Acura Integra
Manual Transmission Sales Are Up Again This Year
- Thread starter Oillover
- Start date
All the country kids learn how to drive a manual, although it's awfully hard to find a manual to learn with. The kids who don't drive are the kids who have to pay for their own insurance, and nobody wants to spend $1000+ a year when they can get their mom to drive them for free
Another thing I'm not seeing talked about here, is how advanced and superior, not to mention how much faster shifting, today's modern 8 and 10 speed automatic transmissions are. When compared to how the old 3 speed automatics were, "back in the day".
When you go back to the 60's muscle car era, most every high performance car tested back then, ran a faster 1/4 mile with a 4 speed stick than it did with a 3 speed automatic. (Assuming you had a person who knew how to drive it).
Today that's not the case, because the automatics have more gears than the stick transmissions do. (Usually 6 compared to 8 or 10 the auto's have).
The ZF 8 speed for example, is a mechanical work of art. It can also take the high horsepower these modern engines can dish out. The older Torque Flight's and Hydramatics would often fail in the older muscle cars if they were pushed, because they couldn't take the power as well without breaking.
There was / is simply no comparison of yesterdays 3 speed automatics, to todays 8 and 10 speed versions. No one in the 60's produced a factory automatic transmission that could not only handle the 700+ horsepower of a Dodge Demon, but also deliver that power to the road so efficiently, as today's 8 speed ZF can.
Simply put, there is no longer any performance advantage to having a manual. If you still feel the "need" to manually shift for the fun of it, most all of these modern 8 and 10 speed automatics offered today have a shifter paddle mode to drive in.
When you go back to the 60's muscle car era, most every high performance car tested back then, ran a faster 1/4 mile with a 4 speed stick than it did with a 3 speed automatic. (Assuming you had a person who knew how to drive it).
Today that's not the case, because the automatics have more gears than the stick transmissions do. (Usually 6 compared to 8 or 10 the auto's have).
The ZF 8 speed for example, is a mechanical work of art. It can also take the high horsepower these modern engines can dish out. The older Torque Flight's and Hydramatics would often fail in the older muscle cars if they were pushed, because they couldn't take the power as well without breaking.
There was / is simply no comparison of yesterdays 3 speed automatics, to todays 8 and 10 speed versions. No one in the 60's produced a factory automatic transmission that could not only handle the 700+ horsepower of a Dodge Demon, but also deliver that power to the road so efficiently, as today's 8 speed ZF can.
Simply put, there is no longer any performance advantage to having a manual. If you still feel the "need" to manually shift for the fun of it, most all of these modern 8 and 10 speed automatics offered today have a shifter paddle mode to drive in.
2022 was the last year for a stick in a Corolla minus the rare hot hatch. Nissan Canada offers a Sentra with a stick but you can’t get one here in the USA. I do t think you can get any Chevy with a stick now, even the Vette and Colorado.
You old guys need to quit poking at the younger generation because many of you have long abandoned driving a manual.
Jeeps can be had with MT's still. Most cars are trending toward CVT's which I personally dislike. I DO like DCT's and how fast they shift but wouldn't want to pay to rebuild one. Torque converters and high speed computers allow 700HP engines to co-exist with 8 gears, big meat tires and heavy foot. I have driven and now prefer AT's over manual transmission cars as a convenience. Latte in one hand, egg Mcmuffin in other hand, cell phone in lap.....MT? j/k
Incorrect on Golf, they only make GTI(228HP) and R(320HP) which are more towards sports end of cars. Lessor Golf no longer sold here. They have a base Jetta though with manual alongside the sportier 228HP GLI.
Manual transmission vehicles pose a plethora of development problems with the auto safety systems. An automatic transmission is very predictable as it’s computer controlled.
A manual transmission vehicle is highly unpredictable so development take a lot longer for car makers to adapt their systems .
A manual transmission vehicle is highly unpredictable so development take a lot longer for car makers to adapt their systems .
Yeah. I watched a video where the EPA had slapped a big penalty on manual transmissions because there is a momentary rise in pollutants when shifting. Apparently, when you abruptly close the throttle when shifting, there is a blip increase on emissions. So modern transmissions “hang” the throttle when someone shifts, to prevent this emissions.
It’s such a shame that emissions have to destroy the fun of driving manual cars. I really must say something like this sounds like diminishing returns to me. Let us have our manuals.
Yet if you ask Euro centric design houses (not sold in us) they never mention those issues. AKA It’s a uniquely US problem
Survey wise it’s not just old farts that want sticks, it has floated 10%+ demand in this country across age brackets (down from 25% years back)
It’s not a matter that nobody wants them, the people that do increasingly don’t buy new cars and thus don’t have a choice unless they do a trans swap.
Why didn’t you quote my entire post? I explain the other possibility.
You also don’t seem to grasp today’s reality that everyone has a camera and a microphone in the pocket and can engage in street journalism, comedy, whatever at their whim.
And finally, you are at least correct about the moon landings, if it weren’t for the Nazis, your generation would not have been smart enough to even build the rockets.
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All true, but if I was buying a fun gas car to keep and appreciate, I would get the manual version while you can... An EV with some good speakers can simulate an automatic car pretty easily.
My buddy just bought a 22 Camaro SS 1LE with a manual because one of these years, its going to be the last one, and its what he wanted. Also a couple of his buddies dumped their automatic Camaro's due to the bad shift quality and they didn't want to be on the hook for a transmission.... The fact that its a few tenths slower in the quarter isn't a big deal to him.
I do wonder what the cheapest atx car is paddle shifters that rev matches downshifts well? Even my Outback shifts pretty fast in manual mode, but the lack of rev matching on downshifts makes it feel awkward in the lower gears, zipping around town, and so I leave it in D.
I think that was willful ignorance - "This WVB guy knows his stuff. Let's pretend we don't know about his past".Wasn’t it the “smart” generations of prior that made a Nazi the head of the space program and then gave him a hero parade? And to this day you guys celebrate him as an American hero, talk about ignorance
The Soviets had a joke after the U.S. launched Explorer 1 in January 1958, almost four months after Sputnik (October 4, 1957):
"We thought it would be nice if Sputnik could talk to the new American satellite, so we taught it to speak English. Unfortunately, the American satellite could only speak German."
Those are the cherry picked interviews where kid did not know those facts. They omit the ones where person actually answers correctly. Media can depict whatever facts they want to sway you.
Living at home has little to do with perceived “intelligence”. There are many factors now (rent costs not inline with pay, lack of housing builds from 2010+, and tuition costs not inline with pay) that drove up numbers besides lack of ambition.
From the people that “hired” him yes, but I’m sure a lot of Americans, I would venture to say most, were not aware that he was a Nazi. I bet to this day most don’t even realize what exactly he was responsible for in WW2 and that he should’ve been tried as a war criminal and either shot or spent the rest of his life in jail. Instead he’s an American hero.
I know we're kinda getting off topic here, but I can't imagine why people are moving out older -
my first apartment was a bit less than $300/mo in the mid 2000's, that same exact unit now with minimal renovations (my current work is near it) is over $2000/mo now.
Also sidenote - I'm a millennial that's actually met Jay Leno! He had a friend here in WA whom had a steam car collection and I came to know through one of my automotive instructors in college (no idea if he's still around, this was nearly a decade ago). The brief talk I had with him he had lots of good things to say about the younger car enthusiast generation.
That information is pretty mainstream now, and has shown up in pop culture. It was a major part of the plotline in one of the early episodes of the brilliant alternative history series "For All Mankind".
WVB's autobiography was titled something like "I Aim For The Stars".
An Englishman allegedly commented that the subtitle should have been "but sometimes I miss and hit London".
