Why do you drive an automatic (unless you don't)?

[darcane]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

I don't think you understand what driving is like with a stop sign on every corner and traffic lights and traffic virtually everywhere you drive. It requires constant braking and shifting.

I like driving a manual. I don't particularly like automatics, they are just more practical and economical in terms of less maintenance for my environs. Hills have little or nothing to do with it. But needing to shift constantly wears out a clutch, due to unavoidable and relentless use.

I know exactly what you're saying... Gridlocked traffic, start, stop, start, stop, repeat. We have plenty of it here. I'm just saying you're doing it wrong.

If you're on the brakes, you probably sped up too much. If you are accelerating a lot, you're probably using the brakes too much. Try to time your coasting so that the car in front of you starts moving before you get to it.

Shifting doesn't really use up the clutch, slipping the clutch does. You do this mostly when you are starting from a stop. If you keep your car rolling, you have no need to slip the clutch and you will still have good clutch life.

[tumnasgt]

Originally Posted by darcane

I know exactly what you're saying... Gridlocked traffic, start, stop, start, stop, repeat. We have plenty of it here. I'm just saying you're doing it wrong.

If you're on the brakes, you probably sped up too much. If you are accelerating a lot, you're probably using the brakes too much. Try to time your coasting so that the car in front of you starts moving before you get to it.

Shifting doesn't really use up the clutch, slipping the clutch does. You do this mostly when you are starting from a stop. If you keep your car rolling, you have no need to slip the clutch and you will still have good clutch life.

Stop signs are the only exception, because a red light requires that you don't pass a marked line, but doesn't actually mean you have to stop. Stop signs legally require that you come to a complete stop, which in most cases is just silly.

The US really needs to start using Give Way (Yield) signs wherever possible, and only put Stops where you cannot see the approaching traffic clearly until you are at the intersection. 4-way Stops seem especially silly to me, roundabouts or 4-way give ways (works like a roundabout without the bump in the road) are much more efficient. They also make liability much clearer in an accident, as you only need to know where each car was coming from, not the order that they showed up in.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by darcane

I know exactly what you're saying... Gridlocked traffic, start, stop, start, stop, repeat. We have plenty of it here. I'm just saying you're doing it wrong. If you're on the brakes, you probably sped up too much. If you are accelerating a lot, you're probably using the brakes too much. Try to time your coasting so that the car in front of you starts moving before you get to it.

Yep - I expected some manual tranny enthusiast would tell me I'm "doing it wrong".

Have you ever been to N.Y. City? Have you ever driven a car here? This is relevant to the discussion. I once spent some time driving in California and was amazed how you folks on the left coast piss and moan about how bad the traffic is there. You have mostly four-lane highways and no 'bottlenecks'. That's a piece of cake compared to where I am from. Traffic? Compared to what? I'm sure the traffic in Pusiwallop Washington is nothing compared to Manhattan, or the Bronx, or Brooklyn, or even Queens.

Shifting doesn't really use up the clutch, slipping the clutch does. You do this mostly when you are starting from a stop. If you keep your car rolling, you have no need to slip the clutch and you will still have good clutch life.

If shifting "doesn't really use the clutch up", then a clutch should last forever, right? What nonsense. The more anything involving friction is used, the faster it wears out. "Keep it rolling?" Try doing that at an intersection with one of our newly installed red-light cameras. Summonses are issued by data from road sensors, still and video cameras - with all three in active use - that show anything over 0 MPH recorded at the stop line.

Don't insinuate that I ride a clutch, or ride the brakes. I know better than to do that, but I have no way of proving to you that I don't, nor what traffic is like here. Until you move here and operate a vehicle under the traffic conditions that prevail your comments are not applicable. Brakes do wear out faster in city areas because we need to stop for stop signs on virtually every corner, ubiquitous traffic lights and often being behind semi-comatose drivers, with whom one must share the public roadways, who brake for hallucinations.

And don't worry about me - all the cars I've owned for the past 20 years are all automatics - not out of choice mind you, but out of sheer practicality and economic pragmatism.

[darcane]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

Have you ever been to N.Y. City? Have you ever driven a car here? This is relevant to the discussion. I once spent some time driving in California and was amazed how you folks on the left coast piss and moan about how bad the traffic is there. You have mostly four-lane highways and no 'bottlenecks'. That's a piece of cake compared to where I am from. Traffic? Compared to what? I'm sure the traffic in Pusiwallop Washington is nothing compared to Manhattan, or the Bronx, or Brooklyn, or even Queens.

I'd be lying if I said all of Seattle was as bad as New York, but there are certainly areas that are close if not as bad. Seattle is a very narrow strip of land bordered by a lake and the sound which definately creates bottlenecks.

According to:
Worst traffic cities of 2010 - latimes.com
New York's traffic has more hours of congestion per week, but during those hours of congestion, the average speeds are slightly faster than Seattle/Tacoma.

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

If shifting "doesn't really use the clutch up", then a clutch should last forever, right? What nonsense. The more anything involving friction is used, the faster it wears out. "Keep it rolling?" Try doing that at an intersection with one of our newly installed red-light cameras. Summonses are issued by data from road sensors, still and video cameras - with all three in active use - that show anything over 0 MPH recorded at the stop line.:

Shifting is the act of changing from one gear to the next. While shifting, there is very little torque being applied to the clutch and thus very little wear. Nearly all of the wear will be while you slip the clutch starting from a stop.

I'm not advocating running red lights or stop signs, it's not safe and you'll get nailed by red-light cameras here too. I'm just saying try to keep it rolling while waiting for other cars to clear the stop sign or while waiting for the light to turn green.

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

Don't insinuate that I ride a clutch, or ride the brakes. I know better than to do that, but I have no way of proving to you that I don't, nor what traffic is like here. Until you move here and operate a vehicle under the traffic conditions that prevail your comments are not applicable. Brakes do wear out faster in city areas because we need to stop for stop signs on virtually every corner, ubiquitous traffic lights and often being behind semi-comatose drivers, with whom one must share the public roadways, who brake for hallucinations.

And don't worry about me - all the cars I've owned for the past 20 years are all automatics - not out of choice mind you, but out of sheer practicality and economic pragmatism.

I'm not worried about your personal choices or really concerned with proving that you can or can't drive. I just object to the claim that "automatic transmissions [are] a 'must'" for city driving and manuals are for rural driving.

Oddly, city dwellers in Europe don't seem to have trouble with manuals...

[JacobAziza]

I spent an extra month of searching and several hundred more dollars to find my truck in manual.

I live in the Bay Area, where traffic is just as bad as in NYC (I have lived there too), there are red light cameras, no yield signs anywhere, no such thing as timed lights along main streets, and lots of hills.
Its really not that hard to drive a stick.
Automatics are a luxury, just like power steering and power windows.

[SentraSE-R]

+1 for previous 2 posts. Public transportation, not POVs, is the way to travel in congested metropolitan areas.

[cfg83]

darcane -

Originally Posted by darcane

...

I'm not worried about your personal choices or really concerned with proving that you can or can't drive. I just object to the claim that "automatic transmissions [are] a 'must'" for city driving and manuals are for rural driving.

Oddly, city dwellers in Europe don't seem to have trouble with manuals...

In Los Angeles we have two of the top-10 (or top-5) freeway congestion intersections in the country. One is the 10/405 interchange, and the other is the 101/405 interchange. To get from one to the other you have to go through the "bottleneck", aka the 405 overpass :

^
|
N
      |
------+---101-----
      |
^^^^ 405 ^^^^^^ Santa Monica Mountains
      |
------+----10-----
      |

It makes for a disastrous commute. It's not steep, so there's no worry about driving manual. I don't take it because of the time lost.

CarloSW2

[gone-ot]

FWIW -- from Dale Jewetts' article, "Americans Prefer Two Pedals to Three," Automotive Industries, November 1999, page 15:

Overall Industry 1998 Calendar Year:
• North America....83% Automatic / 17% Manual.
• Asia-Pacific.....47% Automatic / 51% Manual.
• Western Europe...13% Automatic / 87% Manual.
• Global...........45% Automatic / 55% Manual.

General Motors 1998 Calendar Year
• North America....90% Automatic / 10% Manual.
• Asia-Pacific.....60% Automatic / 40% Manual.
• Western Europe...90% Automatic / 10% Manual.
• Global...........65% Automatic / 35% Manual.

...sorta 'explains' *why* GM almost went under, ie: they don't "read" their customers very well at all. Instead they push automatics and only reluctantly offer manuals.

[TheMarkofPolo]

Wow, a lot of action in this thread. I think part of the reason I got an automatic instead of a manual was, aside from fiance's preference, I used to live in the sticks and perceived "the city" as some abstract maze of river-like highways, perpetually logged with traffic. Off the highway, the roads would be adorned with stop lights and signs every block, blocked by more traffic. What a mess. Automatic please, said the naive boonies native.

What was I thinking! Now accustomed to StLouis traffic, I could have picked up the manual vibe and done just fine. My lady would just have to relearn manual.

Nonetheless, I maintain my hatred for stop signs.

[tumnasgt]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

FWIW -- from Dale Jewetts' article, "Americans Prefer Two Pedals to Three," Automotive Industries, November 1999, page 15:

Overall Industry 1998 Calendar Year:
• North America....83% Automatic / 17% Manual.
• Asia-Pacific.....47% Automatic / 51% Manual.
• Western Europe...13% Automatic / 87% Manual.
• Global...........45% Automatic / 55% Manual.

General Motors 1998 Calendar Year
• North America....90% Automatic / 10% Manual.
• Asia-Pacific.....60% Automatic / 40% Manual.
• Western Europe...90% Automatic / 10% Manual.
• Global...........65% Automatic / 35% Manual.

...sorta 'explains' *why* GM almost went under, ie: they don't "read" their customers very well at all. Instead they push automatics and only reluctantly offer manuals.

The Western Europe difference is incredible. I do wonder if part of it is the type of cars they sell, for example, in NZ GM's most common vehicles are large sedans (the Holden Commodore, used to be sold in the US as the Pontiac G8) and coupe-utilities (like this).

I also find it interesting how Asia (in particular Japan) has a lot of manuals, because NZ imports used vehicles from Japan, yet almost all of them are autos. I suspect that a lot of the time, dealers are making the assumption that people prefer auto, so they import less manuals.