Ta Surf Mat,

We are looking to spend £3-4k on a small family hatch.

Mrs likes the Ford Focus (petrol 1.6).

Me, I am not fussed tbh, as long as its cheap to run 😉

Bear in mind not all auto's are equal,

The metro's auto was CVT, so the engine hits peak power for a given throttle opening, and the transmission adjusts itself to translate that to the correct speed, so you're always in a perfect gear. These were banned in F1 for being too quick.

DSG is essentialy a manual gearbox (with a second clutch) with someone else doing the shifting.

Older autos were complex beasts that used planetery gears and valves opened and closed to let the transmission fluid through as the pressure built up, more revs = more pressure = more valves closed = the next gear selected. The loss of power (and efficiency) was because in all but top gear which was like a normal clutch and coupled the engine to the gearbox output shaft, the drive was transmitted through an impeller which was woefully ineficient.

Most modern autos fall into the category of a computer controlled manual which is why they can be as fast and efficient as a manual.

Ski – I'd opt for manual then. Ford don't make the best autos but they make decent manuals. Auto also slows the 1.6 down a fair bit which can be annoying. The engine is a good one (a mate has just sold one with 150,000 miles on it – almost no issues at all) but needs working hard on long hills.

Perfect car for the budget IMO – always recommend these to people on that budget – handle nicely, cheap to run, good on fuel and actually pretty well made.

People drive autos for the same reason they ride singlespeeds.

I was thinking the opposite TBH 😆

I drive an auto and a manual. My wife bought an ace little car in a nice colour and we both thought it looked cool. The fact it was auto was neither a reason to buy it nor a reason not to buy it. However I cannot think of a better adjective than "easier" as to why someone would drive an automatic car. I suspect the people who don't see that don't spend much time stuck in traffic jams, or are just being disagreeable for the sake of it (which is my usual fault!)

Plus, you can eat and drink much more easily in an auto 🙂

Yep, as pointed out above, the answer to the original post is simply that they're easier. That doesn't make people who drive them less able drivers, it's just that they prefer things that way.

There is, I've found, a massive difference between a Eutopean auto and an American auto though. We had a hire car in the states once that claimed in it's brochure, that had 200bhp. Now a 200bhp car in the Uk would be very quick indeed, auto or manual and while I'm prepared to accept that a hire car might be tuned down a bit, this thing was quite possibly one of the slowest cars I've ever driven, and I've driven a 1.4 ford escort.

One friend likened American automatic gearings to a propshaft attached to the gearbox, on the end of the propshaft was a propeller which sat inside a bucket of treacle. And the bucket is attached to the wheels.

It really felt that distant from pressing the accelerator to actually moving forwards.

Samurai – in the USA people adopted autos way back when they were rubbish, so they are happy with the rubbishness and manufacturers still sell the rubbish ones because they are cheaper. The same cars here are often not available with the rubbish gearbox and you can only get the nice one, or none at all.

As for 200bhp, what car was it? It's also worth noting that petrol varies in octane rating a lot. So you could be driving a car tuned for 93 gas (dunno if that's the same as our RON or not) but if you fill it with 83 it'll be rubbish. Plus if you are driving at altitude (as you can in the US without noticing it) this makes cars slower too.

Oh and another thing – speedos in the US are calibrated to be accurate, whereas ours are calibrated to read 10% under. So if you think it's taking a long time to get to 60mph you are actually accelerating to what would read as 66mph here. If you get my drift.

Samuri – if it was American, then it probably weighed more than the Moon.

To pass emissions standards in the US "my" model of car is not only down 21bhp, it also has to have urea added to the fuel supply. So they have pi55 in their cars – snigger snigger…

You can shift into neutral in an auto simply enough.

No you can't on the Toyotas I refered to in my original quote that you truncated. You have to press the engine stop button for several seconds in which time a lot could happen.

If you can find me one or two autos that return better fuel consumption than their manual equivalents I'll find you hundreds that don't. The autos that do well are semi-autos and very high geared autos with lock outs. That's not many.

Well you've made up your mind Edukator so that's that.

I find all sorts of cars, some manual, some auto, are great. But you can't be swayed and must be correct. Clearly you haven't driven many cars and can't get the best out of those that you do drive.

Right, off to tell BMW, AMG, Ferrari, Porsche and all F1 manufacturers now silly their gearboxes are…

Its the 21st century and most of us are manually changing gear with a bit of bent metal shoved through a hole in the floor of the car. In what other area of consumer products would such lack of progress be accepted? Why do we accept such antiquated technology in one of the most expensive products we buy?

I've been able to change gear on my bicycles using my fingers for the last 20 years yet we're only just begining to have this facility in cars.

Given a decent autobox is available for the model of car I want and I can afford it then its automatic all the way. I recently tried the new 5 series with the new BMW 8 speed which, despite having a torque convertor, actually gives the same fuel economy as the manual versions. It was a joy to drive. Responsive and smooth it seemed to read my mind knowing when I wanted to cruise or when I wanted acceleration with no need to use the supplied paddle shifters. We just need this technology to trickle down now.

No you can't on the Toyotas I refered to in my original quote that you truncated. You have to press the engine stop button for several seconds in which time a lot could happen.

I drive a Prius, and there's an N position on the lever. Flick it into N, and you're in neutral 🙂

The autos that do well are semi-autos and very high geared autos with lock outs. That's not many.

Actually the autos that do well are the dual-clutch type (ie the VAG DSG). This is actually like two manual gearboxes; one of them has first, third and fifth, and the other has second, fourth and sixth. There are two clutches so that the car can switch between them seamlessly. So when you're in gear, it's working exactly the same as a manual and hence behaviour is the same. On the 6 speed there is a slight drop in fuel economy because the clutches are wet, and presumably this means that there's some drag caused by the fluid. The 7 speed that has supposedly better fuel consumption than the manual is a dry clutch design.

The gear ratios on my DSG aren't any different to what I would expect on a manual – 2000rpm at 70mph is normal in a diesel I reckon.

Wrong on two counts there Edukator.

Trust me, some full autos are very, very good too 😉

I drive a Prius, and there's an N position on the lever. Flick it into N, and you're in neutral

I've been driving a Yaris and a Corolla auto, they both have Ns too…

Dunno what fuel the cars took, we only filled up when we returned them. My experiences were based on the feel of the car rather than what the speedo said but yes, I expect the ridiculous weight of the car probably didn't help. We had a Pontiac compact of some description, a big buick style car and a manual Merc which they couldn't hire out to anyone else (which was fine).

Where were you samuri?

Our hire car was a huge Saturn crossover SUV which had a 3.6l V6, 280bhp or something and it was pretty quick. It got a good hard drive at our equivalent of almost 90mph and still got 25mpg, almost 30mpg when driven more modestly. I was pretty impressed with that.

However dramatically less quick at 7000ft in Colorado though.

Autos – nasty things, can't imagine why someone would want them.

VW DSG is good, but it is a clutchless manual, not an auto, and FWIW I found it to be a complete pain in traffic (no clutch control for biting point, drive train shunt etc), but wonderfull for spirited driving.

Full autos still have the tendency to select the wrong gear on twisty roads, even in "sport" settings

Its the 21st century and most of us are manually changing gear with a bit of bent metal shoved through a hole in the floor of the car. In what other area of consumer products would such lack of progress be accepted? Why do we accept such antiquated technology in one of the most expensive products we buy?

Easy answer to that – control feedback

No electronic linky thingies can replicate the control feedback you get from a mechanical connection. We all love it – nothing tells you quite what the bike is doing (or going to do) like pedal, bars and saddle contact – direct, mechanical, immediate.

IIRC The previous Focus RS was praised because Ford went back to the old style steering rack, rather than the cheaper column mounted electromechanical power steering. Alfa have just taken a similar decision for their new Giulietta, to improve the "feel" that had been lost over the previous few generations of "advances"

VW DSG is good, but it is a clutchless manual, not an auto

Wtf? It's a gearbox that changes automatically, ergo it is an auto. Doesn't make any difference how it works internally does it?

Your points are valid re feedback in theory, Rkk01, but for many of us driving is about comfort and ease, not performance and driveability.

I was going to get the Civic despite it being manual, but I decided against it since I knew it'd frustrate me being stuck on a motorway all the time not being able to really appreciate it (having grown up on proper country roads). So I went with a cruiser.. tool for the job. Feedback is not an issue 🙂

Wtf? It's a gearbox that changes automatically, ergo it is an auto. Doesn't make any difference how it works internally does it?

I seem to remember that when I bought the Golf, VW were marketing 2 systems, one was the traditional auto, the second, DSG was marketed as a clutchless manual – ie, as you state in your earlier posts, basically a replicate of their manual box, but with a dual electronically operated clutch. Totally different.

DSG is / was designed to be a manual gearbox. It has set ratios, that are selecetd by the driver. The driver changes gear at the revs / load, road conditions of their choosing. The difference is the shift mechanism – ie electronically actuated rather than pedal / hand lever actuated.

In an auto box, the car's systems choose when / where to change gear. The driver may have an over-ride, but even those tend to be slow at changing ratio.

Confusion seems to have crept in as the technology has been trickled down to the more mundane models – presumably drivers of these models are more interested in carpet slippers than driving dynamics and technology 😉

The DSG in my car is AUTOMATIC. It changes gear entirely on its own without any intervention from me. It's totally automatic and independent. It chooses when to change gear, I do nothing except operate the accelerator and brake.

I know what automatic means! 🙄

Autos – nasty things, can't imagine why someone would want them

they're easier

Come on folks, there's a lot of "why automatics are bad" comments on here. Maybe they are bad in many ways compared to manuals, but…

Why do people drive automatic cars?

they're easier

Let's start a new thread "why don't people drive automatic cars?" and get the naysayers on there 😉

Read the manual??

It stands for DIRECT shift gearbox…?

See my edited clarification to my earlier post…

Confusion seems to have crept in as the technology has been trickled down to the more mundane models – presumably drivers of these models are more interested in carpet slippers than driving dynamics and technology

Although in fairness to you, VW might well have changed the way that they market the system (and for that matter may have dropped their traditional auto box, on the basis of the success of DSG)

I enjoyed DSG whilst I had it, although missed being able to drop 2 ratios at a time etc.

Rkk01 – your edit wasn't there when I posted.

As I understood it, DSG is what racing cars have been using for years, and VW just made it for normal cars. It still counts as an auto tho. And yes I don't think VW make a traditional auto for the UK market since they don't sell well for all the above-mentioned criticisms of them. If you walk into a VW garage and ask for an auto you'll get a DSG.

Interestingly though, Audis are available with CVTs.. which is a nice idea. The first one I drove was an old fiesta and it was really weird to drive – basically a pulse of power then it trundled along. After having had a better one in the Prius though it's actually quite nice – to drive along at super low revs when you're just cruising.

from Wikipedia…

The Direct-Shift Gearbox (German: Direkt-Schalt-Getriebe[1]), commonly abbreviated to DSG,[2][3] is an electronically controlled dual clutch[2] multiple-shaft manual gearbox

molgrips – The system I had was in a Mk5 GTi. Might have been set up differently thanother models. It could be controlled via the auto selection programme, but never was – I always used it in the manual mode, so both paddle and sequential lever systems are essentially a semi-auto manual.

It is a very good system, but I'd have the manual if I was making the same purchase again.

As well as the no dropping 2 cogs and drivetrain shunt issues above, it could also get confused if you went for a gear that the control unit wasn't expecting – eg, quickly dropping two gears with a double tap on the paddles, when the control unit might have anticiptaed an upshift.

What're you trying to say? That I am some way initiating the gear shifts and not noticing it?

What're you trying to say? That I am some way initiating the gear shifts and not noticing it?

No, you clealry drive it in the auto selection mode.

I drove mine in the manual (sequential semi-auto) mode.

Whatever shift mode, the gearbox remains a manual.

How can it be manual when it shifts automatically?

What's your definition of auto then?

do you do voodoo

The Pontiac and Merc were in Dallas, the buick thingy was in Denver and admittedly, that struggled a lot more when we headed into the mountains, and it's already a mile high before we started.

Someone in an SUV drove right into the back of the Pontiac too which probably didn't help it. 😉 Since we were in Texas we expected to be gunned down immediately by some crazed red neck with anti-foreigner issues after he'd done it but he turned out to be a very apologetic, very middle class white collar American who admitted he'd not been looking properly.

My car only comes in a automatic version as there is no space to fit a maunal gearbox.

What's your definition of auto then?

Not basing it on my definition…

auto

DSG

An automatic transmission (often informally shortened to auto, and abbreviated to AT) is a motor vehicle transmission that can automatically change gear ratios as the vehicle moves, freeing the driver from having to shift gears manually.

So my car is auto then.

Samuri, out West the cheapest gas is often 83, which is like putting cheap beer into your tank. It makes your car drive like crap. Plus the altitude of course… When I drove in Texas I was about to get annoyed with some driver my native passenger said "Don't! He might be armed!" Funnily enough, everone was pretty polite on the roads.. rubbish at driving, but polite nonetheless.

TINAS has the explanation of different types of "automatic" gearbox in the second post on this page.

Slushboxes ( torque converter / epicyclic gears) are awful

DSG and similar are better and the best of them are as good as a manual

CVT is a whole other can of worms

You're rubbishing my comments on the majority of autos by referring to a type of auto/semi-auto box (call the VW thing what you will) that is fitted to very few cars Molgrips. I've recognised that a very small number of autos do return good fuel consumption but the vast majority don't.

Clearly you haven't driven many cars and can't get the best out of those that you do drive.

Can't or chose not to, they're very different. And what is the best anyway? Limiting fuel consumption/pollution and the risk to other road users are the main things in my mind when I use a motor vehicle.

You're rubbishing my comments on the majority of autos

No I'm not, I agree with you – the traditional auto is rubbish. Although the majority of new cars now are coming with modern boxes, are they not?

But really, autos, even traditional ones, are not more dangerous. Bad in many ways, but I don't accept the road safety argument.

Funnily enough, everone was pretty polite on the roads.. rubbish at driving, but polite nonetheless.

Yeah, my experiences too. Driving on the freeway is hilarious, it's like there aren't any white lines drawn on the road at all, people just drift about completely at random. And then you get the 'should I turn right through a red' question. I usually just sat there unless someone behind me beeped their horn (and then I'd look to see if they had any 'you can have my gun…' bumper stickers.)

Turning right on a red is ok, I just have to remember to do it. For a real shocker try driving around a really big city like Chicago. Great big 6 lane raft of cars, HGVs and everything barrelling along in all lanes at 80mph stacked 3 ft apart in places, with all the drivers miles away in la-la land; on their phones, eating dinner, chatting to their passengers.. Chopping lanes all over the place – you get some car tailgateing another and then someone forces their way in between them leaving literally inches..! Frigging scary it is!

The predominant form of automatic transmission is hydraulically operated; using a fluid coupling or torque converter, and a set of planetary gearsets to provide a range of gear ratios.

That's Wiki. I don't have any figures and nor do you.

Predominant for existing cars in the world, perhaps. I doubt that most modern ones sold in the UK are like that. But fine, whatever 🙂

Why do i drive an auto? Well its what the car had fitted by someone else when new and there are not very many manuals around (i found one when looking but it was a lower spec one) and the auto is very easy to drive. I can put it into manual over ride and select the gears and when doing this it will lock into gear which is usfull on steep hills other wise it can run away abit beloow 50mph as the box disengages the engine to save fuel. Its not much worse than the manual on fuel (2mpg or so) it has 5 gears and the newer ones have 6 so thats not less than the manual. you can knock it in to nutral with out even having to press the shift lock button but you can't take the key out with it in anything but park. Would i have had it as a manual over the auto given a choice the answer would depnd on when you asked me as there are odd times i would prefer a manual but i normal just use the manual over ride at this point. Oh and as for driving it on the twistys the car weighs over 2.5 tonnes so its not a car for that. Now our other car i would only have as a manual as its fun to drive but i wouldn't want to drive it over a long distance anyway.