Manual Transmission? Yea or Nay?

ricatic wrote:

Fast Mopar wrote:
The real reason people quit buying sticks (and quit learning to drive them) is because you cannot drink Starbucks coffee and text while driving a stick. Today for many people, driving the car is secondary to doing all the other things people do behind the wheel.

I prefer to be a driver who is engaged in the driving experience and my daily driver is a 5 speed stick (yes, even in heavy Houston stop and go traffic every day). I wish more tow vehicles had the option of auto or stick.

...so because after 45 years of driving stick shift vehicles, I decide I will let the superior performance of today's automatic transmission do the shifting I am no longer an "engaged" driver...does this mean, that in your opinion, 98.5% of the HD pickup purchasers are not engaged in the driving process but instead are just drinking "Starbucks"?

Why is it when the facts are put in play and the numbers tell the story, the manual shift fanatic's have to hoist their "manly" flag and denigrate the vast majority of the truck ownership? The real folly in their argument is in another number altogether...the vast majority of us here grew up on manual transmissions...we have lived the manly life of playing with the stick...and we have seen the light...we do not buy stripped down trucks, we let the transmission shift itself and we enjoy the ride...

Regards

The real decline of manual transmission had nothing to do with consumer demand, not initially at least.

It came when car makers wanted to start limiting the variations available to lower costs. They push people into automatics by putting the manual option (if one exists) only on the stripper models, and usually with the smallest engine. Want any creature comfort whatsoever in your ride? No problem, but it comes packaged with the automatic transmission.

I could have had a 6-speed manual in my Fusion, but only if I bought the base model car. Since I wanted the SEL model with the killer stereo and moonroof, I had to get an automatic. Given the choice, it is the ONLY thing I would change about this car.

When I bought my most recent manual transmission vehicle, it was a 2004 Subaru Forester (since traded in). I did my homework, and the manual transmission Forester had HIGHER tow rating, HIGHER economy, and LOWER purchase price. However, finding one turned into a hunt. I ended up driving 3 hours to a dealership to buy the ONLY 5-speed Forester on the lot. And of course, it was the stripper 2.5X model so I had to skip all the cool luxuries like climate control. However that vehicle ran twice as fast out of the hole as the same model with an automatic (test drove both), and it shifted like butter with zero clutch effort. My wife loved it also.

No, you aren't going to convince me or anyone else that driving an automatic is better. Frankly, it sounds like you are too busy trying to convince yourself.