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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

#451

Post by curlcntr »

rootusrootus wrote: post #183
taeric wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

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…

With you there. My '68 Camaro, small-block, and requisite Muncie 4-speed. Can't imagine it any other way.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#452

Post by mikestew »

ulises314 wrote: post #328
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.

That's what you are supposed to do, isn't? I think most (all?) car clutches are dry, so that means that not going to neutral at a stop would eat your clutch in a few months.

Captain Pedantic here, and it looks like you might have facts confused, citizen. Sitting with the clutch pedal pushed in will shorten the life of the throw out bearing, but the clutch plates (which are generally what get “eaten”) will be fine because they’re not touching anything.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#453

Post by inferiorhuman »

ericpauley wrote: post #446
inferiorhuman wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I used to drive from Connecticut to Queens every single morning. That doesn't seem like a bad drive. Try two hours from Western SF to the Golden Gate Bridge (roughly six miles).

Question: why do you drive? You could easily walk that distance in 2 hours, and driving just makes the problem worse for everyone.

> Question: why do you drive? You could easily walk that distance in 2 hours, and driving just makes the problem worse for everyone.

Agreed 100%. About the only time I drive within the Bay Area is if I'm going outside the SF / Oakland / Berkeley urban core. This Labor Day I was going to Marin and planned poorly (driving the day of instead of leaving earlier).

Once you get out of that urban core (or if you're traveling late at night) public transit nearly evaporates. Without traffic that would have been around a two hour bus ride. However there are no dedicated lanes for buses along 19th / Park Presidio so that would've been easily a 3-4 hour bus trip with a few untimed transfers thrown in for good measure.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#454

Post by bacon_waffle »

rpcope1 wrote: post #298
taeric wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

> Why not take away power steering? Because it would make it harder. What? Have you even driven anything that's not a big truck without power steering (and I don't mean a car with power steering disabled). It's not _that_ big a difference, if at all.

I had a mini for a year or two; one of the little ones that would just about fit inside the back of that BMW thing they call a "mini" now. I could see how it could surprise someone who's learning to drive, or isn't used to a car without power steering - the wheel is substantially harder to turn when the car isn't rolling.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#455

Post by majormajor »

H1Supreme wrote: post #424
int_handler wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving a manual car isn't about efficiency. It is about driver engagement. Yes, you can row your own gears with paddle shifters, but no automatic will ever give you the same kind of engagement or connectedness with the car as a manual with three pedals will. But yes, if there is a smoking gun for the death of the manual in America, it would be our crumbling, congested roads and absurdly long daily commutes.

I agree with the engagement aspect, but I'm sure dual clutch equipped cars are just as fun to drive. I rode a motorcycle with an auto-shifter, I didn't miss using the clutch (on up-shifts) one bit.

I traded a dual-clutch sports car for a manual after two years because the disengagement is real. If you want to play a driving video game, just play a video game. :)

Now I have two cars, one for rough traffic trips. I realize this isn't practical, though, so I don't hate anyone for their automatics.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#456

Post by statictype »

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…

Do you use the paddle shifters. Ever? I have one of those triptronic things thinking I can always get manual control when I want and I don't think I used it even once

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#457

Post by skookumchuck »

rootusrootus wrote: post #336
skookumchuck wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I drove one way with my dad in the car, another way when he wasn't. Suffice to say I'm lucky to have survived intact into adulthood.

I haven't driven a nanny car and don't know what they're like. They should have a "teenager" mode which detunes it to 100HP :-)

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#458

Post by tudelo »

hateful wrote: post #439
chrisdhoover wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just do like the truckers do, leave it in second and crawl. It helps to not be concerned with maintaining a 6 inch gap with the car ahead. I truly believe that stop and go is caused by automatics. All of the brake tapping tends to bunch people up at the end of long lines forcing them to a complete stop. In a manual just let off on the gas a little and the engine brakes a little, no brake lights to create cascading…

Keep in mind that slightly depressing your brake pedal without pushing it down turns your brake lights on but you do not actually brake. This is used to warn cars behind you of possible danger ahead.

It really depends on your car. A lot of cars have a little give in the brake light sensor...

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#459

Post by tdsamardzhiev »

King-Aaron wrote: post #432
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…

Why not both? I have two manuals and an auto, the auto is used for the commute to work while I have a racecar and a four wheel drive (to take the racecar to the track). The auto is lovely when you have a coffee on the go, and the manuals do a far better skid. They all have their merits, it's purely down to individual choice and don't see any need to try and justify it.

Because if I'm sacrificing money/space to keep and maintain 3 cars, that means I'm not using it for something more important. A matter of perspective, I guess.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#460

Post by linsomniac »

apple4ever wrote: post #290
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.

Yep exactly. I rarely have issues in stop and go traffic. And if its just slow moving traffic, just keep it in first. I love manuals, and everytime I drive an automatic I just hate it. It never does what I want.

I used to feel that way, I was a die-hard manual guy for a long time. Then I decided to get a car that only came with an automatic, and it was a good automatic, and all my gripes about autos went away.

The car in question was a used Audi A8. In "S" mode it would shift pretty much the way I'd shift my manual Audi S4. In D mode it was more sedate, but if I needed to downshift in order to be ready when a gap opened in traffic, I could pull on the left paddle twice and it would downshift. I thought that worst case if I hated it I could just use the paddles or the same thing on the shifter. It had a mode where it would not shift unless you told it to as well. I tried that a few times, but in the end just used D most of the time and S for the twisties.

Now I'm not sure what I have. Is a Tesla a Automatic or a Manual? It is direct drive, so you don't touch it once you "shift into gear", but it isn't making gear changes for you either. Hmmm. :-) It's also fast and smooth and absolutely no lag, either through induction/turbo or through gear changes. I worried as a car guy that I would find it too isolating, but the things I like about good cars, this has in spades (smooth, responsive, powerful engine).

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