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Lots of big words here and chat about experience.
I like my auto as it makes it easier to drink my travel mug of tea whilst I'm driving to work. That is my primary reason for having an auto.
Autotboxes never change gear when you want, they can't predict your intentions to make progress or if you're wanting to drive economicaly.
I find auto to to be sluggish and frustrating, and quite often over reving when it should be shifting up a gear.
they can’t predict your intentions to make progress or if you’re wanting to drive economicaly
Which is why so many modern cars have a sport/comfort/eco switch that changes how the box (and suspension,. steering, roll bars etc) behave - you signal in advance what sort of operational priority you want the box to use(early change, late change etc) and it does the rest.
Autotboxes never change gear when you want
BMW's adapt.
I like my auto as it makes it easier to drink my travel mug of tea whilst I’m driving to work. That is my primary reason for having an auto.
Very honest, and likewise but also because I find it much more relaxing to waft about the place with an air of nonchalance at my age.
Which is why so many modern cars have a sport/comfort/eco switch
Which is an unessasary distraction to fiddle with a touch screen whilst driving .. Just use a manual gearbox properly.
must say every modern gear box i drove drives fine.
historically they were as mattyfez says.
id have an auto all day long right now BUT they are rare in the car i wanted so ended up with a manual .
Autotboxes never change gear when you want, they can’t predict your intentions to make progress or if you’re wanting to drive economicaly.
Not quite true. The Porsche PDK does all of this very very well. The car will predict your driving style, for example if you brake hard into a corner the engine adjusts itself to harder driving, stamp on the accelerator and again the car sharpens things up. It does this faster than you or I could react too. It's fair to add that this is an expensive & clever gearbox today but the technology will trickle down. Additionally, technology will only make autos quicker and smarter.
bloody touch screens...
Which is why so many modern cars have a sport/comfort/eco switch
Which is an unessasary distraction to fiddle with a touch screen whilst driving ..
My very average Hyundai Santa Fe does with a single button by my right hand. It is not fiddly or a distraction.
Or you could just learn how to drive . .
Until cars are fully automated, automatic gearboxes are nothing more than a horrible annoying distraction.
automatic gearboxes are nothing more than a horrible annoying distraction.
Do elaborate.
Until cars are fully automated, automatic gearboxes are nothing more than a horrible annoying distraction.
How can a gear box with less required user input ever be described as a distraction?
Autotboxes never change gear when you want, they can’t predict your intentions to make progress or if you’re wanting to drive economicaly.
And somewhere in the electronic brain there is a CPU rolling it's eyes every time you drive....
Do elaborate.
I thought I'd already elaborated lol!
They change gear at the wrong revs unless you press a button for short changes or press a button for long changes .. Then you have to press a button again to go back to the previous ... It's just a pain in the ass compared to a proper gear box, not to mention the added complexity and expense.
Don't get me wrong I'm looking forward to fully automated cars, but we're currently at an awkward half way house with human input being retarded by computer control.
They change gear at the wrong revs unless you press a button for short changes or press a button for long changes .. Then you have to press a button again to go back to the previous … It’s just a pain in the ass compared to a proper gear box
So you press a button at the start of a 5 mile drive on country roads and the same button again when you get to town or on a motorway and that;s a pain in the ass compared with changing gear every few hundred metres (country road) or every 10 metres (round town)?
They change gear at the wrong revs unless you press a button for short changes or press a button for long changes .. Then you have to press a button again to go back to the previous
No you do not have to press any buttons, you really have to try Porsche's PDK before you make that claim. It is very very clever and very very good. I've been lucky enough to have tried a PDK and a manual back to back, PDK works very well, it's faster than a manual and it's safer as you can keep both hands on the steering wheel. I think manual can be good fun though and quite engaging.
Autos dont' change gear at the wrong moment in normal driving. If you think you know better than the engineers whose job it is to design these systems then I'd suggest it's you who has the wrong idea of when to change, not them.
Sometimes you get an upshift in a corner, but not very often, and it's not that big of a deal. If you're boy racering then you've got manual override. If you use that all the time then don't, and drive normally.
As a mild travel sickness sufferer I'm always relieved when someone has to give me a lift and they've got an auto. Most people are far less smooth than the computer.
So pushing a button occasionally is worse than moving a mechanical lever every few minutes.
Yep that arguement works.
I also have manual option on my car. I just shift the auto lever over to the left and I can shift up and down just like a manual. Not groundbreaking tech, is this not pretty much standard? Anyway, I never use it though as the auto performs this function better than I do.
8sp Autos are becoming de rigeur on small petrol/Diesel engines vehicles from city cars to 5/7seat SUVs.
The future is here.
So pushing a button occasionally is worse than moving a mechanical lever every few minutes.
Yep that arguement works.
Well you'd need to define what you mean by changing gear 'ocasionaly' and how may mins is a 'few'.
Just get a taxi lol!
Mine very very rarely gets a change wrong, infact most of the time the only way I can tell its changed gear is by watching the rev counter move. I can put it in sport and change gear manually but I never bother as the car always does it better than I can.
Same here - 8 speed auto in a Jag XF and it really is superb
not really mattyfez as i drive both reasonably regularly and am not the one suffering issues.
its either a shit car issue or a shit driver issue - as shown by the number of people saying well my auto works just fine.
ps it was change gearbox mode occasionally - your unlikely to need to press the button every shift the box makes - youll wear it out . but you will certainly be changing gear with the lever more often than your pushing that button.
They change gear at the wrong revs unless....
.... one has flappy paddles.
I like changing gear myself, I just can’t be bothered with a clutch so drive autos but always in manual mode.
You do know that you don't have to use the clutch with a manual gearbox, don't you?
You do know that you don’t have to use the clutch with a manual gearbox, don’t you?
There will be people under the age of 30 who's heads are spinning right now...
Would this be the right to introduce double-declutching as the predecessor to DSG? 😀
My big bugbear is the lack of a proper handbrake in many modern cars, just some stoopid little button that decides for itself whether you should be using it. No wonder seemingly everyone just holds their cars on the footbrake all the damn time.
Just what the F is wrong with a lever and a cable? I simply do not understand what was so undesirable about such a simple, effective and reliable engineering solution.
So how many manual box lovers know their engines RPM for peak power and peak torque? without looking it up! I bet less than 10%...probably less than 5%. If you don't know those two figures your claims that you can do better than an auto box are false. And before anyone comes up with it the red line is not the point of peak power...that is a safety limit, not a performance limit. And even if you did know then there is nothing more distracting than driving with your eyes spending more time on the rev counter than the road when trying to maximise performance or economy.
Got a lowly Peugeot 308 hire car right now, haven't driven an auto for years - wow flappy paddles, 8gears, sport & eco at the touch of a button, haven't dared try manual mode otherwise the roads of Corsica are likely to see yet another hire car launched off a cliff 🤔
Just what the F is wrong with a lever and a cable?
<p style="text-align: left;">We've done this before, but I'll do it again.</p>
1) People have died accidentally knocking their car into D or forgetting to take it out of D then getting out of their cars. My wife's aunt saw this happen to some old lady. Sure it was her fault, but she still got dragged under the wheels and killed. On my car, if you open the door when it's in drive it puts the handbrake on.
2) I've lived on a hill for 11 years, and in that time three cars have lost their handbrakes and rolled down the hill, once towards my kids playing at the bottom of the road. This can't happen with the electronic one on my car due to the way it's designed. Yeah, you should leave it in gear and/or turn your wheels towards the kerb, but people don't do they?
3) The electronic brake is always fully on, you can't half put it on.
You do know that you don’t have to use the clutch with a manual gearbox, don’t you?
Just how do you pull away from a standstill then?
Not quite true. The Porsche PDK does all of this very very well. The car will predict your driving style, for example if you brake hard into a corner the engine adjusts itself to harder driving, stamp on the accelerator and again the car sharpens things up. It does this faster than you or I could react too. It’s fair to add that this is an expensive & clever gearbox today but the technology will trickle down. Additionally, technology will only make autos quicker and smarter.
You know its basically a VW DSG right?
J2unfit2ride
Just how do you pull away from a standstill then?
Ah, the skills that have been lost in the modern era... 🙂
Turn the engine off when you stop. To take off, put in 1st gear, start engine in gear.
Or, if you have a passenger, stop in neutral, passenger jumps out and pushes when it's time to go (only need to get it rolling) and crunch into 1st. Passengers jumps back in.
My big bugbear is the lack of a proper handbrake in many modern cars, just some stoopid little button that decides for itself whether you should be using it. No wonder seemingly everyone just holds their cars on the footbrake all the damn time.
Works perfectly for me on the ones I have. Just gives you hill start control to pull away. Not sure what the issue is.
On my Golf, if the auto hold on the electronic handbrake is on, the brakelights are on even when you take your foot off the pedal and only go off as you pull away. So it looks like you have your foot on the brake but it is actually the electronics
J2unfit2ride
Just how do you pull away from a standstill then?
Ah, the skills that have been lost in the modern era…
Turn the engine off when you stop. To take off, put in 1st gear, start engine in gear.
Or, if you have a passenger, stop in neutral, passenger jumps out and pushes when it’s time to go (only need to get it rolling) and crunch into 1st. Passengers jumps back in.
I have driven cars with burnt out clutches using the starter, quite wether I would chose to do that on a daily basis is another mater, which brings me to stop/start, just how much has the tech in starter motors changed to enable them to do the extra 100-1000% extra workload required before needing to be changed?
just how much has the tech in starter motors changed to enable them to do the extra 100-1000% extra workload required before needing to be changed?
When did you last blow a starter motor?
Had 300k out of one, given I had hire cares back in 2011 with auto stop start, we would probably seeing some issues by now, there should be plenty of them hitting 150k+ by now
Driven automatics in North America a lot with hire cars including 4x4 beasts. Suits driving over there. Slow, plodding, vague, and that's just the drivers 😜
Get back here and I'm relieved to have a manual. Immediacy of the shifting and able to floor it in the gear I want without a delay. But the aggressive nature of UK driving mind of needs it.
But as said, with electric cars it's probably the end of the manual. But that's still decade's off getting the infrastructure and practicality sorted.
Get back here and I’m relieved to have a manual. Immediacy of the shifting and able to floor it in the gear I want without a delay. But the aggressive nature of UK driving mind of needs it.
Probably a thousand miles in the last few weeks, where is the aggressive driving? Most of it was speed limits, traffic and leaving it in 6th
But the aggressive nature of UK driving mind of needs it.
Note so self.. autos not suited to hooning around a town centre when trying to impress teenage girls...
I like a manual - or rather, I dislike the autos I've driven
No hundred grand Porsches, mind, but I owned an automatic E39 beemer that I bloody HATED (yeah, 15 years out of date now, but I'm scarred) and every (granted, 7-seat minivan) hire car I've ever had in the US has been a lurchy POS that'd kick down and rev it's tits off up any small suburban hill (they seem programmeed to hold too high a gear until near-stalling and then drop two and wahey - you can spin the wheels if you're really lucky)
I'm sure the good tech exists but it is not universally applied
... and my electronic handbrake is slow to actuate and occasionally forgets to release
Might get a go on a posh auto for a day sometime, just to see what they're like
Gearboxes in the USA are always awful - they fit cheap rubbish ones because they are used to them. You Gant even get those boxes over here, at least in VWs.
It's like riding a BSO and concluding you don't like bikes. Except the difference is even greater because a DSG is completely different inside.
OP have you considered going on a skills course 😂
I had a 320d manual and never ever had a problem.
Ive been in cars on track days with instructor + others and you always get 1 who think quick gear changes are about whacking the clutch in and out as fast as possible and trying to break the gear lever off in the process
In a proper sports car if you do that you will unsettle the balance of the car (make you slower) and increase wear on drivetrain, which is probably why BMW have done what they have done to stop idiots prematurely damaging the drivetrain
Might get a go on a posh auto for a day sometime, just to see what they’re like
The big standard Toyota ones I used to get in Oz were decent, perfect for urban and cruising on the motorway (or crawling on them) probably not good enough for the driving gods doing 2nd gear red line overtakes perfectly safely though 😉
Having just had an a3 s line as a hire car for a couple of days the auto version would have been just as good for driving around the UK.
It's perfectly possible to actually enjoy making smooth, slick gear changes with a good manual box, just as it is nice to be able to rest your left leg in traffic with an auto. 🙂