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The Future Of The Manual Transmission

9932 messages,  Last post on May 23, 2013 at 10:37 AM

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Messages Page 952 of 994

#9509 of 9932 Re: CAMPAGNOLO: The Future Of The Automatic Transmission [fintail] by ateixeira

Oct 02, 2012 (7:17 am)

Replying to: fintail (Oct 01, 2012 2:21 pm)
I bet that Zook weighs twice as much as my dual-purpose bike, too.
 
Parking in the living room is too easy, you have to do a full engine rebuild in there.

#9510 of 9932 Re: CAMPAGNOLO: The Future Of The Automatic Transmission [ateixeira] by fintail

Oct 02, 2012 (12:48 pm)

Replying to: ateixeira (Oct 02, 2012 7:17 am)
I don't know if those are the best bikes to use for training. Maybe good for short people, but not light, and the tank is wide. And that heavy clutch...that thing is what got me thinking about a clutchless bike.
 
Engine rebuilds are for shops - keep the local economy going, and you have someone to blame when you notice the piston rings weren't installed

#9511 of 9932 Re: CAMPAGNOLO: The Future Of The Automatic Transmission [fintail] by ateixeira

Oct 02, 2012 (1:06 pm)

Replying to: fintail (Oct 02, 2012 12:48 pm)
I could only blame myself (rebuilt the air cooled 125cc in my Aero).

#9512 of 9932 ABC / anything but CVTs by elias

Oct 06, 2012 (4:23 am)

Replying to: habitat1 (Sep 30, 2012 6:45 am)
(for future reference, when avoiding insults, it's generally required to avoid all mention of family relationships and suggestions of remedial education/magazines... just so ya know for next time!)
 
best wishes with your continuing decades of career as a professional engineer, and may your car-buying experience be void of any vehicle engineered with too many gears.
 
6 gears seems to be the ideal number for a manual for me, but maybe I'll change my mind if i get some serious driving-time in a manual-shift car with 7 gears.
 
Fwiw, I had very little objection to the Caddy CTS-V's "4" automatic gears & its torque-converter-lockup on the racetrack but have not driven an automatic transmission vehicle in years, aside from that one.
I bet the caddy automatic would be fine for street driving too. A manual shift CTS-V would probably be more fun for the street...
 
The slushbox/old-school-hydraulic automatics with electronic controls & lockup/torque-converter-clutch continue to be my favorite automatic transmissions - greatly preferred over the recent automatics such a DSG/SMG/CVT.

#9513 of 9932 Re: CAMPAGNOLO: The Future Of The Automatic Transmission [ateixeira] by nippononly

Oct 15, 2012 (12:55 pm)

Replying to: ateixeira (Oct 01, 2012 10:47 am)
We may have reached a turning point. I think we will all talk about the "good old days" when we could get manual transmissions, hydraulic power steering, and responsive, normally aspirated engines.
 
I was just thinking the same thing the other day, with particular regard to the awful electric steering we are now lumbered with even in expensive models like the new BMWs.
 
I was over here worrying that manuals might go away one day, and they went and killed the steering while I wasn't looking! I have looked and looked in the reviews for anyone to say "fantastic electric steering in this new model X" and those reviews don't exist. The best you might see reviewers say is "decent steering given that it is electric" or some such thing. And in the reviews of the new 3- and 5-series, they have all said steering is significantly worse than the models they replaced.
 
As for my experience with it, I would agree that electric steering is terrible. I haven't found a single one that could hold a candle to the feedback, weighting, and precision of the hydraulic power steering systems of the past.
 
We may one day see manuals go away entirely (I am now convinced it won't be in the foreseeable future) but by then we may not care - they may have sucked so much fun and personal control out of the driving experience by then that who will care if manuals go away as well?

#9514 of 9932 Re: CAMPAGNOLO: The Future Of The Automatic Transmission [nippononly] by victor23

Oct 15, 2012 (2:00 pm)

Replying to: nippononly (Oct 15, 2012 12:55 pm)
they may have sucked so much fun and personal control out of the driving experience by then that who will care if manuals go away as well?
 
This is very well put. Watch out, especially, for self-driving cars. I would bet they will be mandatory in 10-15 years, because it is the only possible solution to the cell phone and distraction problem (as well as other problems besieging the populace unable of self-control).
 
ateixeira: hydraulic power steering, and responsive, normally aspirated engines
 
Well, electric steering to hydraulic is the same as hydraulic to normal non-power steering (which is what I learned to drive back then).
Having said that, I am not very particular about steering (when I hear people complain, I often start musing something on the lines of "A poor workman blames his tools"), but I really miss "responsive normally aspirated engines". Sure, they had their fair share of problems, but my first electronic injection came as a shock. I understand that they are tuned for the fuel economy, but still, since ~1995-98, it is my constant feeling that I drive a car with a wrong spark timing.

#9515 of 9932 self-driving cars mandatory? driving getting safer or less safe? by elias

Oct 16, 2012 (3:47 am)

Replying to: victor23 (Oct 15, 2012 2:00 pm)
victor, your premise for why self-driving cars will be mandatory seems to be that driving is getting less safe. but the opposite is true. driving is safer every year. so there's less and less call for self-driving cars, at least due to the reason you identify. can you identify a valid reason why self-driving cars would become mandatory?
 
also there are plenty of cars with very powerful/torquey normally aspirated engines today and yearly since 1998. there's been increasing variety available for such cars since then actually. shop around, man!
 
i suppose this ought to be in another forum. only relevance to manual transmissions is that drivers with manual transmission cars are safer statistically than automatics, more evidence counter to victor's prediction. also their cars are less likely to be stolen than otherwise-identical automatic-transmission models.

#9516 of 9932 Re: self-driving cars mandatory? driving getting safer or less safe? [elias] by srs_49

Oct 16, 2012 (3:57 am)

Replying to: elias (Oct 16, 2012 3:47 am)
can you identify a valid reason why self-driving cars would become mandatory?
 
Let me try. Self driving cars would probably reduce backups and allow for higher density traffic on existing roads (I know, hard to believe that's possible if you live in the Washington DC area). This would reduce the need for more roads, which are almost becoming unaffordable.

#9518 of 9932 Re: self-driving cars mandatory? driving getting safer or less safe? [elias] by habitat1

Oct 16, 2012 (8:09 am)

Replying to: elias (Oct 16, 2012 3:47 am)
only relevance to manual transmissions is that drivers with manual transmission cars are safer statistically than automatics, more evidence counter to victor's prediction. also their cars are less likely to be stolen than otherwise-identical automatic-transmission models.
 
Do you have a source for that? Makes sense, but when I asked Geico if they kept any stats, they did not show on their system that my TL was a manual, and it appears that they don't track it for rate purposes (i.e. no difference in their insurance quote for manual vs. auto). I believe a VIN number would indicate transmission, but at least so far, GEICO hasn't used it.
 
Interesting that my car was apparently the target of a thief late one night that had obtained a valet key for the car. We heard the alarm go off and the radio blaring at 3:00 a.m. outside our bedroom window. When I ran down, Louisville Slugger in hand, no one was in sight, radio was still blaring with all windows down and a few drops of blood on the steering column where the would-be thief cut his fingers trying to turn the key. Apparently, he didn't know that you have to depress the clutch pedal to start the car. I asked the responding DC police officer if they were going to take the blood samples for DNA matching and he just laughed. Several neighbors thanked me for their 3:00 a.m. wake up call to the beat of "Juke Box Hero".

Messages Page 952 of 994

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