Manuals on the rise again

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RITmusic2k
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Manuals on the rise again

Post by RITmusic2k »

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/05/01/car- ... smissions/

The title is a little heavy-handed, but it's true that we are still buying. Good news no matter how you look at it.
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Shadow
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by Shadow »

Hmm.....that is good news. The take rate is still low, but I'm glad to see that it is increasing. But it does beg the same old question: How are they classifying automated manuals? I hope they are only counting true manual transmissions, you know, with an honest-to-goodness clutch pedal...
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by tankinbeans »

The resident 'experts' are discussing this over on TTAC and saying that the majority of people who drive manuals don't know how and are killing them well within the warranty period. You know because anybody who doesn't drive exactly as they do are terribly incompetent and a couple bucking shifts and hard starts are going to fry your clutch.
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by Shadow »

tankinbeans wrote:The resident 'experts' are discussing this over on TTAC and saying that the majority of people who drive manuals don't know how and are killing them well within the warranty period. You know because anybody who doesn't drive exactly as they do are terribly incompetent and a couple bucking shifts and hard starts are going to fry your clutch.
I had to laugh out loud when I read this comment:

icemilkcoffee
May 1st, 2012 at 12:41 pm


I bet most of the people who proclaim they love manual transmissions, don’t have a clue how to drive a stick shift properly and have no idea how a synchromesh transmission works. If you knew how the manual transmission work, you would be double clutching every time. I do that. and I have done that since age 15. I can’t stop doing it because my mechanical sympathy will not allow me to. Just like a lot of motorcyclist shifting with the clutch lever and banging gears- these people would really be better off with an automatic.


Now there's a guy who thinks he knows what he's talking about, but really doesn't. Double clutching a modern synchromesh transmission is completely unnecessary because of the very nature of synchronization. That's the whole point of having synchronizers in the first place. If he honestly double clutches every time he shifts, he's really doing nothing but saving wear on the synchros at the expense of increasing wear on the clutch/throwout bearing/pressure plate etc...and since the synchros were put in there for a reason, why not use them? It makes no sense to take the synchros out of the equation by double clutching all the time. What's the point in that?
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by bk7794 »

http://m.usatoday.com/article/money/684243

This was another article...Someone beat me to it though haha
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by six »

Shadow wrote:I had to laugh out loud when I read this comment:

icemilkcoffee
May 1st, 2012 at 12:41 pm


I bet most of the people who proclaim they love manual transmissions, don’t have a clue how to drive a stick shift properly and have no idea how a synchromesh transmission works. If you knew how the manual transmission work, you would be double clutching every time. I do that. and I have done that since age 15. I can’t stop doing it because my mechanical sympathy will not allow me to. Just like a lot of motorcyclist shifting with the clutch lever and banging gears- these people would really be better off with an automatic.


Now there's a guy who thinks he knows what he's talking about, but really doesn't. Double clutching a modern synchromesh transmission is completely unnecessary because of the very nature of synchronization. That's the whole point of having synchronizers in the first place. If he honestly double clutches every time he shifts, he's really doing nothing but saving wear on the synchros at the expense of increasing wear on the clutch/throwout bearing/pressure plate etc...and since the synchros were put in there for a reason, why not use them? It makes no sense to take the synchros out of the equation by double clutching all the time. What's the point in that?
Well, anyone with the name "icemilkcoffee" is obviously not a serious stick shifter because real drivers drink coffee black.
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by potownrob »

stucker136
I used to drive a manual, and I'm not going back, maybe ever.

I'll agree the degree of driver involvement is unparalleled, but oftentimes, real life, such as traffic jams and stop lights happen. It is not fun to drive a manual in Houston, I dreaded my morning and evening commute. I traded my cayman about a year after I bought it.

Face it, driving a manual requires a specific open road, with twists that encourage gear shifts, and minimal traffic, which most people will NEVER find. In town, driving a manual is like driving with a cell phone.. you're often distracted, and (when driven by most) usually only have one hand on the wheel.

Even performance wise, its largely been replaced by a better transmission, the dual clutch box. I think manuals are pretty much the slide rules of the car world. A slide rule takes intelligence to use, and in skilled hands is probably faster than a calculator... But ultimately the calculator is way more productive. With a PDK people can move on to hitting apexes, drafting, or maintaining the proper drive line... or sipping our lattes...
REALLY?!?! :shock: :? :| :lol:
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by AHTOXA »

Manuals aren't for everyone.
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by six »

I happen to find traffic jams easier to tolerate in a manual than in an automatic.
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by AHTOXA »

Most of us do, and for a good reason.
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by Shadow »

six wrote:I happen to find traffic jams easier to tolerate in a manual than in an automatic.
I think that depends on the car and the actual traffic jam. I remember coming home from the Jersey shore one summer in my Mustang, which had a very heavy Centerforce Dual Friction clutch in it. The traffic was stop and go for two straight hours. You know, the kind of traffic where you move up 15 ft, stop for 20 seconds, then move up another 15 ft. Even allowing for extra large gaps in front of me, my left leg got a serious workout that day. It really wasn't much fun, but mostly because of the heavy clutch pedal. I'd never complain in a car that had a normal clutch though...
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by Squint »

Those comments posted are a little bit hilarious. Do they think they started driving perfectly? Really? :lol: :lol:
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Re: Manuals on the rise again

Post by Bill B »

Hopefully manuals are on the rise again, but one reporter from Fox News does not think so. Link below:

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/05/ ... p=features
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