As detailed elsewhere - I broke my lower left (important bit) leg back in Jan.
Saw the surgeon last week and he's said I'm now OK to drive an auto. (obviously declare to insurance). Both the cars I have access to are manual.
It'll make a big difference to both mine and my SOs life for me to be more self reliant - weekly physio trips, gym, and just being able to get up the hill to the Peaks, sit on a rock and watch the sunset.
As I'm only going to have it for 3months or so, I want the whole ownership proposition to cost as little as possible. Its not going to do mega miles so fuel consumption is pretty irrelevant; tax and insurance need to be "OK" as that's sunk costs, but the big thing is resale. I figure it needs to have a years MOT on it to make it sellable with 9 months left.
Looking on Autotrader, there's very little under £1k that I'd even consider. Lots of spares/repair or non-runner; plenty of rusty Mercs with a few days of MOT and some absolute sheds that need sanitising with fire before you'd touch them with bare skin. The days of being able to buy a big old wafty Jag for £200 to smoke around in seem to be well gone...
So the question is - is it worth spending more - If I spend £3k, do I stand a good chance of getting, say, £2.8k back, compared to a £1k skip that I end up weighing in for £200...
I've got a mate in the motor trade who I'm planning to tap up, but I want to understand my budget first.
(Doesn't help I'm a bit pedantic about cars - hate, hate, HATE, driving things with scratches, dents, kerbed wheels - makes me out to be a careless driver)
Thanks all...
I thought long and hard about this before buying my car for 3 months in Aus. I came to the conclusion that £4000 - 5000 was the sweet spot where depreciation had all happened but the car would not be a worn out wreck that might let me down and that I would get most or all of my money back.
I( would say at least £3000 particularly if you want / need decent tyres and the like.
I see a honda Jazz in your future - horrid things but typical honda in that they just work ( my parents have one)
hate, hate, HATE, driving things with scratches, dents, kerbed wheels
£5k
£5k is a bit OOFT...!
Daft thing is, 2 years ago I ended up needing some expensive work on my own car - then 18 years old and just over 200k miles. Toss up of keep or sell - all the WBAC type sites either weren't interested or offered a couple of hundered. I thing the highest offer was £375. I decided to keep as it was worth couple of £k to me as a trusted working vehicle - ploughed £1200 for a replacement rear subframe. Now its past 2 decades, 217k, from 6' away it looks pretty damn good (1' away you can tell its had some use); interior is immaculate and everything works. Yet its basically worth scrap value??
@tjagain - that's exactly the kind of thing, but best part of £4k feels punchy to me...?
Its just my thoughts from when I needed a car for 3 months. I have no idea of the relative value of that particular car but there were lots of Auto Jazzs on autotrader. dull car, pensioners special
You won't find £1k cars on Autotrader any more. You need to look on Gumtree or Facebook marketplace if that's your sort of budget.
This may be no help - but when my daughter was looking for a picanto sized car the really cheap ones were all auto's. I didn't explore why - perhaps there's an issue with them, perhaps just not the market for first time car owners etc. If you can live with something as small as that you could do it cheaply.
Obviously, anyone buying might have alarm bells ringing if you are chopping it in so quick - your explanation will work with some but others will not like a car being sold so quickly as it hints at something wrong. You should be able to stick the details in We Buy Any Car or similar and see what you can get for it.
My friend recently sold a Renault Scenic for £400. Nine months MOT left but it was going to fail the next one (roadworthy, but a warning light on which was going to be many, many pounds to sort) Another sold a Skoda Fabia for £200, again roadworthy but with a short MOT and big bill looming, lots of rust to sort.
Maybe something like that if you can find one, just knowing that it's going to be scrap in a few months, the depreciation on a £200 car is going to be, at the very most, £200 regardless
Both of the above are sold so not much actual help
(Doesn't help I'm a bit pedantic about cars - hate, hate, HATE, driving things with scratches, dents, kerbed wheels - makes me out to be a careless driver)
I think you're going to have to get over this. If you were buying a keeper then I'd agree with you, but given the rest of your criteria I'd say just suck it up because after three months you won't care.
Otherwise,
I fell a bit lucky last year. Was looking for a new auto van but managed to break my pelvic. didn't know, so bought the auto, then struggled to drop my 22 year old car off at WBAC (worth scrap unfortunately despite it looking great). Roll on a few weeks and we found out I had extensively broken my pelvis. Had to WFH for a few weeks.
Anything Japanese I'd say. Any cheap Aygo auto's about ?
Just sell one of your cars and get a decent auto.
Then wonder why you took so long ro make the switch.
However my opinion might not line up with your. Because i will happyily pay bottom doller for a scratched car.
Its
A
Car
To put it bluntly, you want the moon on a stick. It's not 1985
Finding a car for a grand it is is hard enough. Adding in requirements about aesthetics is taking the piss. Buy the cheapest car you can find with a fresh MOT that looks like it's been looked after (at this price, go by gut and assessment), run it, and hope for the best.
It maybe best to just use a cab for 3 months if your mileage/ trips is low.
£3000 is a lot of cab journeys and no risk.
You may buy a real dog of a car and it will cost you a fortune.
It's all a gamble.
Subaru autos are cheap to buy and less trendy to buy right now.
Gears are so 90's, no one needs gears in their life anymore. Sell your car and buy a nice one without gears and more room for your left leg.
Something like this?
3l Scobby for £900
Down south so less salt on the winter roads? and looks well looked after. Could be tempted myself....
This will not be for sale long me thinks.
Great cars. Reliability should help cover the fuel costs.
Just sell one of your cars and get a decent auto.
Then wonder why you took so long ro make the switch.
I literally just reopened this thread to make this exact comment. Why not trade in an existing motor for an automatic?
However my opinion might not line up with your. Because i will happyily pay bottom doller for a scratched car.
Its
A
Car
Presumably you have bare brick walls at home, rather than plaster and paint and wallpaper? No pictures on the walls or photographs of the kids?
It's
A
House.
It maybe best to just use a cab for 3 months if your mileage/ trips is low.
£3000 is a lot of cab journeys and no risk.
The point being that after 3 months he could and maybe should get his 3 grand back. I actually made a profit on the car I bought for 3 months
Maybe look into short term lease or long term hire costs for 3 months?
would get you your good condition vehicle and any problems are someone else's worry.
That Scooby for £900 looks good!
For those saying "sell my car and just buy a new auto". a) my car wouldn't actually make enough money to be worth selling when for me its still got a couple of year's life left. b) I've never driven an auto that wouldn't have been better as a manual - that includes some fairly exotic machinery. I can see the appeal if all your driving is sat in stop-start traffic, but if I needed to do that, I'd either find a different transport solution or change my life so I didn't need to do that journey.
That Scooby looks fun. If it was (much!) closer to home I'd be all over that!
However my opinion might not line up with your. Because i will happyily pay bottom doller for a scratched car.
Its
A
Car
Presumably you have bare brick walls at home, rather than plaster and paint and wallpaper? No pictures on the walls or photographs of the kids?
It's
A
House.
Firstly find me a pristine second hand house for sale. I mean absolutely immaculate. And way below market value.
Then tell me you are going to buy that house because its a single story and you have a broken ankle. And three months sell it and hope to get your money back.
Then move your house about on british roads and park it in tescos etc.
The point was (admittedly not very clearly) no body will think anything about someone of it has a few scratches etc.
No one except for an absolute plonker give a shit about someone's car condition*
* Unless its evidently properly messed up from bad driving when you kight avoid going near it.
Dp you have a car club near enough to you? could be an option
Porsche GT3 RS. Its automatic and without doubt you will be able to sell it for a profit after 3 months
How much would 3 month hire cost ?
a) my car wouldn't actually make enough money to be worth selling when for me its still got a couple of year's life left.
Yet you're looking at buying an end-of-life car. Have you run the maths?
b) I've never driven an auto that wouldn't have been better as a manual
This may be the problem. How old was the last auto you drove?
Firstly find me a pristine second hand house for sale. I mean absolutely immaculate. And way below market value.
Then tell me you are going to buy that house because its a single story and you have a broken ankle. And three months sell it and hope to get your money back.
Then move your house about on british roads and park it in tescos etc.
The point was (admittedly not very clearly) no body will think anything about someone of it has a few scratches etc.
No one except for an absolute plonker give a shit about someone's car condition*
* Unless its evidently properly messed up from bad driving when you kight avoid going near it.
You didn't answer my question. Do you buy paint for the house? Do you walk around B&Q agonising over Cormorant Blue vs Incoming Storm? Why?
Do you park your house on a British road and just shrug when the external paint peels off? My point was "can you see how ****ing stupid this sounds?" Who cares what the outside of your house looks like?
A car, like a house, is a place where people spend time so it shouldn't be a wild notion to want to make it a pleasant environment, as budget allows.
This may be the problem. How old was the last auto you drove?
ive driven modern autos. still much inferior to a manual imo.
I disagree TJ. After a few years with DSG and now in a Polestar, I’d happily never need to use a manual gearbox again!
Random suggestion…….Porsche Cayenne, pre March 2006 registered with the 3.2 petrol engine.
Lots of incorrect influencers online bemoaning that band K road fund licence is being scrapped come April budget (it isn’t) so a few more have come into the market.
Early Cayenne values are climbing - mine was rock bottom depreciation curve at £500. Good ones are out there but need careful scrutiny.
Wonderful interior, auto/tiptronic gearboxes.
Otherwise - as Edukator said, early Nissan Leaf, if oil prices keep increasing then people will turn their attention to EV. Early Leaf’s are great for short range commuting.
Let’s be clear there are significant differences in automatic gearboxes and the engines they’re attached to. Most small engines with an auto box are pretty rubbish (but then again, this can also be true of manual boxes), but anything with decent torque across the rev range should have a good auto box attached to it and should spend less time shuffling gears and making noise but not speed.
Modern auto boxes attached to a decent engine that doesn’t need the nuts revved off it to make power will be superior.
I drive a lot of hire cars and always try to get an auto. Only those with teeny engines are really bad. The exception was a Mercedes A class which must’ve had a broken turbo. Dire.
That Scooby for £900 looks good!
The car tax on that car is more than half the asking price.
our neighbour had one. Lovely thing but 25 mpg if you are lucky on short journeys
I disagree TJ. After a few years with DSG and now in a Polestar, I’d happily never need to use a manual gearbox again!
Its just an opinion 🙂 I dislike the lack of control over rev range, I dislike the way its harder to hold it in one gear, I dislike having to bury the throttle to get it to shift down on acceleration, I dislike having it shift up when I don't want it to
Firstly find me a pristine second hand house for sale. I mean absolutely immaculate. And way below market value.
Then tell me you are going to buy that house because its a single story and you have a broken ankle. And three months sell it and hope to get your money back.
Then move your house about on british roads and park it in tescos etc.
The point was (admittedly not very clearly) no body will think anything about someone of it has a few scratches etc.
No one except for an absolute plonker give a shit about someone's car condition*
* Unless its evidently properly messed up from bad driving when you kight avoid going near it.
You didn't answer my question. Do you buy paint for the house? Do you walk around B&Q agonising over Cormorant Blue vs Incoming Storm? Why?
Do you park your house on a British road and just shrug when the external paint peels off? My point was "can you see how ****ing stupid this sounds?" Who cares what the outside of your house looks like?
A car, like a house, is a place where people spend time so it shouldn't be a wild notion to want to make it a pleasant environment, as budget allows.
Hang on a second. At what point did i say not to look after the car and treat it like shit?
I'm saying some scratches for a saving when there is nothing wrong with the scratches other than cosmetics. ESPECIALLY for the use case described. The OP suggested it will make hime look like a careless driver and i am saying no one will give a shit. What people will see is
A
Normal
Car
Why are you getting carried away?
I'd either buy a £1000 car that I'd flog for £500 at the end. That's cheap enough that if it totally failed it won't be a disaster and would be easy to 'firesale' at £500. If I wanted to spend more, I'd use Cabs/hire or short term lease. £5k cars are a huge risk, too much money to loose, likely to have a hidden fault and hard to sell. People don't really want to buy £5k cars privately, so it'll be much harder to sell at the end. It's easier to privately sell a £15k car than a £5k car.
The last time I had a short term car (1 year) I bought at £700, spent £400 on repairs and sold for £700.
Its just an opinion 🙂 I dislike the lack of control over rev range, I dislike the way its harder to hold it in one gear, I dislike having to bury the throttle to get it to shift down on acceleration, I dislike having it shift up when I don't want it to
I've only driven a couple of auto's and nearly all of that is our 1.4 petrol Caddy Maxi (DSG 7 speed) but I don't see why you'd need to do any of that in normal driving. The Caddy has two modes - D is 'eco' and keeps the revs very low which means pulling away can be a bit slow but it's fine in traffic and keeps the car quiet. S holds enough revs that the turbo kicks in straight away. How soon it shifts depends on how much you push the accelerator.
We're in the city, so probably spend a lot more of our trips in stop start traffic than some but I'd never go back to a manual.
but I don't see why you'd need to do any of that in normal driving.
twisty rural roads - hold it in an intermediate gear for better control and anticipating overtakes. In an auto you accelerate out of a corner and it holds an intermediate gear, Lift off for the next corner it shifts into a higher gear. I want to stay in that intermediate gear
but I don't see why you'd need to do any of that in normal driving.
twisty rural roads - hold it in an intermediate gear for better control and anticipating overtakes. In an auto you accelerate out of a corner and it holds an intermediate gear, Lift off for the next corner it shifts into a higher gear. I want to stay in that intermediate gear
in the past, yes. In a modern auto where you can override with controls (paddles/knocking the stick) eg DSG boxes, they often hold it on 'manual' mode for a while, and I'm pretty sure some look at various external inputs too avoid changing mod corner. There are a lot of preconceptions about autos that just don't apply with modern ones. We've had 4 in the house, and each chronologically newer one was better than the previous. Granted my wife's current one is definitely more of a sports car, but it's still only a 2011 and the box is great. I'd not go back to my 1999 auto 200sx in a hurry though!
I know the OP states he's never driven a car that would be better as an auto, but imho large lazy torque beasts are. My v70D5 absolutely suits the auto, and the E39 530D i had would have been waaaay better without the 6 speed manual. These sorts of things hold value well too.
£5k cars are a huge risk, too much money to loose, likely to have a hidden fault and hard to sell. People don't really want to buy £5k cars privately, so it'll be much harder to sell at the end. It's easier to privately sell a £15k car than a £5k car.
Completely disagree with this. Almost every car I've ever bought had been in the 5kish bracket, no major issues with any of them, and I've moved them all on pretty easily, often at a profit. Quite a few friends with similar experiences.
submarined - then you are driving it like a manual using the paddles. Perhaps greater familiarity would help but I have driven modern 7 and 8 speed autos with paddles and still prefer a manual box. You just get greater control IMO
My DSG has a manual mode and flappy paddles so you can hold on to the gears through corners.
Overall, it's not perfect admittedly, but for 95% of my driving it's absolutely fine.
Not sure I'd ever want to ride an automatic motorbike, though 🤨
Why are you getting carried away?
Because you're arguing that it's weird to want things looking nice (or at least, you appear to be). It's a common sentiment on car threads and it is frustrating. Apologies if that's not what you meant.
In the OP's specific use case I agree with you that he shouldn't be worrying about it, and said as much earlier on.
Always amusing reading the thoughts of the driving gods on here about why auto's are bad. Modern boxes are so good, unless you spend 75%+ of your time gunning it round twisty roads then an auto is the best option by a mile. Yes, there is the odd occasion you'll wish you had a manual (use the DSG/paddles) but those cases are so rare an auto is just better.
A friend was bemoaning her husband rupturing her Achilles hours before baby 2 was born.
Their solution was to swap cars with her brother for a while. He had an automatic they had a manual .
Do does the OP have any mates or relatives that they could swap with for a while.
There's a few Honda Jazz in South Yorkshire on auto trader.
submarined - then you are driving it like a manual using the paddles.
That's my whole point. You have the option when you want it 🙂
Anyways, all a bit immaterial as the op is only going to get a torque converter auto for a grand or so!
Buy a massive auto estate with a torquey lazy engine as cheap as you can find with a good MOT, you'll have no trouble selling it.
Or buy an auto mx5 and sell it in the summer. It'll be a bit horrible, but fine for a few months.
submarined - then you are driving it like a manual using the paddles. Perhaps greater familiarity would help but I have driven modern 7 and 8 speed autos with paddles and still prefer a manual box. You just get greater control IMO
You sound like someone who's always driven manuals and doesn't like the idea of automatics. I know because I see myself in what you're writing, I used to think the same thing.
The first auto I had for more than a day or two was an A6 Avant. I thought "I know better than the stupid car, I'm using semi-automatic mode and changing gears myself." It took me about two weeks to conclude that this was more trouble than it was worth, stuck it in full auto and for the most part left it there.
Since then I've driven a lot more cars and today I have a fairly boring Seat Arona. It's a 1L engine (which somewhat astonishingly puts out something like 110-120PS) and an auto box. It stays in auto 99% of the time. I'll blip it into Sport mode ahead of overtaking, which changes the profile of when it switches gear; if I need manual control then I can knock it across to semi-automatic and change/hold gears myself, handy when it's icy (arguably). The only reason my previous sporty Civic it replaced was a manual was because the auto model was considerably more expensive.
What you're describing is right as far as it goes, but it's simply not necessary the vast amount of the time unless you're driving everywhere like you've stolen it. Your holding gear between bends for instance, the box changes so fast that you don't need to do this, all you're doing is wasting fuel and making more noise.
If you do need more control then you have that option, but with respect TJ you're an occasional driver and you don't know better than a modern vehicle dripping with driver aids. Would you turn off ABS because you can out-brake it? And the reverse isn't true of course, in a manual you can't just knock it into auto when you're in slow-moving traffic and are having to work the gears constantly.
Or buy an auto mx5 and sell it in the summer. It'll be a bit horrible, but fine for a few months.
If the OP has a dodgy leg getting in and out on an MX5 may be troublesome!! 🙂
8 speed auto van with flappy paddles and 400nm of torque. Stuff manuals. Never use the flappy paddles as the box does its stuff. Overtakes then press the go pedal and get thumped in the back.
Absolutely no need to hold gears either.
Small engines then yeh.
8 speed auto van with flappy paddles and 400nm of torque. Stuff manuals. Never use the flappy paddles as the box does its stuff. Overtakes then press the go pedal and get thumped in the back.
Absolutely no need to hold gears either.
Small engines then yeh.
8 speed auto van with flappy paddles and 400nm of torque. Stuff manuals. Never use the flappy paddles as the box does its stuff. Overtakes then press the go pedal and get thumped in the back.
Absolutely no need to hold gears either.
Small engines then yeh.
submarined - then you are driving it like a manual using the paddles. Perhaps greater familiarity would help but I have driven modern 7 and 8 speed autos with paddles and still prefer a manual box. You just get greater control IMO
What you're describing is right as far as it goes, but it's simply not necessary the vast amount of the time unless you're driving everywhere like you've stolen it. Your holding gear between bends for instance, the box changes so fast that you don't need to do this, all you're doing is wasting fuel and making more noise.
exactly - a DSG box changes gear in a fraction of a second - I'm not sure why you need to worry about 'holding a gear'.
I'm not sure why you need to worry about 'holding a gear'.
I assume because it's what you might do in a manual, as gear changes take time to transition and result in a loss of power/torque. If you've got a speed up / slow back down again or vice versa in quick succession then making two gear changes is more faff than it's worth, might as well leave it where it is.
But a DSG as you say is (as an oversimplification) two gearboxes. As you're in one gear it's lining up the next one ready, so when it needs to change it just flips transmission across near-instantaneously whilst maintaining power. You don't have to drive it like an Austin Allegro.😁 The mistake I was making with the aforementioned Audi was trying to drive it like the manuals I'd always had for the last mumble years rather than just letting it work as intended.
Of course, not all gearboxes are equal. I've posted this before but my partner had a VW Up! and the auto box was, I'd go as far as to say undrivable. It took so long to change that by the time it had done so it immediately needed to change again. The only way you could make progress (no, not like that) was to drive it in semi and do the thinking for it. If you predicted a hill or (good luck) an overtake and dropped a cog a couple of seconds ahead of needing it, and so on and so forth, it was actually quite a pleasant little drive. But full auto was a hateful experience.
twisty rural roads - hold it in an intermediate gear for better control and anticipating overtakes. In an auto you accelerate out of a corner and it holds an intermediate gear, Lift off for the next corner it shifts into a higher gear. I want to stay in that intermediate gear
Are you actually Surf-mat ?
Theres good and bad ones. But yes they do make it hard to stay in one gear and use the torque of an engine , even those with ‘sports’ settings.
The Porsche PDK auto does allow it though
I agre
double post
How much would 3 month hire cost ?
With a bit of shopping around you could probably hire something for about £750/month (buy a stand alone annual excess insurance policy for @ £50 so you don't pay the hire co's crazy rates). But of course you don't necessarily need to hire a car for 3 months solid - although you'll get better rates if you hire in blocks of 5 days or more
Compared to buying and selling again a short time later (hoping it doesn't incur a big bill / breakdown in the interim) you'll at least know what you're going to pay if you hire, rather than what you hope to pay. But also on top of any car purchase price you've have to take out an additional insurance - you may well find your NCD can't be used when you add an extra car and additional policy for it rather than switch from one car to another. It seems counter intuitive when its the driver rather than the car's history that is the subject of the discount) When I bought an additional car NCD for that extra vehicle started from zero and had to be built up annually from there, even though I've got infinity NCD on the other one. You also need to factor in the penalty is for cancelling the policy early, you won't get all the unused policy refunded
You'll paying to tax it for at least 6 months (although you can claim some of that back when you sell)
If you hire, then over longer hires you'll probably find small vans can be a fair bit cheaper than cars. Although pricing can generally be a bit odd between hire companies. One of the cheapest 'cars' of any size or shape I can currently hire at Enterprise currently is a 9 seat Tourneo!
A key point there is whether you can get the old car off the road when you aren’t driving it. That way you can claim the road tax back and transfer the insurance. If it’s on the road you’re paying both of those things twice
I assume because it's what you might do in a manual, as gear changes take time to transition and result in a loss of power/torque. If you've got a speed up / slow back down again or vice versa in quick succession then making two gear changes is more faff than it's worth, might as well leave it where it is.
No - Its about control.
I have driven many thousands of miles in auto cars the last couple of years - far more than I have driven manuals. ( Ok one an old 4 speed slushbox and one a modern but small engined car)
Are you really claiming that allowing the auto box to make multiple changes in a few hundred metres is better than holding a gear in a manual? In the circumstances I describe the auto ( and I am thinking of a modern 8spd I drove) holds the intermediate gear under acceleration out of a corner, shifts up a couple of gears when you let off the throttle as you slow for the corner and then shifts down a couple when you accelerate again. It unsettles the car. The particular thing I am thinking of was just constantly shifting gears on a small back road - like multiple shifts in a few hundred metres
I do almost never drive in towns tho - thats what bikes are for 🤣
its just an opinion and a preference. Of all the auto cars i have driven ( and its a wide variety including large engined modern ones) I far prefer a manual
The particular thing I am thinking of was just constantly shifting gears on a small back road - like multiple shifts in a few hundred metres
crap gearbox if you can feel it. Mines 9 speed and you don’t even feel it change gear
Are you really claiming that allowing the auto box to make multiple changes in a few hundred metres is better than holding a gear in a manual?
No, I'm claiming that you don't know how to drive and are blaming the vehicle. Either that or it is broken.
If it's constantly shifting then, well, it shouldn't be because why would it, so there can only be one of two primary factors at fault here.
It unsettles the car.
Where are you driving, Brands Hatch? The last time I was on the roads worrying about unsettling the car I was in a Vauxhall Cavalier.
No, I'm claiming that you don't know how to drive and are blaming the vehicle.
This was an 8 speed auto at 20 - 40 mph. It would shift down 2 when hitting the throttle and up two when backing off How can it be anythjing about not knowing how to drive it when the car is deciding the gearshifts not me? I wasn't using full throttle or driving fast
Where are you driving, Brands Hatch?
single track roads in the highlands. Maybe im sensitive or you are not? I don't like the fact the attitude of the car alters as it shifts gear. This was a japanese large 4wd drive on tiny single track roads at relatively low speeds. Long travel soft suspension and a 8 spd auto box As it shifts up when slowing the engine braking changes and the attitude of the car changes. I don't like it shifting up when slowing which is something all autos do
crap gearbox if you can feel it. Mines 9 speed and you don’t even feel it change gear
I have never driven an auto that you cannot feel the shifts - I think some of you have no idea what the car is doing. Revs change and when slowing the attitude of the car changes as the weight shifts as engine braking decreases as it shifts up
If ever we travel in a car together I hope you don't mind if I drive, TJ 😉
You must be very close to or beyond the limit of adhesion for the attitude of the car to matter. You do realise that the right pedal isn't an on-off switch? Gentle use of the intermediate positions will save fuel and make your passengers happy. Driving at public road speeds is driving smoothly enough that your passengers don't wake up.
The main thing I have against autos is the lousy fuel consumption, and that only applies to the slush boxes with a torque converter.
You'll love EVs, TJ. Seamless power and you can adjust the motor braking to taste.
Not that it has any actual relevance to the OPs requirements, but TJ I totally get where you're coming from. I love driving and have a fun manual car for high days and holidays. However, for every day driving I personally have learned to not be bothered about the danger of mid corner shifts, as, although it is contrary to everything I've been taught about quick driving, (and feels wrong) on the road it just doesn't really matter, as I'm very rarely near the limit where it is likely to spit me into the bushes, whether in a slush box Volvo estate, or a PDK Cayman.
not be bothered about the danger of mid corner shifts
Danger! Well slow down then.
as I'm very rarely near the limit where it is likely to spit me into the bushes,
Very rarely so sometimes you are.
FFS people, these are public roads you're sharing with pedestrians, cyclists, horses, wide vehicles coming the other way, other cars... . It's not just bushes you're going to spit yourself into.
Get a competition licence and go rallying or racing, do a track day, do a rally day in a forest somewhere but please don't do it on roads the rest of us share with you.
Perhaps we should change the thread title to "petrolheads too incompetant to drive an auto safely on public roads".
Whatever you drive be it a 2CV (fun just driving it slowly) or a 500bhp auto AMG (dull at any speed) adapt your driving to make it safe.
Get off your high horse for once. Your pomp is really grating.
I have done plenty of track days thanks, it's what I use my silly car for, and your deliberate interpretation of the above to mean 'I'm driving everywhere like my arse is on fire' as opposed to one of the many other possibilities is entirely predictable. It's really tiresome.
Get off your high horse for once. Your pomp is really grating.
Now consider how your posts look on a cycling forum where cyclists would rather not share the roads with drivers going so fast that the changes of an autobox are likely to put them in the bushes - no bushes on any race tracks I've driven, lots of solid trees in the forests mind.
There's a whole mindset around the car particularly among our generation where the manafacturers sold on the basis of speed being glamorous whereas the stats just said it was deadly. Fast drivers had and still have hero status in a macho daring and skill sort of way though it's shifting to the new economies from the old where people are happily realising that driving isn't about an SUV-cross-over-sports mode blah blah in the desert the marketing bods sell it's about sitting in a line of other stinking cars impatiently waiting for the lights to change.
If I **** up on an MTB in the woods the only person to suffer is going to be me. That's where I'll get my kicks.
Speed thrills and speed kills. Slow down
How's the hunt going for a cheap auto ? (back on subject).
Nissan Leaf 30kWh, no tempestuous gear changes. 😉
FWIW it's fairly standard on anything decent to inhibit/restrict shifts with any sort of steering input where pedal position is above a certain threshold. Both parameters can be calibrated based on drive mode and (some) have a learning process to adjust based on how you drive as well. Other secondary things that can be looked at include brake force distribution imbalance and wheel slip detection.
In summary, non of the recent 6-7-8-9-10 speeds i've driven shift particularly often mid corner when on any of the handling tracks at work.
Also, anything with a reasonably sorted chassis and gearbox, you won't "unsettle" the car shifting mid corner, the process of shifting in a modern auto is a) nothing like shifting in a manual and b) nothing like shifting in an old 5-6 speed slushbox.
With the proviso of you *not* being in the top half of the rev range or slamming the throttle and brakes up and down like Juha Kankkunen.
Just a note on an early post (I skipped past all the usual "I'm offended that you're offended at my post" stuff...), if you're tempted to buy an automatic Honda Jazz, make sure you take it for a test drive first. And you will almost certainly no longer be tempted to buy an *automatic* Honda Jazz. My MIL has one and it's bloody awful. They're otherwise lovely cars (we had a manual for years) but the auto gearbox / sequential paddle thing is just terrible, it's almost always in the wrong gear for whatever you want to do with it and takes about three seconds to decide to change gear.
I did a quick search on Autotrader for <any makes/auto/£1k/£2k/£3k/25 radius> and that includes a big population. £1k was 60 cars / £2k was ~600 cars and £3k ~2500 cars.
£1k looks like a tough price point. I’d be looking a bit more (if you can) small Japanese auto’s.
I always had a preference for manuals, then I had two electric vans at work which are basically a singlespeed, and were lovely to drive with no gear changes.
Then I needed a bigger van and ended up with an 8 speed auto, proper torque converter job
In an auto you accelerate out of a corner and it holds an intermediate gear, Lift off for the next corner it shifts into a higher gear.
Mine doesn’t do that, if you are off the throttle it holds the gear as you roll up to the next bend so it’s still got some revs on ready for giving it the beans up the next straight, in fact if you want it to change up you need to feather the throttle so that it knows you are maintaining speed and don’t want engine braking. Also it is barely noticeable that it’s changing gears and because you’ve got 8 you are never bogged down or topping out towards the red line.
The only irritants is that it’s harder to control small amounts of wheel slip when trying to get off mud or snow, and it’s over enthusiastic approach to engine braking down hills, where it will go past 4,000 rpm before changing up, which feels a bit antisocial when you are going downhill in a 30 limit past people’s houses! (It’s a diesel so that’s not far off the red line!)
it’s over enthusiastic approach to engine braking down hills, where it will go past 4,000 rpm before changing upthis is a "feature" that a lot of OEMs don't calibrate well. It's called lift off hold, or some derivative of. If it detects acceleration while you're lifting off the throttle quickly (or detects that you're going down a hill) it'll extend/hold the gear a lot more aggressively. Either lift off more gently, tap the throttle or brake to cancel. Depending on which gearbox and how much feature/calibration the OEM paid for!
Had it on my last couple of cars, was barely noticeable it was so smooth. Have it on this car too (PHEV). Have OPD active, so don't even know if it works...
That "lift off hold" can be a nuisance, I usually shift up manually if the revs go mental.
Some auto are amazing. You can get ones that read the road ahead via the sat nav and change the gears accordingly. Impressive to drive.
FYI i have driven a flappy paddle Jazz. They are a but mental. I now own the boring 1.4 mote basic auto. I inherited it. It’s a perfectly adequate way of getting to work.
I drove it to Oxford and back on Friday. After reading this thread i thought I’d try concentrate on the shifts. There really aren’t that noticeable. It uses relatively high revs day driving up an A road hill and gets noisey. But mainly it just gets you from place with relatively little
Don't the Honda Jazz have those weird CVT boxes, so any gear "changes" are purely for effect?