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10-22-2012, 06:32 AM | Topic Starter |
In Search of a Life
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Manual or Automatic transmission..which do you prefer?
Can an Automatic be as much fun as a manual?
http://jalopnik.com/5952570/a-manual...o-deal-with-it Car enthusiasts have been bemoaning the lack of manual transmissions in cars for what seems like an eternity. Every time a new car comes out and it doesn't offer a manual gearbox, it gets shunned by every card carrying member of the enthusiast community. But guess what? The manual transmission is outdated technology and there are better things out there. It's time to get over it and say bye bye. Before I get yelled at by all of you, I want to say that we're not too different. I love a good manual gearbox. If a car has one, I'm instantly more interested in it. And let me tell you, nailing a perfectly rev matched downshift instantly makes me smile. I'm absolutely for putting manual transmissions in everything. When I have a little Travis or Travisette running around I'm going to find a way to stick one in his or her Cozy Coupe. But I am totally against the notion that having a manual is the only way to properly enjoy a car. That is bullshit. Complete bullshit. 'Manual elitists,' as I call them, will shirk the notion that a car without a third pedal can be engaging to drive. They say that it isn't pure, it isn't as much fun, they don't feel connected. Bull. Take a current Nissan GT-R to a race track and drive it as fast you can. Then tell me it would be better with a manual gearbox. It just wouldn't be. Your corner speeds will be slower, your straight-line speeds will be slower, and your lap times will be slower. But you say you don't feel engaged? The point of driving a car quickly, either on a race track or a road, is to make it from the start to finish as fast as humanly possible. If you drive a GT-R on track and don't feel engaged, well, then you just aren't going fast enough. For a long, long time, a manual gearbox was the best way to do just that, to be the fastest. It just isn't the case anymore. Times have changed, and we enthusiasts need to adapt to it as well. Everyone dislikes someone who repeatedly refers to the past and says "in my day, we did it this way." That's what we in the enthusiast community are becoming. Nostalgia is our enemy, technology is our friend. Funny thing is, a bunch of manual elitists probably own an iPod, subscribe to Netflix, and own a smart phone. The rest of their lives evolved, yet they just can't let the manual tranny go. I see the manual gearbox like a film camera. When digital first hit the scene, it was terrible. People stuck with film. However, over time, digital got better and better and more and more people started switching. It got to a point where the pros and the stubborn were the only ones with film. And guess what? Now even the pros use digital. And much like how they could manipulate film better than the average person, their digital pictures are that much better. It's the same case here. Give a Porsche 991 with a PDK gearbox to two drivers, one great, one not so great. The double clutch transmission will not suddenly make the bad driver a God. He'll still be a mortal. The good driver will be able to manipulate the gearbox better and get the most out of it. He'll still be faster. And that's where I think a lot of manual defense comes from: fear and snobbery. People think they're members of an elite club just because they know how a clutch works and can heel and toe. Guess what? You're alienating possible enthusiasts by being that way. As enthusiasts, we should want to welcome everyone, not be scared of others suddenly being better at driving than us. First off, they won't be. Secondly, more competition for the fastest time is better. It's more fun. And having people interested in driving faster makes more enthusiasts. Giving them access to the tools to be quick breeds enthusiasm. With people caring less and less about cars, we need to make more enthusiasts. We aren't helping by lambasting anyone that can't drive a manual gearbox. By making exciting cars more accessible to people that may not be as skilled creates passion. Passion builds bonds. Bonds create friends. That's what we need in the enthusiast community. What we don't need is snobbery and fear of the new. |
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10-22-2012, 06:34 AM | #2 |
When a nightmare becomes real
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Hard to text and drive when driving a manual so I prefer an automatic.
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10-22-2012, 06:34 AM | #3 |
Fish are scared of me
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It's hard to hold your beer while your trying to steer and shift. Manual trannys cause more wrecks !
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10-22-2012, 06:38 AM | #4 |
MVP
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When I was a teenager I learned to drive using a Volkswagen that had a 4-speed manual transmission. I had no problem driving a car with a manual transmission. The first time I drove a car with an automatic, I thought "Why the **** would ANYONE ever choose to buy a car with a manual transmission?"
The only reason I could ever figure out was to discourage your wife from asking to borrow your car. |
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10-22-2012, 06:39 AM | #5 |
pie is never free
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Auto for the daily driver, but any kind of sports car is better in a handshaker.
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10-22-2012, 06:42 AM | #6 |
Spiraling down the Drain
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Manual more fun in a sports buggy, but auto way more practical for today's commutes.
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10-22-2012, 06:48 AM | #7 |
WhatUneed2Hear
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Manual is more fun, Auto is for the lazy. I drive an automatic now!
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10-22-2012, 06:54 AM | #8 |
Supporter
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Manual for kids, Automatic for when they are old enough not to destroy it.
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10-22-2012, 06:59 AM | #9 |
Rockin' yer FACE OFF!
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I insisted both of my kids at least learn how to drive a stick...but it's becoming more irrelevant every day.
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10-22-2012, 07:12 AM | #10 |
Mahomes Fanboi
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Manual is much more fun.
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10-22-2012, 07:21 AM | #11 |
Mahomes Dynasty
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manual ....saves on gas and doesn't wear on your brakes as much (if you downshift).
it's more fun to drive too. sucks though if you're trying to eat and drive around town like on the way to work or something.
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Last edited by CoMoChief; 10-22-2012 at 07:33 AM.. |
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10-22-2012, 09:00 AM | #12 | |
Sauntering Vaguely Downwards
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Quote:
Manual transmissions don't actually do much (if anything) to save on gas anymore. In fact, very few people are good enough with their shift points to keep them from getting worse MPG. Either they shift too late and run the RPMs up or they shift too early and dog the motor. Either way, they're not as precise as the manual that's been computer engineered to shift at the exact right time depending on your acceleration and power needs. Manual transmissions tend to be on shitty econoboxes that get good gas mileage, but an automatic tranmission with overdrive will easily get just as good MPG unless the motor is so underpowered that it has to downshift to stay at speed. With engine technology allowing people to get decent power even from fuel sippers, and with computer adjustable shift points on modern automatics, there is next to no distinction between automatic and manual transmissions in terms of MPG. That argument for manuals is dead and has been for a decade+. As to the brakes arguments - brake pads cost $60 and over the life of your car, if you were to downshift at every single point coming up to every single stop light you might save yourself the cost of one set of brake pads. However, by using engine compression to slow your car as you downshift, you're adding wear to the seals, etc... in your motor and thus making your motor less efficient over time. Is a manual more fun? Yeah, when you want it to be. The easy compromise situation is an auto-stick transmission paired to a flappy paddle gear shift on your steering wheel. When I want to do nothing but go home, it stays in auto. When I want to run the shit out of it, I knock the knob to the left and shift on the steering wheel. Done and done.
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10-22-2012, 09:30 AM | #13 | ||
Wearing ballistic dog goggles.
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Quote:
Parasitic Horse Power Loss, everything run by the engine is taking horsepower to make it work. Plainly put, it takes more horsepower to run an automatic transmission than a manual one. Take two cars with equal weight, engine, gearing and aerodynamics, the only difference being that one has an automatic and the other has a manual and the manual transmission with get better gas mileage because it’s not spending horsepower to spin fluid pumps or to power shift servos. This is why “shitty little econo boxes” are still running manuals. Quote:
I’m sure the extra engine RPM’s could accelerate engine wear but mostly using engine compression for braking just wasteful of gas as you’re spending money in the form of gas to decelerate when the brakes are perfectly capable of doing the same job.
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10-22-2012, 09:45 AM | #14 | |
Someone pass the antifreeze
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Quote:
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10-22-2012, 09:55 AM | #15 | |
Wearing ballistic dog goggles.
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Quote:
With the Prius you’ve got a lot of things going on other than just delivering power to the wheels. Like when you first hit the brakes in a Prius you’re not actually putting brake pad to disk, it’s actually connecting the electric motor in reverse as it spins it is charging the batteries. This is how they get their fantastic mileage in stop and go traffic. That’s also something I don’t think would be easy to accomplish with a manual transmission.
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