Manuals > Automatic

[fire_of_avalon]

Reality is I live in the northeast and I'd much rather say "HEY CAR STAY IN 2nd GEAR ON THIS HILL!" instead of wasting my breaks and sliding and dying. Manulas aren't good just for racing a towing. There are areas like Vermont were manuals are wonderful in winter.


and to Ed's question, you have more control with a manual since you control the gears, the car can only go so fast in certain gears, so when you have a automatic it kicks it up a gear even if you don't want to. They're set to at a certain RPM I believe so you have no choice. Also manuals allow you to use less breaks making your brakes last longer. Also shifting at I think 6500 RPM gets the most horsepower out of your vehicle and so you can do that in a manual if needed where as you can't in a auto.

Sugar, we both live in the Appalachains, though admittedly you get more snow than I do. I know what it's like to drive on steep,windy, mountain roads in both types of transmission. You can keep an automatic in second gear if you downshift at the bottom of the mountain and maintain your speed.

And really, it depends on the car and the driver. Like I said, if you have an automatic with a tach, it's really easy to determine which gear your in and to stay in that gear.

And what are you driving that you even get to 6500RPMs. Holy poop! xD My experiences with stick are obviously not in sports cars.

I dont explain things or my opinion very well but I'll try.
You can STILL get better mileage out of a manual. And no one said anything about it being like rollercoaster, if you have a really fast car then yeah, sure. If your driving 100km/h and then slow down to 50km/h because you are in a town, you can leave the car in the highest gear (5th or 6th) and it will use nearly half of the petrol youd use if you were in the 3rd or 4th gear. Automatics will automatically switch your gear down. If you are driving uphill or downhill, its much better being able to switch your gear down. If you are going up something very steep, you still have a chance if you switch even lower (without going further than your trusty redline of course). Even semi-automatics (tiptronics) will change the gear for you if your RPM is very high. Sometimes though, you just need your RPM very high.

But imagine driving through a long open road in a town in the 5th or 6th gear for 30 minutes and you already saved quite a bit of cash.

The rollercoaster thing was a joke. xD.

In what kind of situation do you need your RPMs to be very high? RPMs are just a measurement of how much work your engine is doing. Why do you need your engine to do so much work?

Most automatics switch to the highest running gear on straightaways, in most that's 4th gear. Rarely in my experiences on the highway MUST someone run in 5th or, if you're in a really, really nice sports car, 6th.

Like I said, going uphill, downhill or around corners. You can regulate your speed and g-force in more ways than acceleration or brake in a manual.
A little neat extra in this department is that you can brake using the engine, so your brakes dont wear out quite so fast (if your bothered about that sort of thing).

You're right in that you can use the clutch to cut gas to the engine, but that doesn't really help you slow down as much as some people believe. Really, that is where you save the biggest chunk of your gas; cutting it as you approach a stop.

And I have no idea at all what makes you think manual transmissions are safer than automatics, at all.

If you are overtaking someone you can switch your gear down and your car will gain much more momentum. You therefore avoid oncoming traffic as soon as possible. You can escape general risks quicker this way too.

Also, faulty brakes are a problem, and a very bad one if your in the middle of driving. So your driving, and your brakes dont work. In a manual you just switch to the lowest possible gear and the engine brakes for you. Of course, its got nothing on your normal brakes, but it definitely does still give you a chance at not rolling off a cliff if you have a reasonable amount of space.
Maybe theres something like this in automatics? I dont actually know..

And like Bert stated, winter is a bummer, and manuals (tend to) handle it better.

Being able to go faster than someone in an automatic depends on the driver, the cars involved, the type of road, and is much more specific than an all the time occurrence. And your car gains velocity, not momentum

And if your brakes are so bad you're worried about them going out on you at any point because of disc wear, then you just don't know how to maintain a vehicle. (General you, not YOU you.)

I already addressed the winter thing. Good winter driving is more dependent on good driving skills and vehicles that can handle the weather, not manual vs. auto. A sucky driver in a stick is no better off than a sucky driver in a manual.

Really, it all comes down to preference. I don't have a preference, I can drive either. I think this is all about "I'm better than you, because I have a common but in the long run not so much worthwhile skill that you don't." Well I can talk like a chipmunk! My virtually useless skill is more entertaining.

Yeah theres some friendly competition in this, thats all. Actually, I have a really underdeveloped ego and this is the only way for me to feel great. Im not even talking about driving skill, I think all of you who drive automatics are capable of driving manuals. Of course its about preference, but im still gonna try and prove that manuals are better.

Silly.

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.

Are you saying autos aren't meant to downshift, or they aren't meant to use the parking brake as an emergency brake?

I might spill my beer shifting, so automatic here plz.

xD

I'm glad someone said it. The fact is that regardless of what Croyles thinks, your average manual driver gets little to no advantage in gas mileage over a modern automatic transmission. Hell, some automatics even adapt to the drivers driving style.

A lot of companies are making autos whose engines switch between 4 and 6 cylinder use, depending on driving conditions. I'm pretty sure there are manuals that can do the same thing.

Not everyone is a good driver, so I say make it as idiot proof as possible. I don't need someone who has trouble figuring out an automatic getting me killed thank you.

Word.

Likesay, I like both. Truth be told, and if I were better at it, I'd probably drive a stick, because I do like the little bit of extra control it does give the driver, and because I want a niiiice muscle car someday. Overall, I say they're about equal. Sure, it takes a little more skill to drive one, but with the amount of unskilled drivers on the roads these days, you might be wanting them to learn how to point the car the right way first, and worry about teaching them stick later on.

EDIT: I'm really not trying to be mean here, honest, I'm just curious. How many people, not just the people I quoted, but everyone who's read this, how many of you know the difference between an automatic and manual transmission? How many of you know how transmissions work?