So I’m hearing that some of y’all may feel that Cash for Clunkers is your opportunity to to trade up. Your chance to lose the clutch and make a run for the hands-free hype of automatic transmission technology. To which I say, NSFW please. That clutch stood by you. That clutch was your friend. The ability to change your own gears was the only thing that kept you from driving that Tercel off a cliff out of sheer boredom. And now you think that just because you’re upgrading to an Elantra, a slushbox is suddenly more befitting your station in life? Yo, that logic is the sodium silicate of the mind. So if your clunker had a manual transmission, pour out a bottle of Synchromax for the departed. And if you replaced it with a CVT, you better watch your back.
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Suddenly I have a new-found respect for Kazzer.
I find the lack of manual transmission cars in the U.S. absolutely disheartening.
I can’t believe how hard it is to find a vehicle with a manual transmission that isn’t a full blown sports car or an total econobox.
Even motorcycles are coming with automatics these days =(
I just got a 328i, and the local dealer had exactly zero manual 3-series on the lot. Exactly zero manual 1-series. The only thing with a stick in sight was a Z4.
So we ran through the regional inventory. Two manual 3 coupes in shouting distance. One had been on the lot nine months.
I can’t blame the dealers and the manufacturers for not building and stocking a bunch of cars they can’t sell, but it’s a sad day when no one wants to buy a 3-series with a stick.
I’d been driving an automatic transmission car for the last 5 years or so until last Tuesday when I finally picked up my new Honda Fit Sport w/ the M/T. What a delight! Having a manual transmission makes even a car with a wimpy little 1.5 liter motor feel like a race car, if you ask me. The control, the man-machine interface, the connectedness is fantastic. 3 cheers for manual transmission cars!
People view sticks as a sign of cheapness or something. I’m sure I’ll get comments about why on earth I got my BMW with a stick— my family will probably be surprised they are still an option on them.
“People view sticks as a sign of cheapness or something.”
A friend of mine’s father-in-law gave him grief for buying a Mazda 3 with a stick. He said it was “immature.”
Manual transmissions are not wanted anymore, as driving has become a secondary activity while in a car. How can you shift gears when you are eating, drinking, texting, smoking and who knows what else! Very sad indeed.
A friend of mine’s father-in-law gave him grief for buying a Mazda 3 with a stick. He said it was “immature.”
He’s right, you know.
My ’99 Acccord got some big praise for the MT at the Boston BMW Club ice racing event last winter.
I fear the day when I’ll have to go to Europe to get a car with a stick and a clutch.
toxicroach :
People view sticks as a sign of cheapness or something. I’m sure I’ll get comments about why on earth I got my BMW with a stick— my family will probably be surprised they are still an option on them.
I hear ya.
I went through hell to find my present car and found out it was sitting on the lot for 8 months. The dealer was only too happy when I took it off his hands. How often do you find V6-powered sedans with a stick nowadays?
Bring back the damn stick in your V6 Mazda6, Mazda or I’ll have no reason to upgrade my car in 4 years.
Sure, go ahead and hate on the Tercel. Mine just rolled over 204k on the odometer and I’ve never thought it anything but fun to drive. Granted, it’s a stick, but it surely fills the “slow car driven fast” meme.
On the occasions when I have gone used car shopping with my sister, it is really, really hard to find something with a stick. Slushboxes are so prevalent it makes me think that a.) any models equipped with standards are just held on to until they fall apart and/or b.) “amateur enthusiasts” get a hold of them and wrap them around trees, other cars, etc. in episodes of youthful exuberance.
I have always bought cars with a manual trans. Like in the article, its the only thing that makes econo boxes bearable.
Also, it’s funny how many people don’t even know how to drive a car with a stick. As far as I’m concerned, you do not know how to drive, until you can drive a car with a manual transmission. It does however mean that on the used car market, I can find the car I want for less money.
For me, automatics have one deal killing charactaristic. When I am ascending grades, which I do a lot of here in the Colorado mountains, there is no way to floor the throttle and not invoke a downshift. Totally unacceptable when I know there is enough power to get the job done with the higher gear. For many years, I have also used the open throttle and low RPM’s mode of operation to improve fuel efficiency. Automatics cannot accomplish this either.
The Honda Fit I drove with the paddle shift auto would be a reasonable choice, because it provides true gear selection. A Mazda 3 (4-speed)automatic I rented that had a “manual” mode came close, I could force early upshifts while accelerating, however some engineer still decided, even when in manual mode, that I would want a 4th to 3rd downshift with an increased throttle. NO THANKS, dang it! I could re-force the upshift to 4th and thereafter floor the throttle and stay in 4th, at least until the next uphill any number of minutes later, when I would have to do it all again.
In general, automation (and not just in the transmission realm) often does not set me free so much as it forces me to accept somone else’s set of choices and operational parameters.
Sad to say but nowadays a manual transmission is the most effective anti-theft device there is.
pnnyj, It’s funny that you mention it, but a few months ago, somebody wrote F$%# Stick on my Ranger. I have no idea what their reason was, but I wonder if they wanted to steal it, and didn’t know how to drive a stick.
A friend of mine’s father-in-law gave him grief for buying a Mazda 3 with a stick. He said it was “immature.”
I suppose that is true. None of the mature people of Sun City drive a stick shift.
As Graham Norton recently said, shifting your own gears in a car is like having a remote-controlled television and getting up to change the channel yourself. Most people simply don’t see the point of shifting when the car can do it for you. This is even more so in the United States, where most of the roads don’t exactly challenge the driving dynamics of your car.
I think I can count the number of people I know that can drive stick on one hand. I’m not talking drive it _WELL_, but actually get a car rolling without jerking all over the place.
Last year I went to toyota place that was pretty big. They had multiple lots. I asked them if they had a yaris and he showed me a row of about 20-30 in various colors. I asked how many were stick…he said “nobody ever asks for stick. Why do you want a stick?”.
Anyways, after much searching in the computer, he found two sticks out of the 20+ he had available. Only one color available & one set of options — basically 2 cars that were identical.
Needless to say I didn’t buy it as it wasn’t what I was looking for.
Am I the only one that couldn’t understand a word that guy was “singing” in the video?!?
My wife’s automatic makes perfect sense to me, since she sits in traffic commuting to work.
I’ll stick with a manual (pun not intended, but I’ll leave it there). I think a perfectly executed shift is one of life’s little pleasures.
Besides the greater degree of control and enjoyment one gains by having a manual transmission, I’m still not entirly convinced that an automatic is as durable. Perhaps only in this decade it seems, and granted this is my own experiance, they have gotten to the point where they don’t grenade by 120K if not MUCH sooner. Chrysler, Honda, etc. all have had noted transmission failures and other than Honda’s more recent 6-spd incident, when was the last time you heard about a “standard” transmission being untrustworty over the life of the vehicle?
Just change the laws so that people can only get a driver’s license (new, not renewal) if they can…
1. Change a tire and check air pressures;
2. Check their oil, coolant and brake fluid levels;
3. Pass the test in a stickshift; and
4. Parallel park.
While you’re at it, make everything over a certain weight require an additional class of license that requires parallel parking and tire changes on that much larger vehicle.
Voila! Fewer people on the road, and those that are will be a bit more self-sufficient, and the relative number of smaller cars on the road will increase over time (because people are too lazy to take the second test) without a gas tax.
On the down side, driving a stickshift will no longer reduce the likelihood that your call will be driven off in a carjacking…
If they’re going to stop building cars with manaul transmissions then why don’t they stop putting the auto shifter in the center console as well. Just a big waste of usable space for something that most people are just going to flip into D and not touch for the duration of the trip. Nearly all auto trannies are electronically controlled anyway, so why not just put a set of buttons somewhere for gear selection or go back to the column shifter.
Dyl911: here’s a taste for you…
“Driven million of cars maybe billions of cars no matta da car it’ll take ya far/ I-fours to V-tens no need to pretend with all of these horses I feel like a ranch hand/ no matta da weight no matta da body while clutchin and shiftin’ ya feelin’ Bugatti”
Sorry you missed that, huh?
@Neon,
No hate for the Tercel here…my 1997 is over 185k and still runs like a top. The interior has held up better than most new cars (and still has cloth on the doors…imagine that)…and yes, it’s a stick!
But, the majority of Americans are buying slushboxes, so that’s what the majority of cars on the lots have in them. Sad, but true…
I’m still not entirly convinced that an automatic is as durable.
It isn’t. Unless the manual has a gross design deficiency or gets it’s ass kicked on a regular basis, at most you’re looking at clutch replacement.
A big problem automatics seem to face is cooling, especially in heavier cars. As vehicle mass goes up, it becomes really important to keep the unit cool under load. Put it this way: if you buy a minivan, get an AT cooler. If you tow, buy an AT cooler. If you live somewhere hilly, buy an AT cooler.
@Edward Niedermeyer
Thanks. I guess. Boy is that terrible.
Wait, this isn’t a real song, right? It is a comedy spoof like Weird Al or something, right?
I’m actually surprised by how many people I know that do know how to drive stick: My mom, dad, sister, uncle (E39 528i, I love it), several friends. Hey, that’s a lot, right?
Meanwhile, I no longer drive such a car. My Fit has an automatic. My last car had a manual, and my next car will, too… unless I get that Evo MR.
One of the reasons I want my next car to have a manual is because I’m not that good at it yet, only rarely having mustered a decent heel-toe downshift. Even if I do give up later and get an automatic again, I want to do so knowing that I am, in fact, very good with a manual transmission. I would be lying to myself if I said that now.
It´s funny how different usa is.
Here in europe it´s old and/or handicaped people who drives automatics.
Unbelievable video, but I didn’t get a word of it.
My son is the only student (out of 30) in his driver’s training class at school who is learning on a stick (my Gen 1 xB).
I tend to miss the stick when I have an automatic (snow), and miss the automatic when I have a stick (traffic).
Automatic’s are the automotive equivalent of “scooters”,real cars and trucks have 3 pedals.
@davejay:
Except for points (1) and (2), we have that here in Japan. It is a two-tier automobile license, one for AT, and another for MT. Even if you pass the AT exam, you are not legally allowed to drive a MT vehicle.
Unfortunately, the majority only takes the AT exam (as in the US, 90% of cars in Japan are slushies); and if ever they take the MT, AFAIK the only reason is that it is “cool” (though I would never say that they can actually drive it _decently_).
Ah, yes – we also have license categories for vehicle weight/passenger categories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_Japan
You know, it is a pretty long time since I saw the ad for a used Corvair with Powerglide, “perfect for one-legged people!”
The 6MT in my Acura keeps my lovely wife in the passenger seat when we’re together and she never ask’s to borrow my car.
I enjoy driving stick, so long as I’m not stuck in Chicago traffic…
Still, a lot of my decision comes down to the quality of the stick. We have an 02 Miata and an 88 Fiero, both stick. And both are awesome sticks. The Miata’s is better, no doubt, but still, I enjoy driving them both immensely.
On the other hand, I’ve gotten rid of two cars that were stick shifts, because they were both horrible. And both Fords. The first was a 98 Contour SVT. It had an RPM hang issue, where the revs refused to drop in between shifts. I was able to work around that one, but trying to predict where exactly the clutch would engage, was anyone’s guess. The car was impossible to drive smoothly, but an absolute joy to drive hard. Problem was, I only drive it like I stole it on the rare occasion. The rest of the time, I aim for smoothness. But not in that car.
The second was my Ford Escape, FWD, 4cyl. It suffered from the same malady as the Contour. I couldn’t drive it smoothly. The issue was markedly worse on humid days, when the clutch would chatter and the little SUV would jerk badly. I LOVED the car, but hated the tranny. So off it went.
Had either of those cars had automatics, I’d probably still have them. The stick was a deal killer.
I’ve had some crappy automatics, autos that hunted or had poorly chosen ratios. Still, a bad stick is usually worse than a set it and forget it auto.
I love manuals. And if you’re here on an automotive site, you probably love them, too. Unfortunately… most people buying new cars don’t seem to share our sentiments.
Given, since I actually do the occasional commute where I’m stuck in two to five hours of traffic to travel a measly twenty to forty miles, the fact that my car has an aftermarket racing clutch that requires the leg strength of a body-builder to use sometimes gets… annoying.
I can appreciate automatics in such cases, as long as they give me actual manual control when I need it. Very few do, however… in the past six years of driving new cars, there are only two or three automatics that I’ve felt were adequately responsive… and that’s out of dozens of cars. Interestingly, neither of the two were DSG, though one was an SMG… which probably doesn’t count as an automatic, at all…
I’ll be frank. I’ve owned exactly one vehicle with an automatic transmission: A Jeep Comanche rigged to the nine’s for towing a 35-foot 5th-wheel RV trailer that was about 10k lbs. Jeep’s still running like a top, and averages about 20mpg on the highway so it’s not going anywhere.
I waited 3 months for the Yaris I wanted. It took me nearly 2 weeks of calling back and talking to higher and higher-ups at Toyota from the Dealership to the Regional manager to finally get them to accept a custom order. They didn’t believe I’d actually pick it up, but I did. I signed the final loan paperwork and accepted delivery before they even put the rear-view mirror on the car, or put the rear sway bar upgrade on. I got what the dealership thought was the strangest mish-mash of options: Zero visual mods, but a small bible-worth of suspension and handling upgrades, along with pegging the warranty.
I pamper it, and am up to 42k miles, of which I can personally claim 40k or so are me behind the wheel. And I haven’t even hit the 2-year mark on it yet. The largest reason I pegged the warranty is because I knew I was getting a first-gen Yaris Liftback, with all the kinks and oddities, and wanted to know I’d get all the TSB’s for a very long time. It’s already payed for itself just on two TSB’s that popped up after I broke 36k miles, so I’m happy. And yes, I have some aftermarket mods, but they’re purely visual (custom-drawn vinyl gryphons) or comfort (sewn-on leather-wrapped steering wheel), not body-trim or other uselessness.
But I’m already having to custom-order a manual and wait 3 months. I fear the day they’re flat-out no longer available. Oddly… I don’t fear the day of CVT’s, I fear the day of being forced to buy an Automatic, and not at LEAST having the option of a CVT instead.
My 1986 190 Benz 5 speed manual has 430,000 miles on the original clutch. I had to special order it even then. My wife’s 2002 VW Jetta 190,000 with MT
Our 1992 Ford Explorer with 110,00 MT,Vintage 1946 MGTC with God only knows how many miles MT. BMW R69S motorcycle MT. And tomorrow goodbye to the Ford cluncker, 2009 Subaru Forester with MT.
But last year in Tahiti needed to rent a van for the 5 of us, gave me the keyes didn’t even ask and you guessed it an MT !!!! PS next birthday is 70 still shifting !!!!