My slush-box bought lunch. I haven’t even inquired what the repair will cost, figuring it would be cheaper to get my daughter’s Focus 5-speed out of repo and claim it as me own. (She didn’t. TFB.)
I’m dangling the Taurus in front of another daughter who shoulda started paying rent years ago, but she’s not as stupid as her sister and would rather get a car that wasn’t shit to begin with. She shoulda hung out with the car repair guys in high school, with whom fluttered eyelashes could do wonders.
I do that when I change between the standard 2002 jetta and my auto 2006 jetta.
I really wish I could bash the 2 together and get my perfect car, a diesel manual jetta.
[actually my dream is a diesel manual Ford Kuga like we rented last summer in Germany. swoon just with the rear doors changed to suicide doors to make schlepping a wheelchair easier for me to do solo.]
One thing I’ll mention: If you need hand controls, you NEED automatic transmission.
See, I like manuals in traffic. Gives me something to do. I will never purchase an automatic again if I can avoid it. So much more fun to drive a manual.
Merging onto an expressway while driving my MIL’s Buick: Where’s the clutch? WHERE’S THE FUCKING CLUTCH?!?!?
Given that particular on-ramp, for one Mafia Princess it was more like, “Why is there a bomb? WHY IS THERE A FUCKING BOMB?!?!?” Pushing my foot where there was nothing was an improvement.
Y’know, Chicagoland used to be interesting, if you know what I mean.
When I was a kid (80s) in the US (mostly NY) my parents had a stick shift, and I generally thought of cars as being 50/50 auto/standard. By 1990 my parents and people in general seemed to be slowly heading more towards auto.
When I visited my grandparents in the mountains of Vermont, they would let me practice driving on their stick, which I found quite daunting. Especially when I ended up in a ditch and had to try to reverse uphill out of it :eek:
My first car (1996) was auto, but my second car was a stick. I got the hang of it after a few days, in general, although it took me a while to get the hang of steep hills. And parking on the slippery ramp of the ferry was a whole other challenge altogether. I might have had a tougher time, but I had a Suburu, which is constructed with some special feature that makes shifting into first on a steep hill less challenging than a standard… standard.
I wouldn’t have wanted to take my drivers test on a standard, but I found it to be fun. When I drove an auto again it felt weird, and my left foot kept pressing the phantom clutch.
In my case, I’ve always bought cars second hand from people I’ve known (neighbor, grandparents, friend, Mom’s friend), so I haven’t really had choice in transmission.
Now that there’s not any real advantage to stick, I don’t have a preference. Auto is easier but stick is more interesting.
All this love for sticks. And I understand it: I enjoyed the physical act of driving a manual, even though the cars were cheap, awful compacts. I can only imagine what driving a great sports car with a stick might have been like. I stopped buying sticks when I developed carpal tunnel and it got too painful. I’ll never be able to go back.
What if you don’t care about the physical act of driving a car, though? That doesn’t mean you’re lazy, with or without a smilie. Shifting is a pain at times, and many people legitimately see no need for a pain to interfere with driving.
I also note that almost everyone who is throwing out love for sticks are guys. Automatics were always pushed to women. I don’t know if that was a deliberate “the little lady can’t handle a stick” or just an acknowledgment that women weren’t culturally indoctrinated to love cars. But the correlation of more women drivers driving more often and the rise of automatics is pretty high.
When I went to buy a Fit I really wanted a manual. They are just more fun to drive. You can mate the power and rpm to the driving situation, and it gives you better control. Believe it or not. Dr. Strangelove elucidated the pleasures of driving a stick very clearly and accurately upthread. I grew up driving standards, and never had any trouble with them (never had to replace a clutch on any car I owned). It also seems better suited to a small 4 cylinder engine. And then there’s better gas mileage… But when I looked at the Fit, all the reviews showed better mileage on the automatic. Plus my wife would not be able to drive the car if it were automatic. And my son who was just learning to drive had never even seen a standard, AFAIK. So I sucked it up and got the automatic. If I ever get a sporty car, though, it will be a stick.
I understand about heavy traffic and stick shifts, though. There is no doubt in my mind, because I have driven both in bumper to bumper stop and go Seattle traffic, that an automatic is easier in that situation.
All right, I’ll bite. How do European car headlight switches work?
Oh, I’ll be the first to admit there is very little, if any, advantage to a stick shift in normal driving conditions. Hell, even with high performance cars and clutchless paddle-shifters, they’re becoming even more like driving an automatic in a way. However, besides the fact that I think it’s fun and it does well to kill the boredom, knowing how to drive a stick has proven to be a useful skill. No matter where I am in the world, I don’t have to worry about finding an automatic gearbox, since I could drive a stick. That was my impetus for first learning how to drive stick. I was sick of being places where I couldn’t drive the cars. Once I learned, I just fell in love with it. I understand why most people wouldn’t be bothered, but it’s just a joy to drive a stick.
The flip side is, when I need somebody to drive my car, it’s very difficult for me to find someone who can. Luckily, my SO was a quick learner the one time she had to drive my drunken ass home from the bar. I, for one, was impressed, especially given that was her first time driving stick.
More power to them. But I’d still call it lazy, because they are giving up genuine performance (and possible safety) benefits for a savings in effort. There’s nothing wrong with that–all of us make similar tradeoffs in different situations–but it’s still lazy.
Anecdotally, you seem to be right about women. It’s certainly not the case that they can’t handle manuals–in my experience, they pick it up as well as anyone. I think it’s just the case that they view cars as much more of a “point A to point B” device than men do, and care very little about the situations where manuals have an advantage (handling at the edge of traction, etc.).
One more advantage to driving a stick shift in America: not too many people ask to borrow your car :). This is even more of a benefit for pickup trucks…
For example, here’s a picture that was posted in another thread. The US-spec version of this car (which I used to own) has a regular old “On-Park-Off” switch and the fog lights come on in “park”. The Euro version has, lets see here… left parking lights, right parking lights, off, both parking lights, headlights on, fog lights on low, fog lights on high and the whole business with the aiming control. Now, I’m sure people are going to post impassioned responses as to how each function is vitally useful, but I’d have a hard time seeing many situations where giving the driver that extra control really helps at all. Ditto with a manual transmission-- there’s really no reason why a driver needs that extra degree of control, but it drives some people crazy not to have it (including myself).
In my state, when I was growing up at least, most people learned to drive by taking a high school “Driver Ed” course. The state required all public high schools to make the course available and even required them to accept students from private high schools located in the district. The courses were relatively short. They didn’t have the time or the facilities to train anyone on two types of cars. Everyone learned how to drive on an automatic. If you were interested in learning stick, you either had to have a parent or a friend that was willing to teach you, usually after you got your license and could drive their car.
Is the situation similar in the rest of the world? Is driving elsewhere more of a skill passed down from parent to child rather than a short course at school?
Yea, and power windows and air conditioning are for woosies. What the auto world needs is vent windows. That would be everyone’s salvation.
Your Dad is probably a good guy but he’s also a fool. An F1 driver is not really a driver? Have your Dad tell them that to their face. No F1 car has a manual clutch. Real drivers (those that make their living at high performance driving other than cab drivers in third world countries) haven’t relied on manual clutches for decades. In real, modern, high-tech race cars it’s paddle shifters where there is no clutch pedal. Why, because they are better. The computers and the automatic shifting is far better that what a human can be expected to do. A modern automatic transmission is not only better and easier but it is more efficient. The way manufacturing has evolved, they are now actually cheaper.
The thing about the manual transmissions is a debate that rises on a regular basis. It’s amazing how stodgy people can be. Yea, “I’m a real driver if I have a clutch.” BFD, take it to your grave. Start your car with a crank. Rip out your power window motors and install window cranks. Cut the hose to your air conditioner. Disable your power seats. Why would anyone need power steering (or rack and pinion steering) and power disk brakes (real drivers have drum brakes). Those things are for girls that are afraid to drive. Take a shotgun to your sound system and install an AM radio. Those were the good old days (when cars were cars and were built like total pieces of shit).
And yes, I learned to drive on a stick shift. I’ve had many of them. I have no problem driving one. I also have a high performance sports car with paddle shifters. It’s a beauty. Throw the clutch in the junk pile along with the manual crank starter and the rest of the ancient crap. Also, I kind of like the GPS but I guess if I admitted that to your Dad he would assume I was gay. Ah. well . . . I’m not, but if that’s what he’s going to think anyway, so what.
My Dad doesn’t know how to drive a stick either. Without him, who could have taught me? The driving course at the school only had automatics.
Real men ride horses.
The only thing worse than snotty manual transmission elitists is the crank who cites race cars as a reason why automatics are superior. Plenty of race cars have clutches, even the ones with paddle shifters. None of these things work the way you think they work, and do you drive an F1 car to work? No? Then what difference does it make to you what F1 cars use?
I’m gonna go with the “public school driving course” meme. Not only does it take longer to learn to drive a stick, the schools didn’t want large numbers of untrained kids tearing up their transmissions. It was cheaper and faster to shove kids through the system with training on automatics.
Me – I drive a stick. Chicks love it. 
Perhaps you should be asking that question to Aerodave upthread, as he is the one who introduced motorsport as eveidence of the superiority of manual transmission.
In any case, back to real cars–my Acura has an automatic transmission, which includes a mode where I can slide the shifter to the right of Drive and upshift and downshift as I wish. Exactly what am I missing by not having to press a clutch pedal?
And as to the original question–as I understand it, automatics were embraced by Japan and the US, but not so in Europe, right? So if you take these cultures and ask yourself which ones are more likely to embrace Progress for the sake of Progress and Newness for the sake of Newness on the technology front, I think you might have another piece of the puzzle.
It’s not the answer, because there’s not likely to be a single answer, just several different factors.
