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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

#151

Post by winter_blue »

Fezzik wrote: post #116

That bums me out, but I get it. My first non hand-me-down car was a beat-up Audi A4 (manual) off craigslist that I loved for years and years as a ski bum. I am definitely one of the many "manual transmissions are more fun" people. But once I got that office job, even 15 minutes a day in city traffic with a manual angered me, so I transitioned to an automatic. Now that I am out of the city I would love a manual again,…

Yea, traffic sucks, and I think traffic is eventually going to push people to adopt cars with dynamic radar cruise control systems (that support stop-and-go traffic / low-speed follow). I have such a car (the Toyota Prius Prime), and driving any other regular car in heavy traffic has become insufferable.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#152

Post by commandlinefan »

Fezzik wrote: post #116

That bums me out, but I get it. My first non hand-me-down car was a beat-up Audi A4 (manual) off craigslist that I loved for years and years as a ski bum. I am definitely one of the many "manual transmissions are more fun" people. But once I got that office job, even 15 minutes a day in city traffic with a manual angered me, so I transitioned to an automatic. Now that I am out of the city I would love a manual again,…

I learned to drive in a manual. Now that my son is getting close to driving age, I wanted to teach him in a manual first, like I learned - and then I found out it's damned near impossible to _find_ one any more.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#153

Post by kenhwang »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #139
kenhwang wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can't skip gears like you can in a manual, which matters more when you have 10 speeds reaching mass market. I hate using manual mode in an automatic. I love driving stick. The fun in driving stick isn't from being able to pick gears.

What does skipping gears get you that quick sequential shifts don't? My feeling is the opposite. Paddle shifters are the closest I'll get to driving an F1 car, and I've put a decent amount of time in with a racing wheel and pedals and racing sims and that's where I get all of my muscle memory for my Golf GTI.

I can still skip from 2-6 on a freeway onramp or 6-4 for passing faster than 8/10 speeds can go 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10.

There's no point revving out all my gears in real world driving, I just want to reach the speed limit as fast as possible then go into overdrive. DCTs are very fast at switching into what they think is your next gear. They're quite slow at switching if you want to switch more gears.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#154

Post by singingboyo »

mjklin wrote: post #90
VBprogrammer wrote: post #30

In the UK most cars are still manual. Less so for the more expensive you go but I'd guess more than 90%. I have driven automatics a handful of times. The longest I spent was 2 weeks in a motor home touring the Rockies. While I can see the appeal for around town driving driving up and down grades was a bit of a pain. Basically I had to learn the behaviour of the transmission and use a combination of the exact amount o…

You’ve brought up a good reason why Americans should learn manual: in case they rent cars in other countries. I rented a car in Costa Rica whose clutch had been destroyed by the previous renter, which fact did not make itself plain until we were on a mountain road. Wish he had learned stick!

But... how? When no one owns a manual, you can't learn to drive stick. My dad had a manual car that he'd kept for 20 years, and I haven't seen one since that went, about 10 years ago. (I could've learned on that had I gotten things together, but didn't. Given its condition near the end, that's probably a good thing.) There's nothing around to learn on.

It's a vicious circle sort of problem at this point. Less manual cars -> can't learn stick -> can't drive stick -> no one buys manuals -> less manual cars.

In the end, I can learn the concept, but I won't really know how to drive stick unless I have a manual... and I'll never buy a manual, so the only possibility is that I'll start off ruining the clutch on some rental. (Or, more likely, I'll go out of my way to rent automatic... but that may not always be possible)

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#156

Post by jedberg »

When I learned to drive (early 90s) there was already really no need to learn to drive a stick. None the less, my dad insisted that I learn to drive stick. I liked it so much I bought one a few years later.

I'm also really glad he made me learn, because 15 years later I finally got to Europe and had to rent a car there. It was impossible to find an automatic, but luckily I knew how to drive manual.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#157

Post by taeric »

jedberg wrote: post #150
Fezzik wrote: post #116

That bums me out, but I get it. My first non hand-me-down car was a beat-up Audi A4 (manual) off craigslist that I loved for years and years as a ski bum. I am definitely one of the many "manual transmissions are more fun" people. But once I got that office job, even 15 minutes a day in city traffic with a manual angered me, so I transitioned to an automatic. Now that I am out of the city I would love a manual again,…

I found that having a stick in traffic was actually easier for me. I could keep it in one gear which meant not moving my foot from brake to gas (I could just use engine breaking and use just the gas).

This is dangerous, as you aren't signaling people behind you if you are braking...

Edit: I would likely soften the "dangerous" wording above. I'm not trying to claim this is guaranteed to get you killed. Just pointing out that bypassing a well established signaling mechanism of your vehicle should be a deliberate act. Not one of convenience.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#158

Post by jedberg »

winter_blue wrote: post #151
Fezzik wrote: post #116

That bums me out, but I get it. My first non hand-me-down car was a beat-up Audi A4 (manual) off craigslist that I loved for years and years as a ski bum. I am definitely one of the many "manual transmissions are more fun" people. But once I got that office job, even 15 minutes a day in city traffic with a manual angered me, so I transitioned to an automatic. Now that I am out of the city I would love a manual again,…

Yea, traffic sucks, and I think traffic is eventually going to push people to adopt cars with dynamic radar cruise control systems (that support stop-and-go traffic / low-speed follow). I have such a car (the Toyota Prius Prime), and driving any other regular car in heavy traffic has become insufferable.

I have one of those too but I find that it's only useful in light traffic. Anything more and it likes to slam on the brakes anytime someone merges into the lane. They still need to work on that software a bit.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#159

Post by blattimwind »

peeters wrote: post #68
tyingq wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting up was fine. Stopping at the precipice at a 4 way stop, then trying to start again was the tricky bit. With an auto you can hold the brake while you slowly press the accelerator, then release the brakes. Need a third foot to do that (or a hand brake) with a manual. Edit: Hill lock definitely sounds nice. Didn't exist when I was young, poor, and had crappy old American made manual shift cars...

Just a note on that, most premium manual models come with hill assist these days. Automatically applies the brake while you accelerate from a stop.

Premium is relative. By that standard, a VW Golf is premium. (Arguably you can nowadays get it with options that were very much premium not that long ago)

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#160

Post by taeric »

commandlinefan wrote: post #152
Fezzik wrote: post #116

That bums me out, but I get it. My first non hand-me-down car was a beat-up Audi A4 (manual) off craigslist that I loved for years and years as a ski bum. I am definitely one of the many "manual transmissions are more fun" people. But once I got that office job, even 15 minutes a day in city traffic with a manual angered me, so I transitioned to an automatic. Now that I am out of the city I would love a manual again,…

I learned to drive in a manual. Now that my son is getting close to driving age, I wanted to teach him in a manual first, like I learned - and then I found out it's damned near impossible to _find_ one any more.

I confess I gained a ton of respect for Klik & Klack was when they gave the advice to not teach kids on a stick shift.

This is akin to teaching a kid to ride a 21 speed bike. They can probably get up to that rather quickly, all told, but just learning the basics of balance and pedaling will already be difficult enough.

Similarly, just learning the basics of the car will already be tough. Why add to it? Why not take away power steering? Because it would make it harder.

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