Theft prevention is an underrated reason. Every time I take my car to the dealer, all the younger techs need to have a little huddle to figure out how they’re going to move it, and they end up phoning the nearly-retired guy who works in the body shop on the other side of the lot.
It’s funny and sad, but I get it. Nobody really needs a stick anymore. For people who need driving to be fun, it’s more fun, except maybe in traffic. The only time I really enjoy it anymore is accelerating to interstate speeds, and I rarely need to take the interstate anymore.
If I were to get mad about things changing in the automotive world, I’d get mad about touch screens or the loss of the spare tire in favor of a crappy electric pump and a can of run-flat goo. That’s not cool at all.
In all the manual and automatic transmission cars I’ve driven, I’ve never had my left foot “poised to stomp on the brake” and never known anyone who did.
It doesn’t sound very relaxing, not to mention getting questionable results when you stomp the brake with your left foot while the right foot is still depressing the accelerator..
As I said, I only do this when I anticipate having to stop suddenly, as in congested stop-and-go traffic. And releasing the accelerator while depressing the brake pedal can be done simultaneously.
I was at a stoplight with two cars in front of me. When the light changed to an advanced left-turn green, the asshole in the first car moved out and made a sudden illegal U-turn. Expecting him to accelerate into a normal left turn, the guy behind him had to come to a screeching halt. Since we had all been stopped, I was only a few feet behind him. I realized only later that I was doing my habitual “left foot poised over the brake pedal” because only a fraction of a second later I would have been right up his ass.
Meanwhile the asshole who caused this accident, if it had happened, would almost certainly have driven rapidly away, as almost all primary accident-causers do, leaving their victims to sort out the blame.
I always try to leave some space between me and the car ahead at traffic lights and stop signs, partly to avoid either that driver doing something dumb, or the driver behind me failing to stop in time and pushing me into the car ahead.
I heard that a manual transmission on a plow truck is a bad idea. I’m talking a personal plow truck for you own property.
Forward and backward x 25 every time you plow is hard on the clutch. I’ve had two automatic transmission plow trucks. Never had a problem with the tranny.
Otherwise, I don’t really care. It’ a vehicle to go from one place to another, nothing more.
Ehhhh, unless you’re doing drag strip launches the extra 25 uses of the clutch should add negligible wear to the clutch. I probably use the clutch 25 times in a trip across town. Forward and backward makes no difference to the job the clutch is doing.
I’m not going to re-litigate all the other reasons I prefer manuals, to me they’re all valid and if I have anything to say about it I’ll never own an automatic as my daily driver again and that’s my choice.
But it does have one benefit to me above and beyond all of the others: Robin can’t drive a manual. That makes it completely mine. Nobody will touch the seats or adjust the mirrors or mess with the radio, I set everything up perfectly and it never gets messed with.
Ehhh, was what I was told. There is a lot ‘creeping’ speed when plowing, which might mean you have to slip the clutch. That will burn it up. It’s easy to creep in an auto tranny. Not so much in with manual when you may also be pushing 1000lbs of snow.
Not talking parking lots, talking driveways with a lot of slow turns in them.
I have plowed my rather steep driveway with a manual for the past 10 years. IME this is just not an issue. You do not need to ride the clutch to ‘creep’. Throttle control does the job for you.
30 years plowing a very steep driveway (17% grade) with three hairpin curves and two creek crossings. Had to chain up on all four wheels, only way you could do it. Drop offs on both sides. The auto tranny did great for me.
I did finally wear out the truck itself though (I used to joke that you need a tenetus shot to get in it). Bought another truck and tractor. Transmission was fine.
When I bought the new/used truck, the first thing I did was put a brand new plow on it and a 10,000 lb Warn winch on the back. 4x4, chains and a plow will not get you out of everything. If you get that system stuck, you are gonna have a very, very bad day.