Manual Transmission? Yea or Nay?

ricatic wrote:
I have well over a million miles in manual shift trucks and cars...If I never drove another mile in a manual shift vehicle, I would not be troubled. So, ability to operate the vehicle does not enter into the equation.

I have put a couple of clutches in manual shift vehicles...I have never put an automatic trans in any vehicle. With today's modern automatics, the performance advantage for a manual shift is gone...that advantage now resides in the automatic. Regardless of what the most experienced manual shifter guy thinks, he can not match the speed and accuracy of the truck computers and the transmission mechanicals when making gear decisions...you just do not have enough information...let alone the physical ability to act that fast...if you do not believe this, ask yourself why the fastest cars at the drag strip have been automatics for decades...

The death knell for manual transmissions was when they no longer were going to be listed as standard equipment. This phenomena was only about 15 years too late. The take rate for manual transmissions has been below 50% for decades...in 2010, the manual take rate was less than 1.5%...yet manufacturers still provided the manual as standard equipment when the customers were telling them different. When GM and Ford upped the power to levels only their automatic transmissions could handle, it was the end of the road for the manual. How would these manufacturers ever recover their R&D and manufacturing costs? They would have a hard time selling these costs to the 98.5% of the buying public who purchase automatics. How much would the "now" optional manual transmission cost the loyal manual transmission customer?

With development costs running over $10 million, likely a low number, and a miniscule 1.5% take rate, the manual transmission would cost at least $2,000 or more. How many of the manual transmission guys would spend $2,000 for a truck that also has less power. Keep in mind that Ram, the only manufacturer offering a manual transmission in a HD pickup, only sells that truck in the detuned version. It is highly likely that when the 2013-14 HD numbers are tabulated, Ram will see the light and the manual transmission will quietly slip away into the history books as a great idea that outlived it's time...

Regards

Interesting thinking, very American.

Curious why manual transmissions remain the preferred option in MOST of the rest of the car-driving world. (Such as in England, where you pay twice as much to rent a rare automatic transmission car.) Could it be that manual transmissions are more efficient by design, and therefore allow the use of smaller, lower horsepower engines that get better mileage?

I agree modern automatics are much better than even a few years past. The 6-speed in my Expedition is one of the best-shifting automatics I have ever driven, and I sure hope it goes 200k miles at least, but if I could have got one, I would have taken the 6-speed manual in a heartbeat, and so would my wife.