Longer lasting engines?

[CivicFan]

Originally Posted By: Max_Wander
I'd like to meet someone who can drive stick, but not auto


When I first got into an AT car and wanted to drive, couldn't figure out what to do. It had nothing to shift and no hand brake. So I sat there trying to figure out how the thing moved. Had to ask for assistance.

It was a Crown Victoria with the shifter on the steering wheel and a foot parking brake.

 

[mstrjon32]

I've been known to occasionally jam my left foot into the carpet in my automatic. I drive the manual much more often.

 

[kaboom10]

I do that with my wife's gas pedal and I'm off to the races. She has a left foot gas pedal. Now you want to get a strange feeling. lol

 

[UNC017]

Originally Posted By: labman
I have seen lots of threads here where people are having trouble with an AT here, but very few clutch or manual transmission. That considering that those here are more likely to have changed the transmission fluid before it failed.


But you also have to factor in that automatics outnumber manuals probably 10:1 in todays fleet on the road, so in terms of pure numbers you'd see 10 posts about automatic problems for 1 M/T problem even with identical failure rates.

My own data points on M/T clutches vs. automatic wear-out are heavily skewed toward automatics, too. I had a '79 Mazda B2000 mini-truck that needed a clutch (and pretty much everything else what a POS that thing was) at 120k. My neighbor's Mazda 626 (hmmm, a common factor here?) clutch was gone at 120k. My Jeep's clutch is still fine at 127k. On the other side, I can think of direct experience with about 15 automatics from all of the Big Three, only 2 of which failed before 150k ('78 Plymouth Horizon- differential section of the transaxle grenaded spectacularly at about 90k, and an 84 Cavalier that my wife owned which came apart at 80k). Wife's 93 42LE went to 157k, and the only thing wrong at that point was a leaky front seal but since half the effort was getting it out, I rebuilt it. After that we're into older, simpler rear-drive cars and trucks and the earliest failure was well over 200k on a Mopar 904. My dad still has a '92 46RH that's only had one fluid/filter change and its still plugging on at 230k.