) pickup truck…it was great fun to go whizzing along our country roads at 8:30 AM in summer, but what a pain in the ahem once I got into town! We had an old-fashioned traffic circle, a few traffic lights, and 80% of the parking spots were parallel jobs. I can’t even tell you how many times I stalled out in town.
Christopher Robin Hood - he steals from the rich and gives to the Pooh.
I learned to drive manual very early - I don’t understand why someone would want to learn automatic first: if you learn manual first, you can drive both! As for the need for coordination when teenagers learn to drive manual, remember that they play sports, are gymnasts and can run away from cops over hedges and streams while carrying a stereo system. That’s plenty of coordination to learn to shift gears.
Since I’m so used to driving manual, I’ve had a couple of near misses while driving recent model automatics with the “shifter” (I don’t know what it’s called) on the floor instead of on the column: I have a tendency to want to pull on it while driving, when I hear the engine revving up to the proper speed for shifting.
Makes me wonder - is it true if you shift to reverse while driving forward, the engine may pop out of the car?
The issue is not that teens lack coordination, the issue is that when the instructor is trying to explain to the neophyte to watch the road, watch the off-road (for dogs and children), watch the mirrors, watch the second car ahead of the one you’re following, watch the traffic light that might change, etc., it is easier to simply have the student push on the gas or the brake rather than worrying about feeling for the clutch point, feeding it enough (but not too much) gas, moving the gearshift to the appropriate gear, (at which point the student looks at the knob on the gear-shift and runs into the car ahead.)
This has as much to do with how kids in the U.S. were taught driving as much as anything else. Large numbers of high school juniors were swept into sedans, three at a time, to take turns aging the instructors while the two who were not practicing sat in the back and giggled at all the driver’s mistakes. It took me less than a day to master the manual transmission, but I had one to practice on. Many kids did not. (It gave me my only taste of popularity in college where a group of guys would borrow the keys to another guy’s car, but then would have to find a driver who could handle a stick.)
(It was also a cost consideration for the schools. While grinding the gears on a car a couple of times while you learn will not jeopardize the clutch or transmission, having 9 or twelve kids grind the gears for two or three days each every two weeks for most of the year will not lengthen the transmission’s life.)
Tom~
‘If the vehicle and the engine are turning at exactly the right speed, you can
switch gears without pressing the clutch, and without any grinding’
This is true even with some modern cars. You don’t need to know when to do it because everything is spinning at the same speed. Matter of fact, put it into first & turn the key & youll be running just fine. Modern cars have a clutch-safety feature so you can’t do it with them.
“‘How do you know I’m mad’ said Alice.
'You must be, ’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’”
I driven nothing but manual transmission for over 20 years ago. My ex taught me and got I got hooked with my first VW bug. Was really convinced when the bug wouldn’t start (and I was a long way from home), two nice guys gave me a push, I popped the clutch, and away I went. Couple years ago, my present car’s (Nissan NX)battery died on me and again, got a push and I got it home. I think it makes driving more interesting - it can be a pain on hills and stop-and-go traffic, but mastering holding a stick on a hill is another challenge; in stop and go traffic, I just put it in neutral occasionally to give my left leg a rest. I was proud of myself for mastering downshifting too; downshift to slow the car saves on brake wear. I’ve driven miles without using the brakes. My car is over 8 years old, and I’ve had to replace the front brakes one time. I don’t know about automatics needing less maintenance – I’ve never had any transmission problems.
This skill is really not that hard to master – just find the speed before upshift at which the shift lever slides easily out of the current gear, and chances are it’ll slide readily into the next. Hint 1: the optimum speed for the shift will probably be lower than you think. Hint 2: If you feel resistance, step on the clutch and wait for the next shift to try again.
The ability to do this can be valuable in more ways than just impressing the opposite sex (indeed, my wife remains unimpressed by it to this day), when (not if, but when) the clutch fails miles from home or any friendly territory. The first time I had a clutch die was in a not-particularly-nice section of Memphis. I managed to limp several miles through town, onto the freeway, across the river and to the home of some relatives in West Memphis (mind, this was only my second year of driving a manual transmission regularly, so it was more of a feat than it might sound). Years later, in Atlanta and nearly penniless, I managed to put off having my clutch repaired for several months by using this skill; I became an expert at negotiating my route to and from work in such a way as to minimize the number of instances where I would have to come to a complete stop, since that usually involved killing the engine, shifting into first, and then cranking it in gear while giving it gas in order to get started again. Not recommended by any means, but you do what you gotta.
“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.” –Satchel Paige
OK sorry, I exaggerated a bit too much. But if you come to the US from any other country, the impression one gets is that there are practically no stickshifts there. The only people I knew there who drove stickshifs had pickup trucks or imports.
I’m exactly the opposite: I’m bewildered by the attraction to automatic transmissions.
Let’s see: standards are (1) more fuel efficient, (2) usually perform better, (3) usually lighter, (4) usually cheaper (the C5 vette is a notable exception), (5) always more fun to drive, (6) always give you more control over the car, and (7) often more reliable. Plus, what in an auto can ever give you the satisfaction that comes with a perfectly executed rev-match and engine-brake into the perfect line through a 2nd gear corner? A good driver with a standard can become a dynamic work of art, while the automatic never will rise above the plebeian.
Autos are also positively annoying to drive - they call them ‘slushboxes’ for a reason. There’s little more unpleasant than a fluid coupling between the engine and the drive wheels. It’s sort of like the slushy steering of the old 70’s vintage “land yachts” - eww! But I will grant that modern autos are a considerable improvement to those of yesteryear.
So I don’t get it. The ‘easier to drive’ thing is a red herring, IMHO - after a little time you don’t have to consciously think about either. I’ve driven standards for almost 4 decades in everything from heavy rush hour traffic to winding mountain roads, and I cannot fathom anything short of the loss of a limb that could make me want to switch to something that would give me less control over the automobile.
The way I see it is: autos are of interest to people who just want transportation from pt A to pt B, while standards are of more interest to those who enjoy automobiles as an end as well as a means.
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peas on earth
bantmof writes:
Not necessarily. A standard transmission will generally yield better gas milage… if you know what you’re doing and how to eek out the extra miles. It’s not intrinsically more efficient.
Again, subject to the skill of the driver.
Not sure what you mean by this. Certainly you have more control over when shifts occur which can be handy in hilly road conditions… assuming you know what you’re doing. As far as better handling, I often hear this claim, but no one can ever point to anything specific. Arguably, in the days before ABS, you could argue that engine braking gave better cornering control, but I don’t think that necessarily holds today, and once again it still depends on the driver. Most of the drivers I’ve seen in manual transmission vehicles never use engine braking.
I think this is a myth. I’ve seen reports from ASA (Automotive Service Association) that indicate that automatics are far more reliable than manual transmissions, though admittedly generally more expensive to repair. Also, I have a friend who owns a shop and they specialize in transmission repairs. He says nearly half of the transmission repairs he does are on manual transmissions. I don’t know what the ratio of automatics to manuals is on the road today, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near 50/50.
BTW, I drive both but prefer a stick… simply because it’s more fun!
Admittedly most of that stuff is an advantage to stick shifts by a smaller margin than it used to be. Now, for instance, automatics engage some sort of positive lock between the engine and the wheels much of the time, bypassing the losses in the fluid coupling and improving gas mileage. But you can still attain better mileage with a stick shift, if you try. Most cars can also attain better acceleration in a stick shift version (with the same engine).
I also grant the point that driving for better performance (and to a smaller extent, better mileage) in a stickshift demands superior skill. It expands the upper limit, but does not raise the lower one :).
As for control of the car, you (having a human brain) can shift to the right gear for a situation before that situation happens, something no automatic in the world can do. For instance, in a turbo you can be in the right gear with the turbo spooled up a wee bit before you need it to reduce turbo lag. And in automatics you tend to get some absurd behavior such as the thing somehow thinking it’d be a good idea to shift gears while the car is going around a turn. In most driving this won’t hurt anything, but in other situaitons it could spell disaster! I’ve just not yet met an automatic that is always in the gear I deem appropriate to the situation, and I think I know better than it does, since I’m aware of a wider range of factors than it is.
I also agree with your comment that they’re more fun 
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peas on earth
quote
I don’ know nothin’ 'bout motorcycle shifting. I assume that it is some sort of
rocker/lever foot pedal since the throttle and the brakes are on the handlebars.
I ride a 1952 Harley 45 c.i. flathead. The “tank shift” is on the right side of the gas tank ( very unusual for a harley ), “deadman” throttle on the right handlebar (no spring return to idle), “foot trap clutch” on the left floorboard (duh). Even other harley riders aren’t quite sure if they would venture a spin on ‘Mister Tom’s Wild Ride’. It’s stock too.
My Studebaker has 3-on-the-tree and I call it a stick. I’m so sad the 3-on-the-tree trend has faded. It’s so much fun! I also am able to shift in and out of 2nd and 3rd with no clutch, but I have to nudge it until it wants to go.
I am saddened by the loss of bench front seats in cars to. Basil can’t get no sparkin’ done wit no bucket seats!
Sweet Basil
SRB will get you girls!!