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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

#411

Post by ali_af »

skywhopper wrote: post #343

I love driving stick, but I have no illusions that I make better decisions about what gear to be in when than good automatics/CVTs, and I know I'm not saving gas the way I drive. Now, many automatics still bother me or even feel dangerous with their sluggishness, but there are great ones out there that I am happy to drive. But the American market is definitely to the point now where it makes total sense to just elimi…

My issue with automatic transmissions is that while they may be able to predict optimal settings in specific conditions, they cannot understand the overall conditions of traffic and operate accordingly.

An example is bumper to bumper traffic moving at high speed. Traffic may momentarily slow down abruptly, then pick up again. All automatic transmissions I have driven react the same when I release the gas, and then press it again as traffic speeds back up. They either stay in high gear, so the torque is not immediately available when traffic speeds up, or worse, they take a few seconds to downshift and then lunge forward.

With a standard transmission, I can put the car in neutral when I see brake lights ahead, slow down with the brakes if necessary, and when traffic starts moving faster, I drop into the appropriate gear for the speed I'm at and the torque I need.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#412

Post by entee »

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…

At this point performance cars are no longer truly exploitable on a road legally. Yeah you can do a quick acceleration at the occasional stoplight, but on pretty much no public road are you going to get to a speed that's close to the car's limit. And if you do, it'll be insanely dangerous because even though safety systems are amazing these days, your reaction time isn't any faster than it used to be and the people around you may not be as well protected.

It's useful on the track you say? Maybe, and I have no doubt I'd rather a paddle shifter for outright speed and ease. It's probably safer to learn to drive at high speed having removed one of the variables at least at first. That said, I'll never be Michael Schumacher.

Bottom line when you buy a performance car: what are you trying to do? It can't be "win" or see the limits of the car, so what is it? Clearly it's to have fun. And I think it's hard to argue that driving a stick is more fun, except perhaps in traffic. In the end I'd rather endure minor annoyance in traffic and in the city in exchange for the fun that comes elsewhere. I've put my money where my mouth is, own 2 cars, both stick.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#413

Post by chrisweekly »

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…

You know what else increases traffic? Merging too soon.

A good friend of mine and I have a standing argument about proper behavior when, driving, one encounters a "lane closed ahead" sign. He insists that the right thing to do is to abandon the to-be-closed lane as soon as feasible [tangent: he also gets mad at drivers who want to merge later, describing them as "cutters"], while I maintain that the best way to minimize the effect of a lane closure is to use whatever lanes are legal/open for as long as possible -- because leaving an open lane of travel unused only exacerbates the problem.

Who's right?

Disclaimer: I grew up driving in the Boston area (yes, among other "Massholes"), and my philosophy is "try never to use your brakes on the highway, and try even harder never to require anyone else to brake unnecessarily".

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#414

Post by sampo »

CydeWeys wrote: post #181
crazygringo wrote: post #99

Except the article doesn't answer it at all. Why did America lose its love... when other countries (e.g. rich European countries) continue to buy majority stick? All of the reasons given for the US presumably apply to e.g. Germany too, no? Except no transformation there...

Rich European countries are majority automatic transmission on new sales now too. They're lagging behind the US somewhat in absolute numbers but the same transition is happening, just delayed.

Even Finland, with higher car tax than e.g. Germany or Sweden, and on the average older cars than Western Europe, under 30% of new cars are sold with a manual transmission.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#415

Post by chrisweekly »

chrisdhoover wrote: post #352
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…

You are wrong. You can drive like truckers, just roll, maintain space, and keep off the brakes.

FTR, statistically, there's not a whole lot of agency involved. Wish I had a good citation here but IIRC there's almost no difference between real-world commuter traffic and fluid dynamics w/ static "dumb" particles.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#416

Post by wallace_f »

philwelch wrote: post #396
skywhopper wrote: post #343

I love driving stick, but I have no illusions that I make better decisions about what gear to be in when than good automatics/CVTs, and I know I'm not saving gas the way I drive. Now, many automatics still bother me or even feel dangerous with their sluggishness, but there are great ones out there that I am happy to drive. But the American market is definitely to the point now where it makes total sense to just elimi…

Learning to drive stick is still a useful skill if you want to operate heavy trucks or ride motorcycles, neither of which tend to have an automatic transmission. It’s not an option that I would want to go away. Also, I might have used valet parking once in my life. Handing my car over to someone who can’t drive stick is something I’m willing to live without—especially when you remember that many car thieves can’t dri…

I agree. I would content another point that might be contentious... I don't know the best way to say this, but I really do not like the idea of not being the authority, and not having mechanical control, over my vehicle. You may or may not be concerned by Michael Hasting's-incidents, but that isn't even necessary. In modern cars, any malicious or incompetent third-party can kill you. But either way, I really don't want authorities to have more opportunity to abuse their powers against political dissidents, whistleblowers, or even just ex-girlfriends or business partners anyways. That sort of thing happens in America even if mainstream media didn't tell you that.[2][3] In my opinion it's incredibly naive to believe this won't happen.

1-https://www.wired.com/2016/03/fbi-warns-car-hacking-real-ris...

2-https://youtu.be/M31ZCh1VeX8

3-https://denver.cbslocal.com/2016/09/28/report-across-us-colo...

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#417

Post by astronautjones »

philwelch wrote: post #396
skywhopper wrote: post #343

I love driving stick, but I have no illusions that I make better decisions about what gear to be in when than good automatics/CVTs, and I know I'm not saving gas the way I drive. Now, many automatics still bother me or even feel dangerous with their sluggishness, but there are great ones out there that I am happy to drive. But the American market is definitely to the point now where it makes total sense to just elimi…

Learning to drive stick is still a useful skill if you want to operate heavy trucks or ride motorcycles, neither of which tend to have an automatic transmission. It’s not an option that I would want to go away. Also, I might have used valet parking once in my life. Handing my car over to someone who can’t drive stick is something I’m willing to live without—especially when you remember that many car thieves can’t dri…

It's also useful if you want to drive in almost any other part of the world. the entire traffic light system in most of europe (my only anecdotal example) is designed to show you the pre-green yellow to get ready for the green

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#418

Post by Zarath »

traviswingo wrote: post #361

America lost its love of more than just the stick shift. I regularly find myself around people who just simply can’t drive safely. They don’t use their mirrors, they don’t know how to stop rapidly in emergency situations; I’m not surprised no one drives a manual anymore. On top of this, we pretty much hand out drivers licenses like fucking flyers in this country. Just stand in line and earn yours. If you’ve ever been…

Driving in the US is infuriating. Nobody is paying attention and nobody seems to understand basic rules like faster traffic keep left.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#420

Post by H1Supreme »

RaceWon wrote: post #409

I raced cars with non-synchronized transmissions for some years, which means you have to heel and toe (and blip the throttle) to engage a lower gear, and I always drove my MT street cars the same way. About 8 years ago though I switched to automatic with a VW GTI. There truly is no comparison, dual clutches and in sport mode the car executes a throttle blip on down shifts so I can left foot brake all the time and alw…

What about down shifting into first gear when coming to a stop? Is it jarring with a dual clutch? On my motorcycle I almost never shift into 1st before stopping because of the engine braking (even with a throttle blip). I just grab the clutch and coast until I stop.
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