Traded in our most expensive car ever on Saturday

[Dav8or]

That clutch didn't actually fail until I accidentally let a teenager who was going to buy the car take it for a test drive by himself. An hour an a half after he drove off without me or his uncle (who was supposed to accompany the kid on the drive) I got a call from his mother saying the car died. He was doing hole shots and the clutch disk exploded.

In all fairness to the teenager, I think you put nine out of ten nails in that coffin.

 

[Ted]

Who would want a sporty manual transmission in a truck?

Me. When I bought my Dodge Ram 2500 Cummins Turbo Diesel brand new (the only vehicle I've bought brand new), I specifically went for the 6-speed manual.

Just because it's a truck doesn't mean you can't have fun with it.

Well, since you brought it up, I thought I'd ask- Do the new trucks (I haven't driven a new pick up in decades) offer a low "granny gear" like the old manuals did back in the day? I have owned and driven many vintage pick up trucks and the low gear is actually pretty useful, particularly with a low power engine. Something in these fuel economy driven days that the big three might consider.

My Dodge (2004... wow, hard to believe it was almost 10 years ago I bought that thing) did have a granny gear. When you were driving without a load you normally started in 2nd (which was geared about like 1st would be in a normal car). When pulling a load, you started in 1st.

 

[MAKG1]

I don't see manual transmissions as "sporty." They help me keep traction on iffy roads, keep transmission temperatures in check with a heavy load, let me override the generally stupid gearing curves easily (Wanna get on the highway fast? Spin the F'er up. Even on a Ford F***up.), and avoid the common hard downshifts under heavy load.

I have one of those granny gears (7:1) on the Chevy pickup. They are nice, for whenever really heavy loads are being pulled, or you just need a really slow speed. I use mine in stop'n'go traffic on occasion. The modern ones are probably synchronized. That sucks on the real old ones. The Ford SUVs used to have it in the transfer case, but you needed manual locking hubs (yep, did that) to use them on pavement. They did away with that with the AWD transition in 97.

 

[Chip Sylverne]

I have a granny gear in my 86 F-150. At idle, it can pull a hay wagon at walking pace, so I can walk along side and toss bales up on it to be stacked. At the end of the field, jump in, turn around, head the other way. Amazingly useful not having to waste good labor behind the wheel.

 

[Henning]

I have a granny gear in my 86 F-150. At idle, it can pull a hay wagon at walking pace, so I can walk along side and toss bales up on it to be stacked. At the end of the field, jump in, turn around, head the other way. Amazingly useful not having to waste good labor behind the wheel.

Yep, I used to do the same thing.

 

[gismo]

In all fairness to the teenager, I think you put nine out of ten nails in that coffin.

Perhaps. But I didn't say he could drive it alone. He came with his uncle to negotiate the sale and they were supposed to take a final "test drive" together. But while the uncle and I were talking the kid who was sitting in the car playing with the radio just fired it up and drove away with us adults just standing their with jaws dropped.

My culpability lay in my willingness to sell a fairly hot car to a teenager. In hindsight I'd say it was more car than a 16 yo should be given. There was little integrity in the rest of his family either. They agreed to complete the purchase if I would pay half for a new clutch. I wasn't too concerned about that since I knew the disk was getting thin and probably wouldn't have lasted another 10k miles so I agreed. They also insisted the work be done at a shop near then that they were familiar with and I consented to that as well. Then when the work was completed they told me the mechanic told the mother the car was too much for the kid and they backed out of the deal.

To add insult to injury the mechanic had installed the wrong clutch (wrong year aftermarket part) and "lost" the bell housing cover. I didn't learn this until I went to fetch the car on the day that a new potential purchaser was driving here from Iowa. What I found was that the clutch wouldn't disengage at all unless the pedal was pressed firmly to the floor and even then it was still dragging enough that it would grind going into reverse. When I demonstrated this to the mechanic he pretty much said that was "normal" and blew me off. At first I figured he had simply done a poor job of bleeding the hydraulics but after a couple hours of trying in vain to remedy that before the guy from IA showed up I gave up. The new buyer bought the car anyway and said he wanted to put in a higher performance clutch anyway so that issue was going to be resolved. It was when he replaced the clutch that we learned the wrong part had been installed and the cover was missing. But he was happy and I was glad to be done with it. If only I'd found him first.