Drove nothing but manuals for the past 16 years. Got my first car with a dual-clutch automatic this year. It's faster to shift, easier to drive, has a crazy number of ratios, and still manually controllable. That said, if they still exist, I will go back to a manual for my next car. I think there is a level of engagement lost even with something controllable like a dual-clutch. I can see the appeal of a dual-clutch or even the newer torque converters and I can't fault people for choosing it over a manual, but for me it's not the right fit.
How America lost its love for the stick shift
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Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift
#52Manual transmissions are great anti-theft devices, though! ;)
In your country maybe. It is very much a cultural thing. In the Netherlands to get your driving license, you learn to stick shift by default. If you don't want or cannot learn to stick shift, you can get your license but you get a notice in your driving license that you are only allowed to drive automatic transmission. Learning to drive automatic is still very much an exception here. Most consumer cars in the Netherl…
I've tried three times to rent a manual car at Schiphol, and ended up with an automatic each time. I also noticed that my Uber drivers almost always drive automatics in Amsterdam.
I know, plural of anecdote is not data.
Oh well. My 1998 Tacoma with a five speed will die soon enough, and I'll end up buying an automatic, probably.
I will have :wq! on my headstone, though.
Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift
#53My father bought me my first car, under the conditions that it had to be a stick, since he wanted me to learn in general, and since you have to pay attention more to the road, your likelihood of getting into an accident decreases significantly.
Now I drive a manual Golf GTI and I'm firmly of the "cold dead hands" camp with having it. I always wonder why other people don't like driving, and then I drive their cars. Having the stick turns my 45-minute commute from a chore to something I legitimately somewhat look forward to. My lease runs out next year and it seems like 2018 is the last year for many stick-shift models.
Definitely going to miss it when we all go full electric. Even then I hope to have a "fun" car to drive around.
Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift
#54I love my stick shift, and echo others that it increases my engagement level, but I'm at the point of buying my next car and I know it'll be automatic.
Too many companies don't try to push any advanced technology into their manuals; if you want any kind of active safety features you need to go automatic. Honda was probably the outlier; I test drove the Civic Hatch and it had everything except for low-speed follow available in manual. But others like Subaru, Mazda, etc won't put any of those features (adaptive cruise, etc) in manual packages, at least in the Canadian market.
Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift
#55I learned to drive stick at 34 just for fun. Now own a Mazda 3 and MX-5. Worth it. It's not about out performing an automatic transmission it's about engagement. For some people that's not going to have any value. For others there is no going back to numb econoboxes with automatic transmissions. It's a shame more people don't get over the hump and get to see what driving can be vs. what it is for most.
I have very mixed feelings about this -- I walk and bicycle quite a lot, so I'm not deeply engaged with driving being fun, nor do I think it's really a great thing if drivers are having fun driving. Fun means more people spending more time on the roads endangering my life. But on the other hand, I learned on a stick. It really is more fun and I miss it.
I don't think fun has to equal unsafe. Manuals provide an opportunity to have fun doing things like matching downshifts and thinking about what you are doing. Both can be done within the confines of safe, legal operation.
Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift
#56Automatic gears are much better for parking, etc. in particular when you have to park in a gradient. I've always longed for an automatic, bought the first when I could, and convinced the rest of the family to do the same with "test drives".
Ya, I have no idea how someone parallel parks a manual (w/out hill assist) on a 15% grade; I personally have to keep one foot on the break and one foot on the accelerator!
You can use the e-brake as you lift off the clutch pedal and press on the accelerator. With some learning, I'm now pretty OK at it after some 13,000 miles of manual driving total.
Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
4 way stop at the top of an icy hill for me. Interesting they chose a picture of a floor shift automatic for the article.
I always had an easier time getting up snowy/ice hills (in Boston) than my friends did in their autos. I remember once driving up a hill in front of a friend so he could use my tire indentations to get up behind me.
Getting up was fine. Stopping at the precipice at a 4 way stop, then trying to start again was the tricky bit. With an auto you can hold the brake while you slowly press the accelerator, then release the brakes.
Need a third foot to do that (or a hand brake) with a manual.
Edit: Hill lock definitely sounds nice. Didn't exist when I was young, poor, and had crappy old American made manual shift cars...
Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift
#58I had no idea it had skewed this much. Even Corvette buyers overwhelmingly buy automatic now. From http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2017/06/09/production-statist... For 2017, a total of 25556 paddle shift automatics, and a total of 7226 manual shift.
I was looking around the lot at my local Porsche dealer 2 years ago. Tons of 911s. Number with manual xmission: 0.
That is a crime against humanity.
Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift
#59My 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 to drive. EV's have their own problems, but changing gears is not one of them. Right now, my preference is:
EV > Manual > AutomaticRe: How America lost its love for the stick shift
#60Eh, driven both. The PDK in my Porsche is faster then I am. All my friends that screamed and yelled about being smarter then the PDK I took out for a ride on a long fun Mt road. At the end they said the PDK was better. This is and should be a task for a computer.