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How America lost its love for the stick shift

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Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#71

Post by ErnestedCode »

I'm American and I learned to drive in a stick shift. My first 13 years of driving was with a stick. But it got to a point where it was just too difficult to find a stick version of the cars I wanted to get, so now I drive automatics.

I get the reason why some people insist driving sticks. You feel more "in tune" and "in control" with your car. But for the vast majority, this is completely unnecessary. Most people just want to get from point A to point B in one piece. For these people, feeling more in control of your car is as unnecessary as feeling more in control of a hand-cranked window over a power window.

Eventually we'll all be in self-driving cars and this whole debate will seem silly and trivial. "Automatics" will eventually include automatic turning and automatic braking and all things automatic.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#72

Post by S_A_P »

Manuals have been selected out of the marketplace by dealer sales managers. I would love to own at least one manual transmission vehicle. Most that Ive considered in recent history were available with a manual, and the ones that are available as a manual are impossible to find or special order only.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#73

Post by dreamcompiler »

joeblau wrote: post #59

My brother has an R8, Viper, and Vantage (All Manual) and I would rather drive a Tesla over all 3 of them. Manual is fun and you get the feeling of control and I love driving them, but in reality, there is a reason they are on their way out. The main problem is that the replacement, automatic, make driving feel worse. The computers that manage automatic transmissions are so bad that they make automatics feel terrible…

100% agree. The only fun transmissions are manual or none at all. Automatics -- even the newest ones -- are good for driving minivans in traffic and nothing else, IMHO.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#74

Post by arielweisberg »

mulmen wrote: post #55
sevensor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have very mixed feelings about this -- I walk and bicycle quite a lot, so I'm not deeply engaged with driving being fun, nor do I think it's really a great thing if drivers are having fun driving. Fun means more people spending more time on the roads endangering my life. But on the other hand, I learned on a stick. It really is more fun and I miss it.

I don't think fun has to equal unsafe. Manuals provide an opportunity to have fun doing things like matching downshifts and thinking about what you are doing. Both can be done within the confines of safe, legal operation.

And this is where the MX-5 and other suitably configured cars excel. They give you a sense of motion and acceleration at legal and safe speeds that a typical car won't. Even some that are supposed to be sporty, but define sporty as "more power."

Most cars are designed to make you feel nothing and hear nothing. Nothing from the road and nothing from the engine.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#75

Post by ryandrake »

I’ve driven standard transmission for upwards of 15 years and see no need to change. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d be convinced that this trend was part of a country-wide conspiracy to take all the fun and excitement out of driving. It seems like every automotive engineering decision since the 80s has been dominated by occupant safety and comfort, and fuel efficiency, to the detriment of everything else.

It’s why nearly every new car looks like the same identical boring bar of soap, and has the same vanilla handling as a Camry. Everything about driving a modern car is sedate and passive, like you’re just an observer. And there’s so little variety, the most aggressive option on some models is “18 inch wheels.” Some manufacturers are even playing fake “vroom vroom” sounds over the speaker system because their engines are so docile. It’s hard to even find a color that’s not black, white, gray, beige, or navy blue.

Rant over. As a car enthusiast, modern trends make me sad.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#76

Post by munchbunny »

ErnestedCode wrote: post #71

I'm American and I learned to drive in a stick shift. My first 13 years of driving was with a stick. But it got to a point where it was just too difficult to find a stick version of the cars I wanted to get, so now I drive automatics. I get the reason why some people insist driving sticks. You feel more "in tune" and "in control" with your car. But for the vast majority, this is completely unnecessary. Most people ju…

I would love to drive a manual, but I think automatics are just better "UX" for city commuting, especially if you often need to inch forward.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#77

Post by nkantar »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #60

Eh, driven both. The PDK in my Porsche is faster then I am. All my friends that screamed and yelled about being smarter then the PDK I took out for a ride on a long fun Mt road. At the end they said the PDK was better. This is and should be a task for a computer.

"Better" is a tricky word.

I have no doubt PDK (and even far less sophisticated (semi-)automated transmissions) is _faster_ and less likely to make a mistake, but what if outright performance isn't the ultimate goal?

I had the pleasure of driving a 991.1 GT3 with PDK, and it was blisteringly fast (both the car and the transmission). But I was definitely more of a passenger than in my 2004 6-speed manual Miata, and the fact that I noticed that is pretty telling about my preferences.

In a multi-car garage I certainly wouldn't complain about a great (semi-)automated transmission in a daily driver (PDK, DSG, DCT, or even ZF's lauded 8-speed auto), but next to it would have to be a toy with a good manual.

Here's a fun short video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaUCdAdaaj8

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#78

Post by IshKebab »

Someone1234 wrote: post #48

There's little argument for manual transmission anymore except in larger vehicles. There used to be an efficiency gap, in that a good manual driver was more efficient than an automatic. But two things have happened since then, we have computer controlled transmissions and CVTs. Manual drivers were more efficient because they learned when the vehicle would need to shift, and shifted preemptively. A computer controlled…

Are manuals not cheaper to manufacture and repair? Definitely in the UK since 90% of cars are still manual.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#79

Post by peeters »

newnewpdro wrote: post #67

This article completely misses what I have observed as a major factor in nearly everyone switching to automatics: Drunk driving became illegal, then agressively enforced. This created a powerful incentive for having a vehicle anyone can drive. All my friends growing up were gearheads of some kind, and drove manual cars. Now they have automatics, so they can continue to get drunk when out and have someone sober (their…

This reminds me of the Yoga Bera quote, (paraphrasing) "that place is so busy, nobody goes there any more."

If manual was universal, then everybody used to know how to drive it. The situation you describe wouldn't have made sense 50 years ago. The only reason a generation of wives would know how to drive automatic but not manual is if automatic was already the mainstream choice.

So what you're saying might strengthen the feedback loop, but it can't be the cause of the trend to start with.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#80

Post by newnewpdro »

peeters wrote: post #79
newnewpdro wrote: post #67

This article completely misses what I have observed as a major factor in nearly everyone switching to automatics: Drunk driving became illegal, then agressively enforced. This created a powerful incentive for having a vehicle anyone can drive. All my friends growing up were gearheads of some kind, and drove manual cars. Now they have automatics, so they can continue to get drunk when out and have someone sober (their…

This reminds me of the Yoga Bera quote, (paraphrasing) "that place is so busy, nobody goes there any more." If manual was universal, then everybody used to know how to drive it. The situation you describe wouldn't have made sense 50 years ago. The only reason a generation of wives would know how to drive automatic but not manual is if automatic was already the mainstream choice. So what you're saying might strengthen…

I'm only speaking to why it's vanishing, how even the last vestiges of the gearheads have arrived at automatics.
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