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Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

latimes.com

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Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#311

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

_nalply wrote: post #141
zippergz wrote: post #35

I'm a car enthusiast, and I was a manual transmission purist for many, many years. But then I had to be honest with myself, and admit that the VAST majority of my driving is commuting in traffic. And that driving is much less annoying with an automatic. My leisure driving is maybe 5% less fun without a manual, but that's far outweighed by how much better my daily commute is. At this point, I'd only buy a manual for a…

Manual transmission is incompatible with cruise control with proximity detection, because the automated system can't shift (or it would be an automatic transmission). I would buy a car which has both (like the Smart) and manual shift in difficult conditions (like driving over mountain passes in snow). However the Smart I rented didn't have a clutch. It's weird. I don't know.

I have ACC on a shift gear and it's great on highways. Not entirely incompatible for sure.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#312

Post by Broken_Hippo »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #296

You'll know we're serious about climate change when this changes. Manual gets better gas mileage. Sure it might be a small difference but even just 3 miles per gallon is 10% on 30 mpg. Over hundreds of thousands of cars that adds up. But we can't be bothered. It's an inconvenience. You can't drink your soy latte and drive at the same time if the vehicle is manual. I guess you can say it's a matter of priorities.

> You can't drink your soy latte and drive at the same time..

This is simply not true once driving a manual becomes second nature. Cupholders work to hold it when you need both hands.

But in general, I agree that most folks (in the US) can't be bothered to drive one.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#313

Post by rsp1984 »

henrikschroder wrote: post #46

I got my driver's license in Sweden, and the official driving handbook completely worships manual transmissions, and makes several untrue claims about how much better they are than automatics. You can choose to do your road test in an automatic, but that'll earn you a restriction on your license, barring you from driving a manual. It's probably fair, but almost everyone (myself included) chooses to practice in manual…

An often lost fact in automatic vs. stick-shift discussions is that in practice automatic transmission causes much heavier wear on the brakes of the car.

This is because with a stick-shift you can just gear down when going downhill or before a foreseen stop and let the engine do most of the breaking for you. You then only use the brakes to bring the car to a full-stop on the last couple meters. This gets you much better mileage on your brake disks and pads. Can't do that with an automatic.

Plus it's more fuel efficient.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#314

Post by ollie87 »

exDM69 wrote: post #301
ollie87 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, I just got a new car (manual, of course) and it has "rev-matching" so when you shift down a gear it automatically heel-toes (basically a throttle blip) which means there's not much engine braking going on during downshifts. Granted when driving quickly and dropping a cog or two to overtake a slow moving vehicle it's great. Slowing down for traffic? Not so good. Took some getting used to changing down gear…

Are you sure it actually blips the throttle and it's not just the synchromesh gear in the gearbox? There's no need to blip with a synchronized gearbox, which has been the standard in road vehicles since the 1930s or so. Even if it does blip, you can still utilize engine breaking but you have to shift early and sometimes skip gears.

Not sure why I got downvoted here.

It actually blips the throttle. It's not the syncho, trust me.

http://www.minif56.com/forum/353-mini-cooper-f56-forum/7010-...

It's not the first car to have it either, and there is actually PLENTY of reasons why you'd need to blip or heel-toe when driving even in a car with a synco'd gearbox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnXLZg_O1rk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4n9tMdISBg

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#315

Post by Retric »

yason wrote: post #214
sshanky wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In modern cars, disengaging the clutch (or using neutral) when coasting (toward a stop or down a hill) is less efficient than staying in gear. This is because it takes some fuel to keep the engine idling, where staying in gear allows the computer to completely cut fuel flow, as long as the forward motion is keeping the engine turning.

This used to be the case with fuel injected engines from 80's to 00's but because of new regulations current ECUs might, again, inject fuel while coasting just to keep the catalytic converter warm and operational. The amount is obviously negligible but it's quite crazy to spend more fuel in order to reduce emissions :)

Smog is a real health issue, and US city's are vastly better now. So, IMO it's well worth a tiny bit more global warming.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#316

Post by cjrp »

rsp1984 wrote: post #313
henrikschroder wrote: post #46

I got my driver's license in Sweden, and the official driving handbook completely worships manual transmissions, and makes several untrue claims about how much better they are than automatics. You can choose to do your road test in an automatic, but that'll earn you a restriction on your license, barring you from driving a manual. It's probably fair, but almost everyone (myself included) chooses to practice in manual…

An often lost fact in automatic vs. stick-shift discussions is that in practice automatic transmission causes much heavier wear on the brakes of the car. This is because with a stick-shift you can just gear down when going downhill or before a foreseen stop and let the engine do most of the breaking for you. You then only use the brakes to bring the car to a full-stop on the last couple meters. This gets you much bet…

I use engine braking in this way, but I've often wondered how much additional wear this is putting on the clutch. Given that brake pads/discs are cheap, and a clutch is not, maybe in the long run this doesn't actually work out cheaper?

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#317

Post by vetinari »

Reason077 wrote: post #223
edoloughlin wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, it's more convoluted to use. You have to engage the clutch, put the shifter in neutral, and release the clutch again This is how you should drive if you know you're going to be stopped for more than a few seconds. 'Convoluted' doesn't come into it - it's the default.

I've driven manuals most of my life. Before stop/start came along, I was in the habit of just holding the clutch pedal down while stopped at intersections or in traffic. Anecdotally, I think most drivers do the same. Now, when driving stop/start equipped vehicles, I always try to use it. But in a manual, it does takes more thinking and effort and I wonder how many casual drivers actually bother. The thing is, most of…

By holding down the clutch pedal, you are literally destroying the clutch. When I was in the driving school, I was taught to never do this. If you are stopping, even for just few seconds, put in the neutral. It becomes automatic movement in a short time.

Few years ago, I had colleagues who came from a certain foreign country and were not used to manual transmission. They got a company car with manual transmission. The clutch was burned in one month.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#318

Post by dx034 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #296

You'll know we're serious about climate change when this changes. Manual gets better gas mileage. Sure it might be a small difference but even just 3 miles per gallon is 10% on 30 mpg. Over hundreds of thousands of cars that adds up. But we can't be bothered. It's an inconvenience. You can't drink your soy latte and drive at the same time if the vehicle is manual. I guess you can say it's a matter of priorities.

The problem is also congestion. Manual trasmission is great when there's not a lot of traffic, but it's a pain on your morning commute in LA/SF/NY/... In Europe you either live on the countryside or use public transport. Comparably few people are stuck every morning on the highway on their way to work (still a few though).

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#319

Post by Aaargh20318 »

computator wrote: post #251
vmarsy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>when automatic transmissions are consistently outperforming humans at fuel efficiency Do you have data to back this up? Unless you're driving a dual clutch "dry" transmission or a CVT, because of Physics, an automatic transmission will always be less efficient. The Automatic transmission Torque converter [1] will waste some of the energy provided by the engine, especially with city driving. Also, most automatic cars…

> because of Physics, an automatic transmission will always be less efficient You making that claim based on how automatic transmissions currently work, right? And not on every way they could work. Purely from logic, your claim has to be false: Imagine a humanoid robot sitting in your driver's seat, driving your manual transmission car, its robot arm doing the shifting exactly as a human would. Your manual car has be…

> Purely from logic, your claim has to be false: Imagine a humanoid robot sitting in your driver's seat, driving your manual transmission car, its robot arm doing the shifting exactly as a human would. Your manual car has been turned into an automatic and it is not less efficient.

You're forgetting a very important factor: the automatic transmission can only respond to the drivers actions. Unlike the driver it has no knowledge of future plans. It will happily shift up 2 seconds before I hit the brakes because it has no idea I'm planning to take a left turn in 20 meters.

Re: Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

#320

Post by Broken_Hippo »

massysett wrote: post #238

I live in an area (in USA) with a lot of car theft. A police officer said the easiest theft prevention is to buy a stick because the thieves can't drive them. He said they had a really nice bait car, but because it was a stick nobody stole it.

That is a bonus!

Similar story: My father (and now, my brother) had a 1963 pickup truck that he always left unlocked. He said he never worried about anyone stealing it because he figured most folks couldn't drive it. Not only was it a manual, but it was a 3-speed manual you shifted from the column, so it looked like an automatic inside but yet very much wasn't.

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