Quote Originally Posted by Bert View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Behold the Void View Post
You are aware that you can downshift manually with automatics and the parking brake's other name is the emergency brake, correct?
Yes, and it's not really good for the tranny. they aren't made to shift like that.
Overall though, is the amount of time that you'll need to use either functions REALLY enough to make that big of a difference?

Personally, I drive an automatic, I would be willing to learn to drive a manual but I wouldn't unless I had to. I don't see any appreciable reason to not drive an automatic. My car still works just fine and we've had it since 1994. As far as I can tell, any performance increase I might theoretically get from having a manual isn't going to affect me all that much.