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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

#331

Post by lttlrck »

GordonS wrote: post #164
crunchlibrarian wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried lots of autos and CVTs and still haven't found one that isn't terribly confused about what gearing I want. The worst is when you floor it and it thinks for two seconds before actually downshifting, it can be outright dangerous. And if you're in a powerful car an unexpected upshift that shifts the weight around in bizarre ways, cuts power, and kicks the traction control into overdrive while cornering is a p…

I used to think the same way. But, Mercedes have auto boxes absolutely nailed - and I say this as a car enthusiast from the UK, where most cars are still manual, and almost every car I've owned has been manual. My last car was an E350, and the transmission was amazingly good - every time I would have shifted, the car did it for me. I've a BMW now, and the gearbox is good... but it doesn't quite have the 6th sense tha…

I have an E350 and the transmission is very good. I do think you need to make the effort to learn how your transmission responds, no different to a manual really.

And for extra whizz while overtaking use the paddles to preempt the move by changing down a gear or two - exactly as I would in a manual.

I say this having owned numerous manual cars, including BMWs, gen 1 and gen 2 Minis and a ‘74 TR6.

Mind you it didn’t like driving over the Sierra Nevada last week. 9000 ft. saps a lot of power on a normally aspirated engine and it unbalanced the engine and transmission.

Edit: some words

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#333

Post by ummonk »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #325
t0mbstone wrote: post #163

Speaking as someone who has owned a number of sports cars with manual transmissions, I can tell you why I finally made the switch to automatic: Adaptive cruise control in stop and go traffic. I used to have to deal with a six-speed manual transmission in stop and go traffic for an hour every day, and it was pure torture. I mean, sure, it was fun for a weekend drive in the mountains, but it sucked the rest of the time…

I've never had a huge issue with driving in stop-go traffic with a manual. It really depends on the type of car you're driving though, I guess. Driving a sports car with a grippy clutch is going to be painful. Driving a $750, 20 year old Mazda with a 2 L engine and a soft clutch isn't too bad at all, you just sort of ride the clutch (which I am aware isn't great for it). I think that there is nothing that beats drivi…

It isn’t that manual is bad at stop and go traffic. It is that adaptive cruise control is really great at it, and adaptive cruise control is only available on automatics.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#334

Post by Diederich »

mrbrowning wrote: post #326

I’m a committed manual driver, but I fully grant that dual-clutch transmissions and EV powertrains handily outclass manual transmissions from the perspective of effectiveness (although my casual understanding is that an electric motor without a gearbox is still going to be limited in its ability to provide torque at high rotor speeds). I would consider driving a car relying on either of those technologies, even thoug…

> although my casual understanding is that an electric motor without a gearbox is still going to be limited in its ability to provide torque at high rotor speeds

BTW I find your entire comment pretty interesting.

So the current top speed on Tesla Models S3X is 155MPH. The Roadster 2 is expected to have a top speed of 250MPH.

Is the 155MPH an example of what you're referencing Re: high rotor speed? Thanks.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#335

Post by jimmy1 »

emodendroket wrote: post #232
t0mbstone wrote: post #163

Speaking as someone who has owned a number of sports cars with manual transmissions, I can tell you why I finally made the switch to automatic: Adaptive cruise control in stop and go traffic. I used to have to deal with a six-speed manual transmission in stop and go traffic for an hour every day, and it was pure torture. I mean, sure, it was fun for a weekend drive in the mountains, but it sucked the rest of the time…

People always say this, but frankly I find stop-and-go traffic isn't that bad if you put the car into neutral instead of holding down the clutch the whole time. I haven't looked back since I bought my first manual car. I never use cruise control at all though, even when I had an automatic car.

I love having a manual car in traffic simply because it gives me something to do to pass the time. I can play around with the gears, the shifting etc keeps me engaged and focused on the road. I imagine with an automatic it is much easier to mess with the radio or gps and, god forbid, a cell phone.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#336

Post by rootusrootus »

skookumchuck wrote: post #293
rootusrootus wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's really that big a deal. My dad taught me to drive by going out to a lonely national park with a lot of parking lots and letting me figure it out. On an automatic, yes. 20 minutes later he said, okay, good, now drive us home. And I did. Driving isn't that magic. So I will probably teach my kids how to drive our pickup first, and then for laughs we will take my 455 horsepower Camaro out to learn how a…

455HP in the hands of an inexperienced teenager (who will inevitably believe he is a far better driver than he actually is) is a recipe for disaster. The shop that built my engine told me they wouldn't have done it if I was under 40.

As I said ... we will go learn to drive the monster, and then they will not really get many opportunities after that. Show some responsibility and I may let them drive it some more with me in the car, but it will be some time before I trust them to have unlimited access to a high performance car.

Though to be fair, the latest iteration of the stability and traction control is pretty amazing. Short of turning it off, or driving with inappropriate tires for conditions, I can't really get the car out of shape without turning off the nannies. I can hang it out a bit but I could never manage to pull off those beautiful crowd-killing losses of control that Mustangs seem to apt to pull at Cars & Coffee events around the country.

So aside from just driving too fast and making physics an insurmountable issue, they could probably drive it pretty safely if I somehow made it so the nannies could not be disabled.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#337

Post by Declanomous »

crunchlibrarian wrote: post #101
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…

I've tried lots of autos and CVTs and still haven't found one that isn't terribly confused about what gearing I want. The worst is when you floor it and it thinks for two seconds before actually downshifting, it can be outright dangerous. And if you're in a powerful car an unexpected upshift that shifts the weight around in bizarre ways, cuts power, and kicks the traction control into overdrive while cornering is a p…

I like the automatic cars that allow you to choose your gear using the stick. I have a 2010 Impreza, which has the god-awful 4EAT, but you can avoid a lot of the issues if you just downshift manually when you'd like to.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#338

Post by jhayward »

0x00000000 wrote: post #321
jhayward wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is arrant nonsense, and is just short of telling everyone who drives in freeway stop and go traffic that they're just idiots who don't know how to drive. Unless you can control the behavior of adjacent lanes there is no achievable amount of buffer space that eliminates stop and go. The best you can do is increase the glide time between stops. At times you will see, e.g., semis lining up side by side to help keep…

> The best you can do is increase the glide time between stops Do you understand what causes traffic? That harder you brake, the bigger and longer the wave of people braking behind you will be. By braking less hard, you are causing less traffic. And yes, 99% of people driving in traffic are idiots who don't know how to drive or they wouldn't be tailgating and slamming the brakes every 6 feet wasting thousands of hour…

I have somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 hours operating a stick vehicle in high congestion traffic. I went to engineering school and studied traffic both academically, and experientially. Yes, I understand traffic better than you do.

Do you understand traffic? I pretty much doubt it.

No, 99% of people driving in traffic aren't idiots. About 5% are, and that's all it takes. My most pleasant finding from all those years of driving was to note that the vast, vast majority of Houston daily commuters were absolutely pro drivers when it comes to congestion.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#339

Post by Johnny555 »

ethbro wrote: post #280
Xurinos wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To all the folks replying that someone will fill the gap in front of you: that’s the point. It isn’t about reaction time. It’s about letting traffic flow easier, not fighting with each other. It removes the need for your fellow drivers to feel a tension when it is time to switch lanes, to not have to make a risky maneuver. You get to relax when driving because now you aren’t competing to get to your destination, and…

At least in my city in my commute this morning (~30 minutes), I was forced to hard brake 3 times to avoid having an accident with someone wedging themself in at the end of an exit lane. I find the problem isn't people merging into your lane in front of you, but doing so badly (ie not leaving a safe amount of space behind their rear bumper and your front bumper). Semi drivers have this even worse.

Are you allowing enough space in front of you for cars to merge in without wedging themselves in front of you?

That's the worst problem I see around here -- cars in the freeway running bumper to bumper, and then a block of 3 or 5 cars also running bumper to bumper trying to force their way in, but none of the cars really leave enough room for a smooth merge, so the cars on the freeway end up hitting the brakes when the merging cars force their way in.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#340

Post by emodendroket »

Johnny555 wrote: post #323
emodendroket wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always say this, but frankly I find stop-and-go traffic isn't that bad if you put the car into neutral instead of holding down the clutch the whole time. I haven't looked back since I bought my first manual car. I never use cruise control at all though, even when I had an automatic car.

I'm not sure you understand persistent stop and go traffic -- shifting between neutral and first gets awfully tiring after 45+ minutes when you have to do it every day. Putting the car in neutral doesn't really solve that problem. Adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go support is not really the same as cruise-control in free flowing traffic. I rarely use cruise-control in normal traffic, but the stop-and-go cruise…

I used to drive from Connecticut to Queens every single morning. I am familiar with the concept of traffic. Nobody in their right mind enjoys driving in heavy traffic no matter what car they're in.
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