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I prefer a manual. It's more fun, gives you better control on slick roads and long hills, and allows me to drive a 4-cylinder vehicle without going crazy. The major downside to me is that if you injure yourself it may be much more difficult to drive a manual than an automatic.
I prefer a manual. It's more fun, gives you better control on slick roads and long hills, and allows me to drive a 4-cylinder vehicle without going crazy. The major downside to me is that if you injure yourself it may be much more difficult to drive a manual than an automatic.
Not as hard as you think, I was driving a stick just 3 weeks or so after shoulder surgery on my right shoulder, just reached over and shifted with the left hand instead, though I will admit, getting it into 5th wasn't always easy.
Not as hard as you think, I was driving a stick just 3 weeks or so after shoulder surgery on my right shoulder, just reached over and shifted with the left hand instead, though I will admit, getting it into 5th wasn't always easy.
I was thinking more of leg injuries. One of my friends broke his right leg a few weeks ago and drove himself to the hospital by sitting in the middle and driving with his left foot. Try that in a manual.
I was thinking more of leg injuries. One of my friends broke his right leg a few weeks ago and drove himself to the hospital by sitting in the middle and driving with his left foot. Try that in a manual.
I several years ago drove myself from Chicken all the way to Fairbanks with a badly-twisted left knee. I was driving a manual F-150 and towing a trailer. By the time I made it to Tok I could hardly push the clutch pedal with my left foot. Luckily I mostly had to use the clutch when I started driving, and then when I got to Fairbanks.
i like how more people prefer manuals but most people i know use automatic.
I love driving manuals but it is getting harder to find that as an option. Vehicles that are even available with a standard transmission are few and far between.
We bought a 2008 manual Honda Element. That was the last year they offered a manual Element in Canada. It's really hard to get a manual SUV, there just isn't much choice.
When I was looking to replace my car, I had a little more choice. There are many compact cars that offer a manual transmission as an option, but the problem is find a dealer that has a manual on the lot. The Honda dealer here had 2 manual Civics and 30 automatic Civics. The Hyundai dealer had no manual Elantras on the lot. They didn't stock them at all. I would have had to special order one and wait 6 weeks for it and not even get a chance to test drive it. I ended up getting a manual 2011 Mazda 3.
If you're talking race car drivers ok. But 99.99% of the people driving are not going to shift faster than an auto. Even a completely stock one.
Manuals tend to trap higher but will also have a higher ET on identical vehicles.
It depends on the type ofautomatic transmission
EXAMPLE
A standard hyrdualic automatic transmissions which are pretty common are less efficient, and slower then their manual counterparts period....
There is a major parasectic loss before the hp is put to the wheels because fluid is being used to transfer the power to the wheels. 10-15% loss in efficiency.
Basically if not mistaken if you have 250 peak hp car lets say a maxima....and it comes with a standard automatic...your automatic pretty much robs 25 - 37 hp before it gets distributed to the rest of your drivetrain
It's such a misconception that automatics shift better then manuals. Most automatics still don't. I would know out of anyone because I use to work at a Nissan dealership and part of my job was to test drive cars before we sold them.
There is still a horrid delay. It has gotten better but the delay is still there especially if its drive by wire. Even on the new infiniti's there's that nasty .5 -1 sec delay when you hit the gas from a dig or from a roll.
Manuals still own automatics in that aspects because you can dump the clutch and get the immediate response most automatics suffer from. Grant it there are special kinds of automatics that will lay waste to manual transmissions when it comes to shifting and response. Such as the GTR's dual clutch setup.
Your also forgetting manuals can take better advantage of a vehicles powerband and unless an automatic has like 6 or 7 gears to take advantage of a vehicle's powerband manuals still dominate most automatics in this aspects.
Again it depends on the type of automatic transmission. If its a 3 or 4 speed automatic then of course a 6 or 5 speed manual will have a higher top end.
Long story short Special automatics >> Manuals >>> regular automatics.
Your making a very uneducated assumption classifying specialized semi automatics with convential automatics. There completely different animals.
The automatics that your thinking of are the ones in the high end mercedez, supercars, corvettes, bmws, some well made sports cars... .
There's a big difference between dual clutch, single clutch, semi,8 speed, etc.. etc. type automatics
then 3-4 speed torque convertor hyrdualically controlled slug box automatics...THAT COME IN MOST VEHICLES
It's there to prevent rollbacks, which is very common with inexperienced drivers. But where it's a great feature is for heavy-duty trucks, or just for any vehicle if you are towing a trailer.
The hill-holder feature is also being included with a lot of the automatic transmission SUV's, and heavy-duty pickup trucks. On some vehicles one can activate the hill-holder system at a stop by pressing the brake pedal harder than usual. But this can sometimes confuse drivers who don't know about this feature, because the thing can be activated on flat ground, or even downhill. So, a person who does not know bout it stomps on the brake, the light changes to green, the driver steps on the gas pedal, and the vehicle does not move for two seconds
On some other vehicles the hill-holder feature is done automatically when stopped with the brake applied on an incline. By the time you move your foot from the brake pedal and step on the gas, the hill-holder is deactivated.
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Something else I forgot to mention about manual transmissions: the ones with synchronized gears (probably all these days) can be upshifted, after the first gear, without having to use the clutch. This takes practice, however, but is something that has been known for years by a lot truck drivers.
Something else I forgot to mention about manual transmissions: the ones with synchronized gears (probably all these days) can be upshifted, after the first gear, without having to use the clutch. This takes practice, however, but is something that has been known for years by a lot truck drivers.
All manuals can be upshifted without the clutch, synchros or not. And downshifted too, if you know what you're doing. You're basically synchronizing the engine to the selected gear when you do that so it doesn't matter if you have synchros or not.
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