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Originally Posted by redpoint5
I've never used the brake to assist with hills.
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I use it quite often. Last time I had to not use it was when I took my driving license test. Since my knees become quite painful sometimes, it feels quite discomfortable not being able to use the handbrake to assist on hill starts.
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Even large hills, I'll roll back no more than a few centimeters. Just rev the engine and quickly let out the clutch to the point that at least the car isn't rolling backwards.
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Wasting more fuel and increasing clutch wear? I prefer to avoid that. Unfortunately, when I have to drive my dad's currently vehicle, I have no choice. It's an old Nissan XTerra with a regionally-sourced Diesel engine and 5-speed manual transmission.
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Originally Posted by Fat Charlie
The handbrake takes up valuable cupholder real estate- and the transmission itself takes up (apparently) valuable mental real estate, forcing people to pay attention to the vehicle they're allegedly operating, plan more than half a second ahead and other non-Facebooky type things.
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And it's often easier to implement some "space-saving" shifter, either a rotary-dial one which has been more common on newer models or a traditional collumn-shifter. OK, I know there were vehicles with manual transmission that had collumn-shifters, but the amount of gears in the newer ones would render this feature unpractical and harder to operate than a floor-shifter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Tele man
Our '14 Prius has a small, hanging, pedal...like european 'small' manual tranny pedals.
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It was quite surprising to me when I figured out the Prius and the Lexus CT200h have a pedal-operated parking brake, a feature which I saw more often on trucks.