It’s easier to flat tow (i.e. all wheels on the road) a manual transmission vehicle than an automatic. This is attractive to RVer’s who want to take along another vehicle.
It’s possible to modify some automatics to allow flat towing but that’s an extra cost and complication. The alternative is to use a trailer or dolly but, again, that’s an added cost and complication.
It’s a pretty niche application…
I never thought about that.
Bad for an auto transmission to be towed a long distance in neutral, then?
I was at the Jeep dealership a few weeks ago (oil change and tire rotation). Saw a gorgeous 2020 Wrangler (soft top, side steps, and lots of options). I fell in love with it, but I have a leased Cherokee at the moment). What was surprising was that it only cost $30,000. I checked other ones there and an automatic with the same features (except it also had remote start) was going for $35,000 and change).
I asked the salesman about the big price difference, and said “because it’s a stick.”
I’ve always heard to disconnect the drive shaft when towing like that.
Yeah, that sounds like something I don’t want to do.
Another vote for the manual transmission.
^^It’s recommended when flat-towing manuals also:
Yeah, ultimately you have to do the research on your vehicle to see if it can be flat towed.
The transition, for me, was seamless. First time I drove in the UK was in 2009? Somewhere around there. Landed in Heathrow, rented a car, and off I went, stick shift, right hand drive. The actual mechanics of it were natural. The only disconcerting thing – and the thing I had to get most used to – was driving in what would normally be the “passenger’s seat” to me. That took a few hours for me to really become spatially aware of my position and the car’s position on the road.
And column shifters? No real problem there, just gotta learn the pattern. I drove my friend’s Trabant in Hungary many times, and there wasn’t really anything to it, from what I remember. I think the pattern was down for first, up for second, pull the shifter towards you and down for third, and then up for fourth. And then the American cars had kind of the backwards layout, right? I think towards you up was R, towards you down was 1, away from you up was 2, and away from you down was 3. Anyhow, it was all just learning the right pattern.
I kind of flashed back to one time when I visited London. The powers that be did something that I thought was brilliant: they put directions on the pavement at your feet, before entering the crosswalk that said “Look Left” or “Look Right.” With one way streets and curving roads and right hand drive and all that, pedestrians might zig when they should have zagged, so to speak. It saved me at least once from walking when I needed to wait.
I did wonder (before people posted) about the pedal layout. Would I still be clutching with my left foot, for instance? Someone else posted about the rearview. I can see the disorientation for a bit.
Next question: you’re on a track in a manual transmission LHD car. It simulates a drive across town to work. As such, you will have stop signs, stop lights, some highway driving, varying speed limits, and let’s say you stop for coffee so you’ll need to reverse out of that space, and so on. And…go!
We bring you back. If your commute is like mine, your time is 35 minutes.
Back in the car, we’re doing it again. Same model and make, same course, same time of day, same everything right down to that cup of coffee. But this time, RHD (and the roads are RHD so you can pass etc. like you would in RHD countries).
You can shift left handed or right handed, but is it super deliberate? Did your 35 minute LHD commute turn into a 45 minute RHD commute?
I imagine a lot of things are “handed.” I play guitar…I can chunk out rhythm chords pretty well. Now, string that guitar upside down, for a lefty and could I still? All of a sudden I’d be making chord shapes with my right hand and trying to strum that rhythm with my left.
I’m glad to know I wouldn’t have to clutch with my right foot.
Yup. I’ve had my 2 door, soft top Wrangler for a month now. $30,000 (+DMV stuff). Had to order it to get a manual transmission. Automatic is $2750 more.
I’ve driven a stick for 40 years now. I enjoy it.
i don’t drive buy my grandma was one of a few that knew how to drive a stick shift … a model t was her first car during the depression
Model T wasn’t a stick shift, you selected gears with a pedal.
Having a Model T as your first car, however, suggests that you’d have learned to drive a stick if you kept driving for a bit.
That may be so, but given the long lifetimes of contemporary automobiles, what matters isn’t what’s available now unless I’m buying a car right now. The appropriate comparison is among the cars that were available when one was most recently buying a new car. It really takes 15 years or so for some new development like that to have been in nearly everyone’s choice set when they last bought a car.
So I’m curious about the penetration, if you will, of these 6-10 speed computer-controlled automatics. Are they just available on high-end cars, or are they more or less standard on all automatics now being sold in the U.S.? And if the latter, when did that happen? When I bought my current stick in June 2016, dealers tried to get me to settle for an automatic because Honda Civic stick shifts were already hard for a dealer to get hold of, and I don’t recall them trying to sell me on such features. Did I just block it out?
Also, my wife and I travel domestically at least a couple times a year (or did, in the ‘before times’), and of course the rentals are all automatics. I don’t recall noticing any vast improvement in their quality over the past several years, and while rentals may not be the current year, they’re usually pretty recent models.
My current car is an automatic, but I can manage the gears in a way similar to a manual: move the shift selector to the left, and I can ratchet up/down through the gears, holding it in a selected gear until I select otherwise. So I can downshift prior to starting a pass, or hold it in a lower gear for a pause while accelerating on a highway-on ramp. No biggie, although I know not every automatic has that ratchet-shift capability.
Having said that, I dearly miss my previous car, a G37 with a manual. I didn’t choose it because I was worried about theft; the risk of that is extremely low, especially with modern chipped ignition systems.
I didn’t choose it because it got better fuel economy; it was geared lower than the automatic G37, resulting in measurably worse highway fuel economy, and when driving a manual in the city, no driver ever selects the most economical gear (whereas the automatic always does).
I didn’t choose it because it was cheaper; actually, I’m pretty sure it was actually more expensive than the automatic version.
I didn’t choose it because it was more reliable; automatics are pretty amazingly reliable these days, and I generally don’t keep a car much past 100K miles anyway.
I bought it because it was fun to drive. Sadly I totaled it a few years back, and could not find a suitable replacement within a reasonable timeframe, so I surrendered and bought a Q50 with an automatic.
The Ford-GM 10 Speed transmission
then there are the 8- and 9-speed transaxles used across the Ford, FCA, GM, Honda/Acura lines. and last year Honda came out with their own 10 speed transaxle for the Odyssey and Accord.
Hyundai has an 8-speed that they use across their lineup.
Toyota has an 8-speed that they use on most larger cars and SUVs.
Chrysler uses ZF 8 and 9 speed transmissions for the past 10 years.
ZF and Aisin make a range of 8, 9, and 10 speed transmissions.
Only a few manufacturers (Subaru and Mazda) don’t seem to have anything beyond a 6 speed.
the ones who haven’t gone with >6 speed transmissions tend to have gone with CVTs instead (Subaru, Nissan)
My Miata (and I imagine a lot of manual cars nowadays) has a display on the dash that tells me what gear the computer thinks I should be in. When I’m driving on a city street with a 35 mph speed limit I’ll be in 4th gear going somewhere between 35-40 mph. As long as I maintain a steady speed the display suggests that I should be in 6th. I assume it’s trying to recommend the most efficient gear.