Stick shift or auto?

Stick Shift or Auto?

  • I drive a stick (for this poll, if even one of your cars is a stick, you drive a stick)

    Votes: 71 68.3%

  • I drive an automatic under protest

    Votes: 13 12.5%

  • I drive an automatic and I'm happy to do so

    Votes: 20 19.2%
  • Total voters
    104
woodstock

woodstock

Final Approach
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I don't remember if I posted this query once before and I'm too lazy to look at my old threads. It seems like a question I would ask.

Anyway, since this is a pilot board I figured our average would be higher than the US average of about 10%.

What kind of transmission do you have in your car?
 
I learned to drive in a 4-speed Vega.

When I bought a used car for my kids, I specifically looked for a stick. Once you learn, you never forget. Plus, I don't have to worry about any of their friends trying to borrow the car.
 
I used to drive sticks, but you need three hands to drive one. One for the wheel, one for the stick and one for the microphone (ham radio). Jeep has an automatic for that reason, and only that reason.
 
I recently had (and prefer) a stick shift, but the present cages are automatic, so I chose under protest. The motorcycles are, of course, manual transmission. (I guess you could call that stubby little shift lever a stick :D)
 
Well, the only thing I own is a motorcycle, but when it comes to cars, I could really give a rats a$$. Automatics have their advantages, especially in traffic around town. If I'm mostly running down the highway, a manual will typically give me a fuel economy advantage. I know a lot of people who drive sticks though for the fuel economy, but between not knowing how to load an engine properly and their working the clutch, at the end of a couple of years, they would have been better off with an automatic.
 
My practice was automatics when dealing with stop & go city traffic and stick when living in a rural area. Now it is only automatic. The last stick I had was a small pick-up. It had unnecessarily high pedal pressure, to make it feel like a bigger truck I guess. My left leg and foot was giving me fits and I finally figured out that it was because of the clutch. I wore out before the truck did.
 
I learned to drive a stick on a car with "three on the tree".
Currently all our cars are auto's. They are nicer in stop and go traffic. I am lazy I prefer to put it in drive and go. My Charger does have AutoStick if I get board and want to pretend I have a stick.
 
The daily POS is a Comanche, 4.0 six & 5 spd. the hot rod car is automatic. Dave
 
Motorcycle = manual
Motorhome and Jeep = automatic because that's the way the designs come and it's way too spendy or near impossible to convert them.
I love when my friends send me off in their vehicles. Most of them have manual transmissions.
 
Car has a stick. You think I'm gonna have an automatic on the receiving end of 400HP?
Truck has an automatic. I didnt vote cause I have both.
 
EdFred said:
Car has a stick. You think I'm gonna have an automatic on the receiving end of 400HP?
Truck has an automatic. I didnt vote cause I have both.
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I've run Powerglides and TH-400s behind over 1200hp.
 
Both, muscle cars should only come in a stick, luxury cars an automatic. Trucks depends on what you are doing with it. But in my family you had to learn to drive a stick before you could set your butt in a vehicle with an automatic.
 
Motorcycle is manual....Car is automatic... Honestly, I really don't care. If I were to buy a sports car I'd want it to be a stick..everything else..who cares.
 
I have a Jeep Wrangler (stick) and an Outback (automatic). I think some kinds of vehicles lend themselves to being sticks, like Jeeps, but any other type car I prefer an automatic.

I could fly an airplane before I could drive a stick and that felt wrong so I asked a guy to teach me. Of course I lived in the city of San Francisco at the time so that was an adventure. :blush:
 
EdFred said:
Car has a stick. You think I'm gonna have an automatic on the receiving end of 400HP?
Click to expand...
I have a friend who used to drag race an old Desoto hemi with Torqueflight. The kind with buttons in the dash to select the desired gear.

He'd get up to about 4,000 rpm in neutral on the line, then push the "1" button and floor it simultaneously when the lights turned green. That transmission took the abuse for the entire season of racing....

-Skip
 
Dean said:
But in my family you had to learn to drive a stick before you could set your butt in a vehicle with an automatic.
Click to expand...

Yup! Had to learn on a '75 Dodge Power Wagon 4x4 with 4 speed stick, 149" wheelbase. Had to take my drivers test in that as well, THEN I was allowed to drive the car.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Yup! Had to learn on a '75 Dodge Power Wagon 4x4 with 4 speed stick, 149" wheelbase. Had to take my drivers test in that as well, THEN I was allowed to drive the car.
Click to expand...
Your parents were wise. I just got back from a wake. 21 year old we've known since age 8. Died about 100 yards from the parent's home in the wee hours of Xmas morning. Took a tree in the driver's side door,as our rain had just turned to ice, in a Toyota.

That Dodge was some truck!
 
My first car (which my dad "helped" to pick out) was an automatic but every care I've owned since that one (starting with a brand new 1973 Audi 100LS) has come with a manual transmission and a clutch. Occasionally when creeping along in heavy traffic I might long for a clutchless mode but fortunately that doesn't happen often. Also when I had a broken leg I had to borrow a car with an automatic for a couple weeks until I got to the point where I could operate the clutch pedal. I really don't know why my preference is such though other than it just doesn't feel like "driving" when the transmission does it's own thing.
 
The Harley is 5 speed, the 2500 Chevy truck is auto, but my 94 Camaro is stick. Right now the Camaro is my daily commute.
 
Daily driver is my old 5-speed Jeep Wrangler; Dakota has an auto; wife's Jag has an auto, but with a second manually shiftable gate.
 
I don't know how to drive an automatic. There aren't enough pedals on the floor. Then too, I don't know how to start a gasoline engine car. When you turn the key half way none of the little lights go off to tell you when to turn it the rest of the way! I spend a lot of time sitting in the driveway trying to figure out how to get a gas driven automatic vehicle to go anywhere.

Barb
 
I like having a stick, but none of my cars now does.

We have an insurance rental now, a Nissan Altima, with a CVT. It drives OK, but the absence of the dynamic satisfaction of shifting is bizarrely off-putting (like my first car, an Impala with a TurboGlide).
 
I miss my Miata. It was just impractical in the land of sleet and ice. Taught my youngest to manage a stick in it- lots of crowhopping.....
 
One Short said:
I don't know how to drive an automatic. There aren't enough pedals on the floor. Then too, I don't know how to start a gasoline engine car. When you turn the key half way none of the little lights go off to tell you when to turn it the rest of the way! I spend a lot of time sitting in the driveway trying to figure out how to get a gas driven automatic vehicle to go anywhere.

Barb
Click to expand...

How many of you fellow manual shifters have jammed on the brakes in a rented or borrowed automatic with your left foot in an attempt to disengage the clutch?

I'm also wondering what reasons if any the rest of you have for preferring a stick? These days the sophisticated slushboxes can achieve virtually identical performance and economy as a manual tranny.

I also should admit that I may consider a dual clutch sequential shifter on a future car (with fixed paddles).
 
gismo said:
How many of you fellow manual shifters have jammed on the brakes in a rented or borrowed automatic with your left foot in an attempt to disengage the clutch?

I'm also wondering what reasons if any the rest of you have for preferring a stick? These days the sophisticated slushboxes can achieve virtually identical performance and economy as a manual tranny.

I also should admit that I may consider a dual clutch sequential shifter on a future car (with fixed paddles).
Click to expand...


Sorry, paddle shift sucks, I prefer a stick in the middle if I'm going to be shifting. I did like the buttons on the wheel of the DB7 though, that was ok because they were pretty much always under my thumbs. Paddles are ok in a race car where you have 3/4 turn lock to lock and most all of the time the paddles are under your finger tips. I was driving a 360 Ferrari with paddles on the street though and it sucked.
 
Henning said:
Sorry, paddle shift sucks, I prefer a stick in the middle if I'm going to be shifting. I did like the buttons on the wheel of the DB7 though, that was ok because they were pretty much always under my thumbs. Paddles are ok in a race car where you have 3/4 turn lock to lock and most all of the time the paddles are under your finger tips. I was driving a 360 Ferrari with paddles on the street though and it sucked.
Click to expand...

That's the biggest problem with the flappy paddles. When you go to turn, you need another option. In the MINI I can tap the shifter up and down as well.

I do wish it was a DSG setup though.
 
I got my current ride- an old 5.0 Mustang LX, for a song from a friend, just as the Tracker was starting to fail... but if it were an automatic, I wouldn't have taken it. :D

Still learning to shift it properly, because it's been a while, and the only other sticks I've ever driven had less than half the horsepower. I think the flywheel alone weighs more than the engine did in my old Fiat. :D

But it sure is great to have a stick again, even in traffic.
I learned to drive in ancient, badly-abused Ford U-Haul trucks, and most of that driving was parking. The rest in traffic. In Manhattan. Very educational. Then for a while I drove an even older Mercedes truck on the job. I'm just more comfortable with a stick.
 
I learned to drive a fork lift before I drove a car, and that had a manual transmission. My first few cars when I got out of the service had sticks, but I was living in Upstate New York back then. Once I moved back to NYC and had to deal with the stop-and-go traffic again, I started driving automatics.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I learned to drive a fork lift before I drove a car, and that had a manual transmission. My first few cars when I got out of the service had sticks, but I was living in Upstate New York back then. Once I moved back to NYC and had to deal with the stop-and-go traffic again, I started driving automatics.

-Rich
Click to expand...

After visiting NYC earlier this year... I wouldn't want a car. Yeow.
 
I never learned to drive a stick. Now both of my vehicles have the clutchless automatic shifting (like the paddles, but with the gear lever), but we usually drive them as automatics.

Tried doing a jeep tour in Mexico one time, not realizing that they were stick, and kept stalling the thing!
 
I learned on a tractor. Actually, several different tractors. From them to a motorcycle. Then driver's ed in Dad's car, which was at the time was a Ford Falcon, 3 speed column, wagon.
My daily driver is a Tahoe (4 sp auto). The toy is a 6 sp standard. I did a 6 sp standard last trip to Scotland.
Yeah, I like standard better.
 
I drive 50 miles in Atlanta traffic...no way in hell I am driving a manual. So automatic for me.

The wife's BMW was used and so it is an Auto....though both of our cars have the Triptonic style "manual" for when we are feeling a bit edgy! LOL
 
It has been 15 years since I regularly drove a stick, so I am broken from the clutch habit... But, back then, I jabbed an automatic's brake with my left foot more than a few times.

I live in the greater Chicago area, and used to drive a ton to get to meetings. Between traffic, meals on the go, and calls in the car (yes, I know - the picture of safety), for me, an automatic was a requirement in this environment.

gismo said:
How many of you fellow manual shifters have jammed on the brakes in a rented or borrowed automatic with your left foot in an attempt to disengage the clutch?

I'm also wondering what reasons if any the rest of you have for preferring a stick? These days the sophisticated slushboxes can achieve virtually identical performance and economy as a manual tranny.

I also should admit that I may consider a dual clutch sequential shifter on a future car (with fixed paddles).
Click to expand...
 
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