Eh, half of the onetime advantages of manuals have been mooted by current high-tech automatics/DCTs/CVTs (though substituted with how a high-tech automatic costs an even greater bundle to repair than a traditional Auto and depending on type can have a lot more things to break). The drivetrain control computer can optimize gears to a far finer degree than virtually any human driver. Though sure, if you are getting some cheapo special bottom of the lineup model the transmission is likely to itself be a cheapo special.
The manual is fun and if someone has learned and practiced it’s not such a big deal to use – and if I were going trailblazing in the bush I can see using that I’d prefer one. But for commuting or picking up stuff at IKEA? Eh, I’ll choose the car based on other features.
And yeah, what is it with the notion that you cannot downshift an automatic? Back when i was learning I would look at the selector and see : P, R, N, D, 2, L. That right there were two down modes from the 3-speed common at the time. In many newer cars you can do a virtual downshift or even select a “hill” mode that changes the shift points to reduce gear-hunting.
I did! I had a '56 Plymouth two door station wagon named Bessie with a three on the tree, it was a hoot. Man, that car was so shade tree engineered it was a wonder it went at all. I also once drove an older car with a push button auto transmission mounted on the dashboard, that was super odd.
I think downshifting an automatic was taught in Driver’s Ed, but most people were sleeping through that. I had to show my wife how to do it. There are two very notable downgrades on the road up and back to Flagstaff, and I see people riding their brakes the whole way down. Now, brakes are much, much better than they used to be, but I don’t see the point in risking boiling them, so I put my Escape into Sport mode, tap the button, and coast down the 5 miles without touching the brake.
Oh, and - I learned to drive on a 70’s Fury III, with three-on-the-tree, no power brakes, and no power steering.
I think this is the nub of it for me. I truly do like going for a drive in the country. But it is the country part that is the important factor. I drive for the relaxation of zooming through a scenic area, not to engage more with the car. I never wanted to be a race car driver (find them as boring as watching competition fishing, really) and have never really had a vroom, vroom desire.
I do value a well-weighted steering and some (but not true sports car-level) road feel. I mean, I don’t like Toyotas as a group because they tend to feel too disconnected to me. But yeah if I won a fancy sports car in a raffle I’d probably promptly sell it. I want a well-heeled 4-door sedan that’s easy to drive.
it’s complicated by the number of gears now. Back in the 2-speed Powerglide days, P-R-N-D-L was enough for every gear in the trans. Then with 3 speeds it could be P-R-N-D-2-1, then 4, 5, 6 speeds came along and then how do you determine what “L” is? Heck, my Ranger has a 10 speed transmission, so it’s set up P-R-N-D-S where “S” is for the manual +/- selection mode.
they’re back. Lincolns and some GMCs have push button gear selection.
In “normal” times I drive quite a bit in several different European countries, which means renting around 30-40 cars a year. It seems rare to be given an automatic, but the few times it happens, I always see it as an upgrade.So if I ever decide to buy a car again, it would probably be an automatic and I can’t wait for the self-driving car, so I can tap to the beat of the music with both feet.
Also, this might be different in the States, but traffic jams are very prevalent in many countries over here, and the whole stopping and starting can really get on your nerves when driving stick.
I’m with you. I’ve had automatics and sticks, and while sticks are fun under certain circumstances because they make you more connected to the vehicle, they’re an absolute pain in the ass the other 95% of the time. You do get used to it after a while and you don’t have to think too much about it, but automatics are still better for letting you just concentrate on your situational awareness in moderate to heavy traffic, and less fatiguing in bumper-to-bumper traffic like you get in a lot of big cities. Which is something that if you commute more than a handful of miles, you’re going to run into twice a day nearly every single day.
If I got a real sports car like a Ferrari or a Corvette, (not a “sports coupe” or something like that), I’d absolutely get a manual gearbox. But it also wouldn’t be my daily driver, which would definitely have an automatic.
Growing up, my parents only owned manual-transmission vehicles, so I had no choice but to learn how to drive stick shift. As I recall, it was the hardest part about learning to drive. All of my driving school lessons were on an automatic transmission vehicle, so my mom had to give me stick-shift lessons so I could take the licensing test with the family vehicle. My sisters came along once for some reason, and I still remember them laughing in the back seat as I bucked and stalled the family Volvo station wagon.
Anyway, I drove nothing but manual transmission vehicles for over a decade. At the time they were cheaper and were more fun to drive. I owned and drove a Volkswagen, a Mazda, and then a BMW 325is (my first new vehicle).
Then I got a family and a child, and we switched to SUVs. (It wasn’t fun squeezing an infant car seat into the back seat of a two-door BMW.) Of the SUV models we were considering, they were only available in automatic transmission, plus my wife doesn’t know how to drive a stick shift. So we got an automatic transmission SUV, and I actually haven’t owned a manual-transmission vehicle in the last 15 years or so.
However, when we go to Caribbean islands for scuba dive trips, we often rent a pick-up truck for shore dives. The manual shift option is always considerably cheaper than the automatic (sometimes only half the cost!), and I’m the only one driving, so I always go with that. Fortunately driving stick shift is like riding a bicycle. Once you’ve done it regularly, you don’t forget.
I would sometimes tell people that I didn’t know how to drive an automatic.
Much better in snow or slippery conditions, more controlled on turns where I can more easily put myself into the right gear, and not worry that it’s going to shift right when I need traction the most.
I used to go camping in the mountains (Appalachian mountains) and loved driving the switchbacks, perfectly revmatching the downshift on downhill corners, and coming out of the turn at full throttle.
I fully subscribe to the idea that you drive a manual, you steer an auto.
That said, my sciatica is the main reason that I didn’t mind too much that I couldn’t find a manual when I went car shopping last. Working the clutch was not the best thing for my back. (Not saying that it caused it, just that if I had a flare up, shifting became unpleasant.)
I still miss it, and find driving to be a much more boring, mundane task than I did when I was a part of the car, not just a hand on the wheel.
You just reminded me of the Dodge Darts with a push button automatic transmission. Those cars were all over the place in the 60s and into the 70s, then seemed to disappear rapidly.
All three of my Jeeps had manuals, which I liked when off-road. But a lot of newer cars have “Sport Mode” or something similar (my Mazda has it), which is set up for hills and curves, up-shifting at higher RPMs and downshifting on downhill grades. Works pretty damn well.
Yeah, my first vehicle was a '65 F100 with 3 on the tree, no power assist on the brakes or steering, and no radio. It wasn’t bad, but the gear ratios were pretty far apart.
If I have a choice, I’ll select a manual every time. I like the car being more in my control, especially in motorsports. If I want to bump up against the rev limiter for a sec instead of upshifting, the manual’s not going to disobey me and upshift if it thinks it’s a bad idea.
If/when I do get a self drive car… that’s what I want. Curl up in the backseat of my car - wake up when I get to work.
When I rent cars - especially right hand drive cars, I do get automatics. It’s one less thing to worry about when I’m in an entirely unfamiliar vehicle on the wrong side of the road with weird street signs. Also, there’s a travel-urban-legend that rental car dealers give cars with where the clutch is failing to Americans so that when it inevitably fails - you have to pay for it.
I’m kind of late to the thread, but as one of the people specifically addressed in the OP, I feel kind of obligated to respond. I guess my answer pretty much boils down to that I think they’re more fun. I learned to drive one when I was 19 (and that was in 1999, so it’s not like I’m that old), and ever since then that’s pretty much been all I’ve driven. The fact that they’re cheaper to buy is something of an advantage, too – when I bought my Miata last year the manual version was about $1000 less than the automatic. But honestly that was a fairly minor consideration.
That said, if I lived someplace like San Francisco where hill starts would be a frequent issue, or if I had a commute with real bumper to bumper stop and go traffic like the stereotypical Los Angeles freeways, I’d probably bite the bullet and get an automatic.
A few years ago I went to the Hawaiian island of Kauai. I got a Nissan Versa as a rental car, just because it was the cheapest car they had. That car had a CVT, and I hated it. The shifter had an ‘L’ position, to emulating dropping a traditional auto into a lower gear. So driving around on the twisty, hilly, island roads I’d drop it into L going down hill, to use engine breaking like I was accustomed to doing with both manuals and traditional torque converter automatics. Except since there was only one L position, and not 3,2,1 like on an automatic with actual gears, L was too low for most situations. So I’d drop the shifter into L going down a hill, but that would slow me down more than I wanted, so I’d shift back into D and use the brakes the whole way down. The low “gear” on that car really only was useful on the longest, steepest hills.
It’s gonna be quite some time before one of those is old (read: cheap!) enough for me to go for it. And in between what I have now and those are a whooooole lot of shitty “traction control” type cars where the “traction control” can’t be turned off and they suuuuuck. I’ve watched every series of Top Gear, the good ones anyway, and I’ve seen what sort of buggery the car manufacturers got up to in the early-mid oughties and I’m not looking forward to that. My current daily driver is also the latest model car I’ve owned and it still isn’t into the 2000s yet. Maybe I’ll just keep it going another couple decades, see what shakes out. Then again, Subaru didn’t seem to get overly invasive so maybe if I stick with those for a while I won’t have to douse a car with gas and light it on fire in sheer annoyance.
That was me asking that question. I’ve never had an injury to my knee so it occurred to me that maybe using a clutch for 45 years could contribute to the degeneration of my left knee. My problem is just basic wear and tear I guess. I am going to switch to an automatic before I have knee surgery since getting to rehab for weeks would be impossible in my Yaris. I hate to give it up but not needing both arms and both legs to drive should make things easier as I get older.
