Why do you prefer a stick-shift over an automatic transmission?

In My Humble Opinion
281

For years after getting my first automatic since I was a teen, and drove my uncle’s 72 Chevelle, I would stomp on the invisible clutch at intersections.

Now, in my EV (Nissan Leaf), I have it set to 1-pedal driving. Talk about control over the car. I never hit the brake unless another driver does something stupid, and it’s a sudden stop. Once in a while, I’ve actually hit the emergency brake with my left foot, instead of the regular brake with my right foot. --After a couple of those, though, I started tooling around some parking lots on Sundays, practicing hitting the brake with my right foot!

I have not been able to get out of the way I hold the wheel with just my left hand, though. After 30 years of needing my right hand free t shift, I am a 1-handed steerer. When I catch myself doing it, I switch hands, but pretty soon I forget again, and am back to holding just with my left hand.

I hold the wheel low on the left side, so to someone glancing over, it probably looks like I’m not holding it at all.

How do other long-time manual drivers hold the wheel?

282

In response to the OP, I just like it. I feel like I am in more control (unlike my six-speed automatic Chevy Tahoe, which decided I needed to lay a patch on the Eastside Hill, and it did). My car took charge, and I did not like it.

With a manual tranny, I am in control. Not the car. That’s why I like a manual—because I’m in charge.

ETA: When I learned how to operate a semi-rig, I learned how on an Eaton 15-speed in three ranges. Now, that’s a manual transmission!

283

Except now cars are better at being in charge than I am. I drove a stick most of my adult life, but I’ve grown to accept that auto transmisisons, and now my 1 pedal mode in my EV, do a better job than I can. Same with anitlock brakes, traction control, auto-braking, etc. In a few rare occasions where I need control I can turn one pedal or parking assist off when I need to, but for the most part they stay on.

I’m in charge, and I chose to let the car do the things that it’s better at than I am.

284

As I mentioned above, I haven’t owned a manual since 2013, but we’ve planned a few trips to Europe in the next five years that will involve rental cars, and I’m hoping they’ll be stick shift.

285

Without going through more than the recent posts on this thread, I prefer a manual transmission, and indeed both of my vehicles are manuals, for the following reasons:

  1. Engagement - driving a manual keeps you involved in driving the car, perhaps especially so in traffic. I feel more connected to the car and the driving experience.

  2. Fun - Driving an automatic is really boring, even in a high performance car. Using both hands and both feet when driving on a curvy mountain road (like the one I live on) is just more fun.

  3. Security - I work in what used to be the Stolen Car Capital of the world. Over the past 30 years, I have been carjacked twice. On both occasions the thieves made it half a block away and ran. I got back in my car and drove home.

There’s also the ability to roll start when your battery dies, but that doesn’t happen often enough to be a reason anymore. Back when my daily driver was a 1974 VW Beetle it happened so often that I always parked on a hill.

286

:astonished_face:

287

I’ve already made my views on manual transmissions pretty clear, but let me respond to these points that I personally find perplexing:

Would you also feel more “connected” to the car if you had to constantly adjust a traditional “choke” and carburation mixture, or fiddle with a lever to adjust the spark plug timing?

To me, “fun” is on a racetrack, if that’s your thing. Everyday driving to me is defined by convenience, practicality, and comfort.

I wouldn’t consider “owning a car that almost nobody else can drive” to be a particularly good or practical security precaution. Surely there are better ways to secure a car against theft than a manual transmission?

288

Of course not, in the same way that people who enjoy cooking are generally OK with slicing and dicing with a knife (versus some kind of kitchen gadget) but don’t want to build their own fire. Some things make a hobby more engaging, and other things make a hobby more tedious. If you try you can probably come up with dozens or hundreds of examples on your own.

Why is operating a clutch pedal engaging and fiddling with a choke not engaging? Honestly I don’t know, I just know that it’s true. I can speculate, though. We want our cars to go, stop, and turn in a way that’s fun, and being able to control how much “go” you get with more direct input than you get out of a gas pedal telling a computer what to do really gets at one of the fundamental things we want our cars to do. Fiddling with the fuel mixture doesn’t add anything, all you can do is get it right or wrong. Let the computer sort it out the fuel mixture, just like I want my stove to sort out providing heat. I’ll chop my own onions, though.

I don’t begrudge anyone who doesn’t find driving fun, I totally get it. In the same way that I don’t begrudge anyone who doesn’t enjoy cooking. If you just want a robot to put a delicious meal in front of you, more power to you. Some people like cooking, though, and I don’t think that’s hard to accept.

No comment on the anti-theft angle, and honestly with immobilizers being nearly universal I think a Camry with a push-button start would be 1000x harder to steal than a Corolla with a stick.

289

Believe it or not, I like driving. I really do enjoy it. But I enjoy it in the sense of a serene kind of comfort, being in my own space and watching the scenery go by while I’m in control of my vehicle taking me to wherever I want to go while listening to CBC Radio. I enjoy – if I may dare say so – my competence at controlling such a vehicle at freeway speeds. Driving fast in the appropriate and safe conditions can indeed be fun.

But I absolutely cannot see the fun in pissing around with levers and pedals that have been obsolete since about 1960! On a high-speed highway, you don’t use it anyway, and in other conditions, it’s a demanding pain in the ass!

290

And there’s nothing wrong with that. Some people love eating but hate chopping vegetables.

Me, I like fiddling with the levers and pedals.

291

Sure, but the ‘to me’ pretty much puts it outside the realm of debate, correct? I mean we all have preferences. I drive a fairly boring by the standards-of-sports-car-aficionados automatic Mazda6. But I did choose it over say, a Toyota Camry, because I liked the well-weighted steering and its superior attachment to the road. I’ve driven a Camry as a rental - it IS slightly quieter and more comfortable than my Mazda. It’s also floatier and more isolating, which I just didn’t care for.

It’s all a continuum. I mean you’d have to pay me to own a corvette. I find sports cars uncomfortable and don’t really care about driving really, really fast (say over 80 mph on I-5 in CA, which is still technically speeding). But I don’t want the ultimate gliding comfort of a Lexus either. I enjoy driving winding hill roads in the country, but I don’t do it to test my driving skill or care about shifting as part of the experience.

There is just no arguing preferences. Modern automatics are now more efficient and cheaper than humans piloting a stick. The old arguments of inexpensive, better mileage and higher performance have pretty much completely disappeared, just like no human will ever beat a specialized chess program ever again. But preferences of what is fun haven’t. Sticks will probably always exist for the enthusiasts. They’re just going to become a smaller and smaller share of everyday cars and will eventually probably be limited to expensive luxury cars for the cognoscenti. It will only be sad for the non-wealthy in the next generation who lust after but can’t afford them.

292

I own a 1926 Model T. While it does have a choke and a knob to adjust the mixture, you rarely have to touch those. The choke is only for starting it when it’s cold, and once the car warms up you don’t have to touch it again. If it’s warm out you don’t need to set the choke. By the way, you can adjust the choke from both inside the car, and outside at the front of the car, which is where you would be if you were hand-cranking it. My Model T has the optional electric start installed, so I don’t have to hand crank it (and I’m afraid to because if you do it wrong it can backfire and break your wrist).

The mixture knob is only adjusted when you change fuels. A Model T can run on gas, alcohol, or kerosene, pretty much anything with an octane rating above about 50 or 60 or so. All you need to do is adjust the knob accordingly.

You do have to constantly adjust the timing.

A Model T doesn’t shift gears like a modern car. Instead, the left pedal (where you would expect the clutch to be) is the high/low gear selector. It will engage the low gear clutch band in the transmission as long as you hold the pedal down. If you take your foot off of the pedal, it engages the high gear clutch band (unless you have the parking lever in the middle position), so you only get low gear while you literally hold the pedal in place.

The middle pedal is reverse. There is nothing preventing you from pressing the left pedal and the middle pedal simultaneously, which would engage low gear and reverse at the same time, and would not be healthy for the vehicle.

The right pedal is your brake. It’s not a wheel brake. Instead, it engages a clutch band in the transmission to stop it from turning. No one has ever praised the Model T’s braking ability. Best to leave a bit of extra room between you and whatever is in front of you, just in case. If you absolutely had to stop on a dime you could yank the parking brake lever, but that is something that you want to avoid if possible.

The timing lever is on the left side of the steering column. The throttle is on the right side of the steering column. You constantly adjust both while you are driving.

From a safety point of view, there are no seat belts, and you are sitting on top of the gas tank. Literally. The gas tank in a Model T is inside the seat. You have to lift up the seat cushion to fill up the tank.

To you, this is probably a nightmare. For me, it’s the most fun car I have to drive.

And it does make me feel more engaged when I drive it. I am manually controlling everything on the car - the engine, the transmission. The “air conditioning” is opening the lower slat on the front window. The windshield wiper is hand-operated.

It works fine for going to the bank or to the grocery store. It’s not practical to drive it to work. It’s too slow and crawls too much going up hills.

But dang if it isn’t fun.

293

One of the good things (one of the only good things, IMO) about the present day vs. 20 or so years ago is that Youtube and AI search engines make it way easier to fix things yourself, and there are always going to be ambitious DIYers of all ages who will be repairing and restoring older vehicles. Information that you used to have to comb through service manuals to find is now available instantly. Google Lens can source a part for you in two seconds. There’s no shortage of vehicles from the 80s, 90s and 2000s that are both affordable enough to purchase and work on, and modern enough to drive regularly.

294

For me, the difference is that the clutch and transmission are integral to the actual experience of cornering well. It’s highly entertaining to me to bang off two or three rev-matched downshifts while heel-and-toeing the brake, hitting my turn in point with the car nicely balanced for the turn and already settled. When I do it right, it feels heroic. I just don’t see a choke, or mixture, or even a spark advance as being that tightly coupled to the act of cornering well.

Although I will admit that if @engineer_comp_geek were nearby, I’d be begging for a chance to drive his Model T.

295

You keep responding to people who say they like driving a stickshift with the reasons why you don’t. It seems as if you think we’re trying to persuade you to change or that you’re wrong. And you seem to be trying to persuade us of the same thing.

You’ve stated your preferences, and we’ve stated ours. No one has to change. I don’t understand why you keep repeating yourself.

296

I suppose I could keep a loaded 1911 in the console, but at least in NJ that’s frowned on and has lots of legal pitfalls. I challenge you to come up with a technological solution to a kid pointing a gun at you and telling you to get out of the car. My solution worked. Twice. And no one got hurt and I got my car back intact, but for some wear on the clutch. Immobilizers can be defeated, and they are all the time.

297

Exactly this.

298

Yep, they really dont like a manual transmission.

And yeah it is a security bonus. I mean if a pro comes out to steal that particular car, knowing it has a stick, then no. But your average kid or theft by Convenience- nope. Most crooks aint that smart.

The theory is that because fewer people know how to drive stick shifts these days, cars equipped with them are less likely to be stolen (the article at this link to the left is an hilarious example). Frank Scafidi, director of public affairs for the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which tracks car theft trends, says he’s not aware of any data to refute that idea.

“Some thieves might be thwarted in their attempt to steal a car with a manual transmission, since many thieves possess varying levels of intellect. That very personal element is also a factor in the degree of expertise necessary to overcome some of the more sophisticated security systems.” Frank Scafidi – NICB

If it is true that most car thieves are just not that swift and therefore resort to stealing older, easier targets, than this myth just might have some legs. Of course, there are those in the car thief ranks who are quite capable of making off with anything that they intend to steal, especially with car theft deterrents becoming more and more sophisticated. So, while this may be true for the unruly gang of teen thugs in the story linked above, it is probably not true of a career car thief. Every little bit can help though…maybe we should hunt down a source of those yellow e-brake/shifter padlocks above, then we would have nothing left to worry about!

Are you scared of car theft? Buy a vehicle with a manual transmission! It’s guaranteed to not only be a natural deterrent, but you’ll also get a good laugh out of it as well, especially if you catch an attempt on video.

People across the country are getting a chuckle of satisfaction when carjackers and thieves try to steal a car, only to find out they can’t drive it. Of course, it’s really not a laughing matter when someone tries to steal from you, especially when it can become dangerous; but the outcome is entertaining after the fact when no one has been hurt except the would-be-thieves’ ego.

The stories pepper the internet—three teenagers in Seattle try to steal a stick shift car from a 70-year-old woman…foiled! Would-be carjackers in Denver are stumped by a stick shift car!

299

Speaking of which, SNL did a great sketch on this subject a few years back:

300

Hehe, yeah. The first time I watched a video explaining how you drive a Model T, I was entranced. So weird compared to a modern car. And then I realized that people raced customized versions of them. They never won the Indianapolis 500, but they ran in them.

And I’d be right behind him. Even though if RCR seems to describe it accurately as:

It’s my favorite Model T video: