181–190 of 729 posts
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...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Not really; it's pretty much impossible to stop suddenly via engine braking alone in a stick shift without forcing the transmission into a much lower gear (fourth to second or first, for example) and engaging the clutch, which will damage the drivetrain if done more than a few times. Engine braking, if done correctly, is a gradual slowdown with the ability to immediately accelerate again, all without wearing on your…
I have the same problem on my bike. I don't always signal when I'm about to stop at a corner, and have had folks near hit me for it. (Granted, if you are stopping on a bike, it is literally harder to signal that you are stopping. Point stands that if I could, it would be safer.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 a…
Ctrl-F "traffic" shows up nothing in the article - there's not much discussion of "why" other than the technology is better. Truth is that when you are stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, stopping and starting, manuals are tedious and not a good experience.
I'd like an automatic transmission in cities and on highways and a manual one up and down hills and off-road, when I want to be sure about what the car will do. So what about a sequential transmission? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_manual_transmission It's the one we use in videogames when we select "manual". In real cars they usually have an automatic mode. Car2Go Smarts used to have that transmission, ac…
I haven't actually seen a car without a sequential/manual mode for a long time, come to think of it. Used to drive a 2003 Grand Caravan that didn't have it, but it had a few different automatic modes that helped fill that void for hills.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I've wondered how this is issue is addressed in EVs that offer one-pedal driving. Do they show the brake lights when deceleration exceeds a certain rate? Similarly, when I'm braking very lightly in my plugin-in hybrid in order to charge the battery all the way down a long hill, I wish there were a way to not have the brake lights activated the whole time. It's only barely slowing me down, and I've driven other cars t…
I can see no reason why this wouldn’t work equally well for cars.
I like manuals because they feel better to me. This is totally anecdotal but to me it seems like the stick keeps me more engaged with what's happening with the car so I find I tend to be less distracted. It also occupies a hand so it definitely prevents a lot of phone usage. If this could actually be proved I'd definitely welcome a return to manual transmissions as sometimes I feel like the only person not on their p…
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…
Get a sports car, put it in manual mode, and you get the perks of choosing gears during the drive without stalling your engine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Engine breaking just means slowing down by letting the foot off the gas. You aren't really slowing down that quickly. Someone has to really not be paying attention to miss it. It would be the equivalent of someone merging.
I know what it means. And I've seen some folks do it fast enough to catch followers by surprise. Especially at night. To that point, I'm not trying to claim it is insurmountably dangerous. It is more dangerous that just using the brakes, though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Engine braking is a pretty gradual deceleration - if the car behind you doesn't notice that you're slowing down in the ~30 seconds it takes to close a safe distance with a car that's gradually slowing down, you got bigger problems. For that matter, automatics do it too. Take your foot off the gas in an automatic and wind/rolling resistance will eventually slow you down too. I find that the fuel economy savings from e…
Is it guaranteed to get you in a wreck? Not at all. But, I would be surprised if people weren't more keyed to the "red light" in front of them than you are letting on.
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…
Seems to be really changing in the UK. I don't drive, but nearly all my friends/family members who used to have manual now have automatic. Also, most Ubers these days seem to have automatic transmission.