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Automotive News & Views The Future Of The Manual Transmission
5807 messages, Last post on Nov 26, 2009 at 7:20 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: nippononly (Dec 05, 2008 1:50 pm) My wife learned to drive in automatics but went to the Grand Canyon with three girlfriends when she was 17 and one of the kids owned a stick shift car. They shared driving so she learned how to shift on that trip. There's was a one year gap in our stick shift ownership after we met in '80, but the current dry spell has lasted 9 years now.
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Replying to: steve_ (Dec 05, 2008 2:16 pm)
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Replying to: nippononly (Dec 05, 2008 2:19 pm) 
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Replying to: nippononly (Dec 05, 2008 2:19 pm) But I suppose I could live with an automatic for the next decade if need be. |
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Before I moved off of the mountain last April. A very good friend of our had five kids and no manuals at all. So I offered to teach four of their children how to drive a stick. We had two manuals and one automatic at the time. They did pretty well and I even let them drive around some mountain roads close to where we lived. Ot the three the oldest Girl got a F-150 with a auto. The second Girl got a Rav-4 with a auto. The next one was a boy that bought a Subaru WRX and that at least was a stick. The last girl got a Civic with a automatic. I won't be teaching the last girl because we moved and no longer have a manual. So she will learn on a automatic but I would think she would have gone manual anyway. More than likely she will get one of her sisters cars. Still the origional post indicating that fewer parents have manuals is a valid one. My son can drive anything that moves no matter what transmission it has and his truck is an Automatic diesel 3500 and his car is a manual Saturn. But he is a bit like me in that the vehicle choice is more important than the transmission. I guess he was lucky we had manuals when he was learning to drive. But if we as a nation go hybrid or EV I believe it will be a good trade off even if they aren't manual friendly.
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Replying to: boaz47 (Dec 05, 2008 5:23 pm) |
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my '08 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS, I have to let you guys know a strong feeling that popped in to my head yesterday while driving around my little SE Arizona cowtown. I love my car's automatic transmission! I do. I love not having to shift, I can search for CD's while driving and change them out, sip soda safely and carefully, and I don't really miss having to contort my left leg and simultaneously work the accelerator with my right foot. A small car I'm looking at for my next car only offers a automatic transmission, too. This is the 2010 Pininfarina-Bollore B0(pronounced B Zero). http://www.pininfarina.com/index/storiaModelli/B0.html  Once again, it's all about the car I drive, not the form it is pushed along by. 
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Replying to: iluvmysephia1 (Dec 07, 2008 11:16 am) However to me it is the surest indication the US markets are plain not serious about fuel savings. One can simply compare the EPA mpg ratings of a automatic vs manual.
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Replying to: nippononly (Dec 05, 2008 1:50 pm) If you learn to drive on an automatic and then learn stick later, are you less likely to be a life-long devotee of the third pedal? Other way around. The most die-hard manual guys I've seen (outside of this forum  ) wanted to learn it after learning to drive on automatics, and the most die-hard auto (mainly SMG/DSG) guys grew up with and subsequently got tired of driving sticks.
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I get about 34 mpg highway and 22 mpg in the city with my 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS. I have the automatic CVT tranny, as I stated above. Mitsubishi claims on the window sticker that I'll get 31 highway and 21 in the city. I beat that highway number by 3 mpg, consistently. And Mitsu claims the 5-speed '08 -'09 Lancer's will get 22 mpg in the city and 31 mpg on the highway. So what's not to like about my automatic-trannied Lancer? In fact, I am loving my car so much that the little all-electric B0 may have to wait for about 5 years before I'm thinking trade-in time for it. I wanted a stick that day of purchase, March 21, 2007, but Avondale Mitsubishi (9 miles west of Phoenix) has someone working for them that apparently doesn't know what a stick shift or a CVT automatic is. On the phone they said "we've got your '08 Rally Red Mitsubishi Lancer GTS in 5-speed stick." When I got there they had indeed a 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS in the showroom, looking gorgeous. But it was an automatic CVT, not a 5-speed! "Do you have any 5-speed Lancer GTS' in stock", I asked. "No, we don't," was the answer. So, at that point of letting anger flash up and then go away, slowly, my wife and I both decided that we'd dig the automatic CVT more than the 5-speed. At least she would, anyway. But I've grown to love it, I can "shift" with the titanium paddleshifters. Or just put it in 'D' and drive in a pleasurable manner in automatic transmission. "I like that!" 
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