[Closed] buying an automatic as a first car....

I have an automatic Berlingo which I really like which would also be handy for baby/tools etc. It's a bit clunky but it's been super cheap to maintain/MOT etc

Why does he think he can pass quicker in an auto...Not just from one bad experience trying to do a hill start is it?

Likely to be become less of a problem in future with full electric cars, but still likely to cause the odd convenience when borrowing cars or getting a courtesy/hire car.

Might also be worth making sure he understands what the clutch is doing, I know a few who have struggled with clutch control until an instructor took the time to actually explain its function, what it's doing, and why it can cause a stall (or create lots of smoke)

holy trinity of expensive insurance there!
young lad that wasnt sufficiently competent to pass a full test **
astra is highly popular with the yoots so often crashed in mcdonalds car parks
higher power than necessary

id be very surprised if an auto test is easier to pass anyway - testers are human and are bound to be tougher on a young lad attempting to shortcut the process

it will also be horrible to drive cos auto astras universally are rubbish

just do some comparethemarket quotes for the car in question and another for a nissan granny car and the choice will make its self

top tip - get quotes for a qualified driver, provisional driver policys are generally not a good indicator of propoer policy costs as naturally the driver will have dad in the car with him

** not my opinion but of course how the insurer will see it

no, he hasnt had a bad experience, he hasnt had any experience i dont think. he just sees it as one less 'complicated' thing to think about so a better chance of passing if he's got less to think about. ive told him itd soon come naturally, and offered to take him out in my focus but nah, not interested.

i'll pass on the insurance quote tip.

thanks

If he takes the auto test and passes he will be restricted to driving autos only; to drive a manual he will need to take and pass the manual test.
That should be a significant consideration for him.

Edit - for clarity, passing manual test allows the driving of automatics.

It doesn't strike me as a very good reason. And if he ever needs to drive a car belonging to his girlfriend/wife/friend/work/hire/etc he'll be stuffed, as well as paying premiums for a very small pool of autos in the UK.

That said, I've transitioned into a full convert, to the point that it perplexes me why we still mess around with a big clunky stick in the 21st century.

That and with the inception of electric cars, I think this big clunky stick thing will soon be a thing of the past.

Low powered Fabia. Jnr has a manual and is paying lower insurance than his mates, without a black box.

Apart from costs, main reason he got it was smaller blind spots while manoeuvring in car parks

I think he could have a requirement to drive a manual in the future at any point and he is going to be stuffed with an auto only license. Eg on holiday and the hire place has run out of autos, work pool car, a mate gets injured and he has to drive his car, hiring a van.. etc.

Anyway you are right.

I dont think itll be an issue so much I the future with hybrid and electric coming in...

Also top tip on holiday request an auto in the cheapest category and you'll often get a smarter mid range car as they wont have any small cheap autos.

I'd be after a proper auto not a crap automated manual

Did anyone actually read the OP? Did it say 'help me come up with reasons why an automatic is bad'?

Perfect.

I will never buy any car with gears again. Why anyone buys a manual is beyond me nowadays.

I moved to auto 4x4 for off road use a while back and have never looked back.

Maybe he just wants an auto?. Don't blame him. He is right.

I'd look at a Jazz or a focus.

The Nissan note autos used to be shite. Dont know what they're like now

In the whole scheme of learning to drive the gearbox is a tiny part. Most people get the hang of it within a few lessons. And is 2nd nature after a short while.

I'd strongly suggest he tries it first before dismissing it out of hand.

I know some people never get the hang of it but at least they try it first.

Whichever Honda auto is in budget would be my choice. I love autos and would only have them if possible.

No reason to go manual these days. If he wants to change gears himself in the future then get an auto with flappy paddles 😉

Anyhow it frees up his left hand for texting / eating maccys etc 😜

Auto is fine, just a bit more expensive when it goes wrong. There's no reason to have to learn to drive a manual now unless you want to.

As above, some autos are horrible to drive. So are some manuals, my berlingo bite point is somewhere in the 5mm thick cheap carpet +/- 15mm so sometimes 1st and 2nd just don't happen. The rest is like throwing a spanner into the gearbox and seeing what jams.

And TBH I can't drive a good auto so that argument swings both ways too, my brain just doesn't let me 😂. I really need to learn how at some point as I had to move a friend's car once, after about 20 minutes I had to admit defeat because I couldn't figure out what combination of keys, buttons and pedals was supposed to be be needed to start the bloody thing. Then once I got past that I was crawling round because I didn't have the mechanical un-sympathy to rev it and get it to change up 🤣

I'd still do a manual test though. Especially with a job like that where some future job might involve vans which rarely seem to be auto.

I dont get why people see having an auto only licence as a problem these days

Yes autos used to be terrible and the choice was poor but now with VAG groups DSG boxes which are found in the majority of their range your choice is vastly improved

In fact any manufacturer who makes a car with a semi auto box can be driven on an auto licence

From what Ive read as long as it only has two pedals on the floor then its fine

It seems most manufactures are now offering semi auto boxes (Merc,Ford,VW,Audi,Skoda,Seat,Honda etc..)

3.5k will get you a 10 year old 1.6 diesel DSG Golf estate with 112k on the clock

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202105112485561?postcode=po36dy&sort=price-desc&include-delivery-option=on&advertising-location=at_cars&make=VOLKSWAGEN&transmission=Automatic&price-to=3500&onesearchad=New&onesearchad=Nearly%20New&onesearchad=Used&radius=1500&page=2

I dont get why people see having an auto only licence as a problem these days

Because you still pay a price premium to buy an auto - as someone with a wife with an auto license (offset by her PIP and blue badge, obviously).

We had to buy a manual for Jnr to learn in. Yes, the world is going hybrid and electric, but for the next 10 years at least, it will be cheaper for him to buy manual cars

A 2.0 will be extremely expensive to get insurance for a (assuming) 17/18 year old. It might not even be possible.

I'd avoid dual clutch autos if you want cheap to repair too.

"I have an automatic Berlingo which I really like which would also be handy for baby/tools etc. It’s a bit clunky but it’s been super cheap to maintain/MOT etc"

I had a Berlingo a few years back for a couple of months. A horrible thing that cost more to insure than the Forester S turbo that preceded it...

Interesting discussion. Junior OTS is going to learn to drive this summer. The easiest thing for us to do is just put him on the insurance on the zoé. I have a nagging issue that he should really learn in a manual though - might be useful for hiring vans, but other than that i’m struggling to justify buying another car for him. I guess I might buy one for him to learn in and then just punt it.

Because you still pay a price premium to buy an auto – as someone with a wife with an auto license (offset by her PIP and blue badge, obviously).

My manager has to drive an automatic car for medical reasons.

She was recently looking for a new second-hand car with an auto box and she told me about how much more expensive they were. I did not realise that they come at a premium, but I guess that a lot of it is supply and demand when it comes to small engined automatics.

The thing about autos (auto anything in fact) is that it encourages lazy driving. Manual you have to think ahead and plan your gear changes - not just mash the throttle and hang on. And if you're planning ahead for gear changes, hopefully it means you're actually looking at, and assessing the road and the traffic somewhere further ahead than your front bumper.

(the opposite issue is becoming a problem for me - I've yet to drive an auto car that wouldn't be improved by having a manual box, but the kind of car I'd prefer for my next one tend to only come in auto flavour)

well, i was going to show him this to point out the error of his ways, as confirmed by the stw massive, but..... it would appear he may not be being so daft after all then.

id still prefer him to have the choice just for the sake of learning to shift a stick, but like i said in the OP, when does a lad listen to his dad! the test is booked and theres no way he'll change his mind now.

yes insurance will be a consideration so im advising him to get a smaller engine (hes 24 this year by the way). interesting that you diss the nissan note auto, so ill have a look see if i can see a honda for sale somewhere.
if not, are the astras a reasonable bet with an auto engine? or should he really stick to japanese if he wants to stack the odds in his favour for reliability, repairs and the like?

thanks

The thing about autos (auto anything in fact) is that it encourages lazy driving.

This is rubbish, tbh. There's plenty to think about whilst driving an auto, having to also faff about with gears etc is just pointless and distracting. And before anyone says 'well I can do it just fine' so can I as I did for 20 years. However, the less pointless stuff you have to think about the more you can concentrate on the things you really do need to concentrate on i.e. other road users.

I dont get why people see having an auto only licence as a problem these days

Hire cars where you don't get a choice
Courtesy cars
Hire vans
Other people's cars you have to move or drive
Other vehicles with clutches

All of which I've had to do fairly recently (except for driving a dump truck, that was years ago). We recently had to hire a car for a week, was nearly double the price for an auto.

I’d avoid dual clutch autos if you want cheap to repair too.

Cost of repair is high but they aren't particularly unreliable.

Re. insurance.

1 4 manual Ibiza estate. Pre-test, 4 of us on insurance = £640. Post test £1300.

Just done a quote for 2.0 Astra estate. Pre-test for same people = £980. Post test £3450.

Our Volvo D3 2ltr diesel is cheaper than the Astra (£1950 post test)!

If he takes the auto test and passes he will be restricted to driving autos only;

Not if the examiner passes him for a manual by mistake - happened to a mate about 40yrs ago so prob no longer relevant.

This is rubbish, tbh. There’s plenty to think about whilst driving an auto, having to also faff about with gears etc is just pointless and distracting

+1 got a lovely 8sp auto Peugeot as a hire car on holiday, was a godsend not having to worry about gear changes on twisty mountain roads.

Cost of repair is high but they aren’t particularly unreliable

My dual clutch was unreliable. Intermittent faults and unpredictable performance. At 3.5 years old and 14k miles, the cost of repair was half the cost of the car. And no dealer was willing to do the work as it wasn't showing a specific fault code.

I'd buy another auto. But only a proper torque converter auto.

got a lovely 8sp auto Peugeot

I test drove a Peugeot with the EA8 auto box and it really was lovely. Much smoother than my Skoda. Wanted one in a berlingo but there were none available at the time so went for a manual.

The thing about autos (auto anything in fact) is that it encourages lazy driving. Manual you have to think ahead and plan your gear changes – not just mash the throttle and hang on. And if you’re planning ahead for gear changes, hopefully it means you’re actually looking at, and assessing the road and the traffic somewhere further ahead than your front bumper.

Wow , quite literally the biggest pile of horse shit ive read on the internet this week

The UK has has a weird superiority complex about driving manual transmission cars - be happy to see them gone - I reckon 10 years.

I'd definitely agree with "do the test in a manual then get whatever car you want", being restricted to auto has potential to be a real hassle in future. But there's nothing wrong with owning one.

(I mean, I'm going to rip the autobox out of mine and replace it with a 6 speed, but only because I'm a mental defective)

The thing about autos (auto anything in fact) is that it encourages lazy driving. Manual you have to think ahead and plan y

What a load of drivel.

Autos give you one less thing to do (actually one very big thing less to do) so you can spend more time thinking about driving better.

After having an auto Auris (hybrid work car so had no choice) for a while and also have a big auto estate as my second car I’m sold on them. I got a new job and have got a temporary car while my lease car comes and it’s manual. After driving it a few months I still can’t understand why we still have manual cars.
I’m a big motorsport fan and before I got my first auto I was a dyed in the wool manual gearbox guy, learn to heel and toe etc.

Now I can’t wait to get out of mine. Long gone are the days when you could have fun in a car and there simply isn’t any advantages in manual boxes unless you like racing on the road but then you’ve broken Rule One.

I’d buy another auto. But only a proper torque converter auto.

Amen to that! The torque converter box in my 1990’s monster estate car has done 190000 miles and still shifts beautifully, lockdown is great etc. I think it’s had 1 fluid change in 24 years and the fluid is still fine!

Since only peasants buy manuals, maybe he's trying to tell you something about yourself 🙂

Might prove awkward in some countries if he ever wants to hire a car and they only have manual versions available.

This is rubbish, tbh

Wow , quite literally the biggest pile of horse shit i've read on the internet this week

What a load of drivel.

I was SOO expecting that. I'm absolutely convinced that the more you, as an equipment operator, are invested in the direct operation of the machinery, the more you'll be aware of the consequences of your actions.
As an example. Auto driver - not paying attention - comes screaming into a corner too late, overbrakes, gets away with it and comes out the other side. The car makes his gears right and he's on his way having noticed nothing.
A manual driver in the same situation will have the engine trying to escape the bonnet sideways at 50rpm and as a result will feel like a bit of a prat. The next corner, somewhat chastened, he'll be more aware and will be looking at the corner to assess when to fit in the gear change or two to make the car exit the corner neatly and faster overall. The gear changes take time, so he has to brake earlier and enter slower. As he's actually looking at the corner, he can spot the cyclist "hiding" in the shadows...

I've been a passenger with too many lazy auto drivers (who treat the brake and throttle as binary devices) to have not noticed this as a habit.

In biking terms, its exactly why I like hardtails over full sus a lot of the time - they punish your line errors; and why I commute on a fixie rather than a normal geared bike - I *have* to plan ahead, risk assess, just plain *think* a hell of a lot more, as "just stopping" is physically much harder work.

(I'd also question - why changing gear is considered such an onerous task? If all you do is drive in stop-start traffic, I can kind of get it - but if so - why are you in the damn car at all rather than riding a bike or taking public transport?)

Plenty of other people above have covered the insurance and choice of car issues, automatics just aren't a British Thing even though a good auto is lovely. I'd also echo the fact it may well constrict his choice of job in the future if he has to drive as part of it, employers are unlikely to take on an auto-only license holder as it restricts vehicle choice.

As for what car to go for I'd look at any of the VAG DSG choices, especially Skoda. Good on insurance and plenty of choice. If you're not up to speed on what to look for with regards to the gearbox issues then pay for an inspection when you've narrowed it down to one car.

With regards to auto's making you a lazy driver:

I don't class then as the lazy option but it does flag two things up to me that I've noticed from a decade of driving auto vans in my old job.
Firstly it can allow some people's minds to wander leading to accidents or more likely temptation to check their phone.
Secondly (and this is especially true for me!) it can lead to a disconnect between your perceived speed and your actual speed. I genuinely think it's a contributing factor to lots of urban speeding that an auto allows you to just press the pedal a bit harder without the brain recognising you're doing 40 in a 30 through knowing what gear you're in and the engine revs. It's far too easy to think you're going slow with an auto at low revs but not know you're a gear higher up the box and going 5-10mph more than you realise. With a manual I know that eg 2000rpm in 3rd is 30mph so any more is speeding etc. Takes me a few minutes to 'learn' a new vehicle and subconsciously count the gear changes the same as shifts on the mountain bike then know my speed without having to glance at the speedo all the time. It's probably an old habit from my racing and track days ages ago that I've kept but it's something I've seen in others too. I know of one ex-colleague who was a liability in an auto van, speeding tickets and crashes, but was fine in a manual one!

Something to think about:

"pass rate for manual cars is 47%, while only 39% pass with an automatic"

Extrapolate what you want from that, but he's less likely to pass automatic only than manual - statistically.

Ref: RAC, RAC Article

The other thing to think about, is most cars sold today are automatic of some sort - DSG, DCT etc.

Secondly (and this is especially true for me!) it can lead to a disconnect between your perceived speed and your actual speed.

If only cars came with some sort of instrumentation which somehow indicated the velocity the car was travelling at. 🙄🙄

If he's got to 24 without a driving license, I'd wager that he'll be OK with just an automatic only license from here on in... It will provide challenges and extra costs for sure versus being able to drive a manual, but then he's already spent the last 6/7 years without a license when his peers have almost certainly been driving already and he's dealt with the complications that has dealt already.

To my mind, as a Petrolhead myself, there is only one reason anybody would buy a manual car these days over and above an automatic (ignoring cost and availability, as these things can be worked around readily), and that is because you yourself are a confirmed petrolhead, and you relish the opportunity to change gear at every opportunity and the increased control a manual gearbox affords you...

Now... Someone who has got to 24 without a driving license is almost certainly NOT a petrolhead... And as someone who owns a rather nice manual car than fortunately I don't have to drive every day (if I did, it would probably have a dual clutch or full auto box!), I wouldn't be without the DSG gearbox in my van which is my work vehicle and is driven daily... Traffic jams aren't fun at the best of times, but with a manual box they're a real chore! Modern auto's are much better than auto's of old too, and the 6-10spd boxes on offer in most modern cars now are often at least as economical as the manual equivalent too. So even if we're sticking with I/C engined vehicles, manuals are still going the way of the Dodo except for the very few of us that are minded enough to appreciate their fineties in our leisure time... Throw the electrification of the automotive world into the mix, and honestly, in 10yrs time the youth of now will look back and wonder why they ever bothered learning to drive a manual car at all! Seriously!

Just please... Don't let him buy a bloody Astra!!! 🤷🏻‍♂️

Take a full test, you can drive anything even if you then choose an auto. Take an auto test and you're stuck with autos. He's massively reducing his pool of available vehicles.

Auto test or no though,

A 2L Astra on a £3,500 ticket as his first car, he's off his head. It'll be ragged and he'll be devastated when he's paying to have it towed out of a hedge a month later.

The advice I'd give to new drivers: get the car you want as your second car, make all your just-passed mistakes in a beater you don't care about first. Swallow your pride, third-class motoring is better than first-class walking.

i’ll pass on the insurance quote tip.

Why wouldn't you check this? If he is planning on passing within a few weeks, he'll want to know what his insurance is likely to it needs to cover him as a brand new and unsupervised driver. You are not taking out insurance as a licensed driver, just getting a quote before changing it back to provisional.

Great advice from Cougar there.

The other note of caution I would sound about an auto...

If he wants it to rev then it'll take piling on a lot of speed/throttle and it to "kick down" on an auto box before it does.

Depending on the box that downshift might not be well timed, smooth or predictable to an inexperienced driver. Enough to cause a "moment".

I'm not advocating wanting to drive around making noise/revving the nuts off something but on the basis it's a potential outcome it may as well be done in the least dangerous manner possible.

Now of course the OP's progeny might well be captain very/moderately sensible and this issue might be totally irrelevant but maybe not. The op will have a better idea on that.

i’ll pass on the insurance quote tip.

Why wouldn’t you check this?

had to read this a couple of times before i got the problem. i didnt mean i'll pass on it (as ignore it), i meant i'll pass it on to him 😀 thanks.

@cougar. i agree with everything youve said, he probably does too, but will he take that 'kin manual test? naaaaah.

as some of you have guessed correctly, hes not a petrolhead and i think he'll be a sensible driver, hes not one for showing off. he likes what he likes tho and welcomes advice. then does what he wants anyway 😀
and yes, hes got to the grand old age of 24 without needing one so far, but its now starting to limit opportunities for work (self employed decorator) and taking family out.

Just please… Don’t let him buy a bloody Astra!!!

why? if theyre a bit crap in the auto guise, its worth knowing this so he can have a stronger look at the hondas/nissans.

thanks all for the advice. i'll pass this thread onto him for his perusal.

cheers

I was SOO expecting that. I’m absolutely convinced that the more you, as an equipment operator, are invested in the direct operation of the machinery, the more you’ll be aware of the consequences of your actions.

Ok cool so you still have a manual choke?

You could easily argue that freeing up mental energy of thinking about what gear to be in and having to physically change allows you to concentrate more on steering/braking/road conditions etc, not less.

I used to think all the same ill-informed clichés about automatics, then I drove a couple of my gf's a bit and realised it was all nonsense.

As above...

This stuff about manuals making you more aware of what's around you is rubbish, one of the things I've noticed from driving EVs the last 5 years is how not having to worry about gears, revs, clutch frees up time to think about other road users, junctions, road conditions, etc.

Firstly it can allow some people’s minds to wander leading to accidents or more likely temptation to check their phone.

This sounds ridiculous to me. If you need to change gears in a manual then there's lots of other stuff going on anyway e.g. corners, junctions, lights etc. Lack of gear changing doesn't make you want to check your phone!

This sounds like a lot of manual drivers wanting to post-hoc justify their choice with weird mental gymnastics. Honestly, there's no need. It's not that complicated - autos change gear for you, that's all. They don't wipe your arse. If you're a bad distracted driver in an auto you're a bad distracted driver in a manual.

The thing about autos (auto anything in fact) is that it encourages lazy driving. Manual you have to think ahead and plan your gear changes – not just mash the throttle and hang on. And if you’re planning ahead for gear changes, hopefully it means you’re actually looking at, and assessing the road and the traffic somewhere further ahead than your front bumper.

(the opposite issue is becoming a problem for me – I’ve yet to drive an auto car that wouldn’t be improved by having a manual box, but the kind of car I’d prefer for my next one tend to only come in auto flavour)

Utter bo11ocks, and you've obviously only driven 5h1t cars.

I had my first auto in 1984, and while I've had some manual cars in the 80's/90's such as an Mi16 I've been pretty much auto only since 1993. I would though recommend trying to pass the test in a manual as it'll be useful.

Auto fine, Astra not. Get something like this little Yaris;
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202105042192428?maximum-mileage=25000&postcode=de159gu&sort=relevance&maximum-badge-engine-size=1.6&transmission=Automatic&price-from=2500&advertising-location=at_cars&include-delivery-option=on&onesearchad=New&onesearchad=Nearly%20New&onesearchad=Used&radius=1500&price-to=3500&page=1

Auto will not make him a better or worse driver either way and there are plenty of auto cars to choose from (and that will only increase as electric car use grows).

See recent Honda Jazz thread, he'll likely find lots of reasons not to if he's a young bloke!

Put me firmly in the automatic camp, especially given *all* hybrids and EVs don't have a conventional clutch. They *are* easier to learn in, so it's just a balance: earlier to learn, easier to drive, but less choice of cars. I do find it funny how some people are so emotional about driving a manual, considering how much work the car is doing for you already. I don't see anyone saying that power steering is bad and for proper control you shouldn't have it.

Anyway, my wife was in a similar situation: we needed a car, so two weeks automatic intensive course later she had a license. Buying and hiring cars hasn't really been a problem in the last decade.

Remember he can always re-take the test to get the manual part later if he wants, I imagine learning the clutch is a lot easier when you're not also learning everything else about driving.

I don't think passing a test on just an auto will make the slightest difference other than a bit more on the cost of a new car. Manual gearboxes are slowly being faded out by most manufactures as the technology just becomes more and more redundant and will speed up further when we're all in electric cars anyway, making them irrelevant

The UK has has a weird superiority complex about driving manual transmission cars – be happy to see them gone – I reckon 10 years.

Will actually be 9 years as will only be able to buy electric from 2030 won't we?

I used to think all the same ill-informed clichés about automatics, then I drove a couple of my gf’s a bit and realised it was all nonsense.

On this,

I passed my test in 1990, several years before the OP was born. Time was, I thought the same, autos didn't give you the same 'experience' as a manual. And I was right, automatics were, what's the word now...? Oh, yeah. Shit.

But this now is long out-of-date knowledge. Modern auto boxes are (largely*) a world apart from their 20th Century ancestors. The first time I got hold a DSG motor I spent about a week habitually shifting gear in semi-auto because I didn't trust it, before realising "why am I doing this?" one day, shoving it into Auto and leaving it there for the next two years. When I got my current car (on lease) the sole reason I didn't get an auto is that the same car with the different box was an extra 50 quid per month. Over three years that's £1,800.

(* - I have to caveat this claim. Not all gearboxes are created equal. My partner has an automatic VW Up! and whilst being half-decent in all other respects, the gearbox is a hateful bag of arse. When you want it to change gear it takes about ten minutes, and when you don't want it to it sits there shifting for the LOLs. If you have cause to stand on the loud pedal (say in the highly unlikely situation that you want to overtake something, gods know what in an Up!, maybe a stray cow or something) then all the power immediately drops off and you're sat there coasting whilst it sits there seeking through the box for several seconds like a 1980s hard drive (Sorry son, ask your dad).

Essentially, it obviously couldn't predict road conditions and couldn't change fast enough to adapt to them. On realising this I mostly fixed the issue with the opposite of the above advice, removing the former requirement by going back to semi-auto and changing my own gears.)

Essentially, it obviously couldn’t predict road conditions and couldn’t change fast enough to adapt to them.

How could it? What auto does?

EDITED I see you are talking about the Up. Apparently it's not DSG, it's ASG, which is different - apparently a single clutch, so none of the niceness of a DSG.

But, yeah. Back when I passed my test autos were the domain of high-end luxury vehicles and, well, the diametrically opposite. "Normal" automatic cars were about as common as hen teeth. You'd have had to be either mad or disabled to take the auto test.

Today the landscape isn't like that. An auto box is a regular feature. I'm not sure as we've quite reached 50:50 yet but we're likely heading in that direction and beyond.

But.

The reason I'd recommend against this for The Boy is twofold.

1) At the budget you're proposing you're looking at something, what, pushing ten years old depending on condition? You're falling in the middle of the two scenarios I just painted. I've just searched on my own postcode for a £3,000 to £4,000 Astra and the results were 400 manuals and 60 autos. Adding that engine drops it to 15 cars. Here's an example:

https://www.motors.co.uk/car-59018476

2) An eight year old car with 125k on the clock, you're potentially heading into expensive bills territory in the next couple of years. The gearbox goes on that thing, it'll be a write-off. £220 VED. And he really needs to get on the Meerkat and price up insurance quotes, his age will work in his favour but a new driver with 165 horses under his right foot ("not a petrolhead"...), if I were to pull a figure out on my arse I'd say about £2k for the first year (and would love to know what it actually is).

But hey. It'd be an ace next car. (-:

How could it? What auto does?

Exactly, hence I said "obviously". A DSG is reactive enough that it doesn't need to predict anything. This thing needs a form signing in triplicate before it changes gear so in me doing the thinking for it it doesn't need to be fast.

I can see a hill coming and knock it down a cog. Left to its own devices it only knows there's a hill when it's suddenly struggling up one so then changes down, throws all its power out of the window for a few seconds whilst it finds the gear, sets off again but has lost so much momentum that it needs to change down again, now finally is in an appropriate gear so picks up speed only to need to change up and slow down meaning it needs to change down again and I'm about to have an aneurysm.

Oh, and you know the 'engaged box / forward creep' thing that every auto box has done since the dawn of time? Nope. Stationary without the handbrake on you're either rolling backwards, rolling forwards, or trying to catch it on the gas pedal where you're at the whim of the box suddenly engaging and propelling you away.

Hateful %^&*ing thing. My GF is a nervous driver at the best of times, the 'will drive for twice as long to avoid a motorway' type, I don't know how she copes with it.

If he's a self-employed decorator then soon enough he'll be needing a van (ladders, tools) and surely 90%+ of commercial vans will be manual?

Otherwise the OP has had a lot of advice already.

In general, yes a manual will make a more conscientious driver, more away of their revs and speed. and you can stop, handbrake and neutral like a real human instead of a dead-to-the-world goon, standing on the clutch and brake at traffic lights.

However driving an auto in a high-stress situation is a godsend. Trying to navigate Italian roads, looking out for signs and traffic lights*, while driving on the "wrong" side of the road, being intimidated by Italians in cars and on mopeds, trying to reverse a ridiculous SUV in Whistler.... I've had my snobbery over Auto's beaten out of me. you can be so much more aware of other traffic and other drivers and hazards when you've one less thing to think about.

That said, I'm glad of my Manual licence and the flexibility it provides. We've only ever owned Auto vehicles in NZ where they're much more popular as they're all 2nd hand imports form Japan.

* In the UK we are great at consistency. You know where the traffic lights will be and their view is normally unencumbered. It's easy to miss traffic lights when they're in the "wrong" place.

he hasnt had any experience i dont think. he just sees it as one less ‘complicated’ thing to think about so a better chance of passing if he’s got less to think about.

You could always disown him and it's one less complicated thing for you to think about. Also, it saves you face down the pub having to admit your own flesh and blood is incapable of driving a car.

“pass rate for manual cars is 47%, while only 39% pass with an automatic”

That is because doing an auto-only test is often the option taken by people after having failed a number of normal tests, because they are generally a piss poor driver, and they think that not having to change gear will make them better (hint - it doesnt). And then lo and behold they fail the auto test too, because they are failijng on obervation, hesitation, incoreect speed, not looking past the end of their bonnet, not understanding the highway code etc etc etc (not the simple act of changing gears.

I wouldnt in a million years want a manual transmission in my large heavy estate car to sit in traffic with.

But I also wouldnt ever, ever want to be without my manual gear box in my small light weight sports car!

Finally, if your son has literally ANY interest in cars at all, then with a 3 grand budget, if he only gets an Auto licence he is massively, massively limiting himself in choice of many great cars.

Remember auto makes more sense in the kind of car that tends to be the opposite of what a new driver needs too - larger, large engine, high torque, heavy.

You could always disown him and it’s one less complicated thing for you to think about. Also, it saves you face down the pub having to admit your own flesh and blood is incapable of driving a car.

Weren't you banned from driving for quite some time?

(-:

Here's a question.

Has he ever tried driving a manual? I can understand a reluctance, they look complicated and clutch control takes a while to master. It was daunting when I first started. But it's really not that difficult with a bit of practice.

And then lo and behold they fail the auto test too, because they are failijng on obervation, hesitation, incoreect speed, not looking past the end of their bonnet, not understanding the highway code etc etc etc (not the simple act of changing gears.

Not having to concentrate on changing gears leaves more time to concentrate on all those other things.

The gearbox goes on that thing, it’ll be a write-off.

No, it'll be expensive, but there's no need to write it off. I really dislike the idea that you can't spend more on a car than its market value. Firstly the market value is determined by the desirability, which is in part based on the risk that things might go wrong. Well if it gets a gearbox refurb, that's one less thing to go wrong for starters. Secondly the market value is unrelated to its material value as a functioning vehicle. Simply replacing it with another old car simply introduces more risk again.

molgrips
Full Member

Not having to concentrate on changing gears leaves more time to concentrate on all those other things.

It does. But if you can't drive to test standard overall then removing one piece of the puzzle probably isn't going to fix the problem, unless you had a specific issue with clutch control and gears which was dragging down an overall decent performance.

Or, put it a different way, if you need that extra bit of brain space for all the other stuff, it's because the other stuff is still taking up too much brain space- more practice is the real answer.

The gearbox goes on that thing, it’ll be a write-off.

No, it’ll be expensive, but there’s no need to write it off. I really dislike the idea that you can’t spend more on a car than its market value.

This is exactly what I had with my last car. Kind of. The cost of parts were very expensive but no dealer, including the main dealer, was willing to do the work. Even though I knew the cost and offered to pay. No one would touch it. One dealer, who makes the parts, wouldn't even look at it. They just said they were not interested even after I offered to pay up front. So I was stuck with a car that couldn't be repaired at 3.5 years old and 14k miles on it. No accidents or misuse. Either not repairable or the repairs are too difficult to do.

At least with a manual car you know the clutch can be replaced at a reasonable cost almost anywhere.

The *one* catch with automatic gearboxes as far as I'm concerned is watching out for terrible implementations, as Cougar said.

We have an '07 Jazz (CVT) and '15 Civic (proper dual clutch DSG). These are both lovely to drive: the CVT obviously is smooth as butter and only when really pushing the DSG can you feel the changes.

We used to have a '11 3008. With an 'automated manual' EGC gearbox, this was a nightmare to drive, sometimes refusing to change when it really needed too. Luckily there were flappy paddles to manually change when it went terribly wrong. The refresh in 201something switched to a EAT6 box which is DSG, apparently.

So yeah, the biggest catch with ICE automatics is needing to find a review of the car to verify it has CVT or dual-clutch. Automated-manual: avoid!

My Berlingo has an ETG6 gearbox which I think is an 'automated manual' and it's totally fine. I've driven some pretty fancy automatics too and mine isn't as smooth but it's nowhere near the nightmare some people describe.

This is exactly what I had with my last car. Kind of. The cost of parts were very expensive but no dealer, including the main dealer, was willing to do the work. Even though I knew the cost and offered to pay. No one would touch it.

That's weird - what car was it?

The DSG in my VW by the way is repairable, fairly easily depending on what's wrong obvs. It comes out like a normal gearbox, and much of the internals are the same in terms of bearings and gears. The mechatronics unit is the expensive part but that a) pops out in one piece and can be removed without even taking the box out b) can be refurbed or even repaired if you can source the parts, I swapped two valves for £60 each c) can be sent away for said refurb by post to a number of specialists - I think there are enough around now that you stand a good chance of finding a local place.

Automated-manual: avoid!

I am happy enough with mine. I change gear via paddles as I prefer to select the gear rather than let the car surprise me. I like changing gear, I just don't like having to use a foot operated clutch, especially when in traffic which is half the time!

Weren’t you banned from driving for quite some time?

(-:

Yes, but that had nothing to do with being unable to change gear like a man.

Ironic winky

EAT6 box which is DSG, apparently.

The EAT6 and EAT8 are proper autos with a torque converter that use technology thats been around for years. They work very well and last. They are not DSG.

DSG is the VAG group dual clutch auto box (2 normal clutches hydraulically opperated) and there are 2 types. Wet and dry. Wet seem to last well, but dry wear out very quickly as I found after 14k miles. I wouldn't touch another dual clutch auto.

That’s weird – what car was it?

Skoda Yeti. 1.2 DSG dry dual clutch box. Dredded DQ200 model. Lovely car but ruined by an awful gearbox. I nearly traded it in for a manual Yeti but it was cheaper to buy a 10 month old Berlingo.

If you can repair them you could make a small fortune as so many go wrong and VW don't want to know.

Is JohnEdwards Surfmatt under a new username? It’s the sort of ‘performance driver’ bollocks he used to post.

I was SOO expecting that. I’m absolutely convinced that the more you, as an equipment operator, are invested in the direct operation of the machinery, the more you’ll be aware of the consequences of your actions.
As an example. Auto driver – not paying attention – comes screaming into a corner too late, overbrakes, gets away with it and comes out the other side. The car makes his gears right and he’s on his way having noticed nothing.

This bit in particular, I don’t know where to start, really. I mean, if, through inattentive driving someone enters a corner too quickly, but instead of smashing through a wall or whatever gets away with it just because the gearbox somehow saves the situation, and I’m really not sure it would, then that’s a good thing, and I’m pretty certain that the sweaty palpitations and thumping heart from the experience would probably encourage the driver to be more careful in future.
Whatever.

Using a manual was such second nature to me I was barely even aware of doing it most of the time, and my only experience of driving an auto from when I learned to drive in 1974 was a Buick Skylark in LA in 1993, and I wasn’t that impressed as it was a column shift, but having to negotiate LA traffic on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car meant that having to struggle with a manual shift with my right rather than left hand was one less thing to bother with.
Using engine braking with a diesel in slippery conditions was second nature as well, but when I started working for BCA as a logistics driver I had to drive whatever I was given to drive, so long as my license covered it, so anything up to 3.5 tons, and lots of vehicles modified for disabled drivers, and driving hundreds of different vehicles over roughly 100,000 miles, often in heavy traffic, I very quickly learned that modern auto ‘boxes are a wonderful thing, and other than the driver who ‘likes to make progress’, probably 90% of drivers won’t drive any different in an auto to a manual.
My EcoSport has a semi-auto, which isn’t as smooth as a DSG, but one-foot driving is such a pleasure now, as my left knee becomes ever more painful, and along with auto-wipers and auto headlights, I have nothing to think about other than the road and other traffic, and what it’s likely to get up to, and I’m enjoying driving more now than I have done in ages.
I’m having the car remapped soon, so I’ll ask if the ‘box can be tweaked a bit, but the extra 36ps and 60Nm will help things along, that’ll take it up to 156ps and 210Nm , not bad for a 1.0 three cylinder!
Changing gear with a manual can become very onerous if the car in question has a clutch with a bite point near the top of its travel, and a heavy return spring; the Zafira is a particular example, getting caught in slow traffic becomes agonising after a while - there are others, but I can’t remember which now, I drive too many cars.
Oh, I might suggest a Corsa rather than an Astra, nice little car, I’ve driven dozens, I drove six back from Cornwall in one week, courtesy cars from a bodywork place, and they are a fine little car, the auto is quite smooth, the engine is very eager to pull, and over the last five-six years they’ve had a heated screen as standard - that’s been dropped on the latest model, as it’s not GM-based.
A Toyota Aygo might work, noisy, and the auto lags a bit, but stick it in manual and use the paddles and revs, they’re quite an exuberant little car.

If it were me I’d buy him manual, if you buy him an auto he’ll likely never get a manual. I’d say that’s laziness so I’d nip that in the bud, if he can drive a manual then and only then does his next car get to be an auto

My V50's an auto, never had a problem with not paying attention or keeping track of my speed, it's a lovely, comfy barge for long journeys. I'll tell you what, though - I won't have another auto, I totally understand how you occasionally read stories of people driving through shop fronts or mowing down their neighbours as they accidently put it into D instead of R. It is also nowhere near as entertaining to drive.

I have nothing to think about other than the road and other traffic

There's the major problem with modern cars, many drivers cease to devote their attention to the road as the car does everything (or so they think).