Stick shift or automatic?

[deeaa*]

I like automatics just fine but they're very rare here.

Automatics are nigh useless in winter at worst, and at best they are still kinda old guy's and housewives' choices. Can't drive sportily or have fun with an automatic, unless we're talking hundreds of hp etc. I liked the automatic on my Chevy Van, suited it very well, although I did have major problems with it in slippery conditions...then I wished for a manual. Having driven in the US and here, the culture is way different, people don't so much drive actively for pleasure in the US but more like use the car for moving around and prefer automatics. And at least in New York the roads didn't much make want to drive actively. Suffices to say I understood why american cars have such loose suspensions and big tires and no
feeling for the road - the roads were pretty bad largely and distances long. Again automatics are fine then. . Here every kid is a wannabe rallye driver and since they're 16 or so all they wanna do is drive rally around in the countryside etc.

When younger, I would have laughed at automatic drivers, but now I'd like one just fine, but the only problem is they don't last nearly as well. Manual trannies practixally never break even after half a million miles or more and just need an oil change every 300.000 or so but automatics tend to need oil changes often plus they often break and are costly to repair, especially I think cold winters are hard for automatics. The most often sold cheap american car here is with a busted tranny nobody can fix here, and a new one costs more than the car.

If I bought a new or almost new a car and knew I'd be selling it off in a few years again, I'd pick an automatic. With old car, or for keeps, definitely manual.

However, I suppose tranny repairs are much easier and commonplace in the us than here, so things could be different.

[Eric***]

However, I suppose tranny repairs are much easier and commonplace in the us than here, so things could be different.

Probably slightly cheaper, but by the time a car needs an automatic-transmission rebuild, the price of one is still often close to the value of the car due to depreciation. I've had to scrap at least one car due to a dead automatic tranny, and it's one of the most important things I look for in cars these days -- transmission reliability.

Some car models (like the Ford Taurus) are almost guaranteed to have transmission problems if you were to own one for any length of time. In the past I might not have cared, but knowing what a danger AT failure is now, I would immediately blacklist such a car.

Too bad they're so rare in the U.S. It makes it seem unlikely that my next car will have one, since it's probably going to be slim pickings on the used market.

[marnold***]

I just got rid of my Olds Achieva with 260K miles on it and the automatic transmission was just fine, despite never flushing it. Then again, I don't tend to drive in a way that would be the death of a transmission. Having gone out to the Rockies this past summer, if I lived out there I could definitely see the advantage of a manual for frequent transmission braking. You can do it in an automatic too, but I'd imagine that would be very rough on it.

[deeaa*]

What I hear is it's indeed the motor braking that can hurt an automatic, as the liquids don't flow as well in forced mode vs. the drive mode, not sure.

Also, I've heard that the best thing to do to lengthen the tranny's life in cold weather is really let it run for a good while, like ten minutes or so, before dropping into gear and slamming it. Someone claimed that if it's -25 and you just crank it in gear the stiff oil in it will cause enormous pressure issues especially with engines with lotsa torque.

Probably quite true. The Chevy Van always was one very popular U.S. car over here but there's a LOT of them around with transmission problems. I never had any, but then again I only had it for like 50k or less, from 150 to 200k about.

[NWBasser]

An automatic is about the only practical setup here with our heavy traffic. I really enjoy driving a stick, but our traffic isn't really so much stop and go as it is stop, stop, creep a bit, stop, stop, creep.

Yeah, you'd burn up a clutch pretty quickly here.

Come to think of it, traipsing along with a walker or cane on the sidewalk would probably be quicker way to get around this area.

[SuperSwede]

In my case, a VW 6-speed DSG automatic gearbox the fuel economy is better than the manual version, and I can also use it to switch gears "manually" if I push it to the right. Its much more smooth to drive than my 5-speed manual Fiat.