Stickshift?

Almost everyone in the UK learns to drive in a car with manual transmission (otherwise they're only allowed to drive automatics).

I've only driven an automatic a few times, and really didn't like it. I didn't feel like I had the same control over a car -- to drop a gear or two and floor it to get out of trouble, or to use the braking force of the engine in an emergency stop.
 
Motorcycle and Ford truck, Saturn Vue and Miata. All manual. I hope I die before a stick is no longer available to me. I love the sense of being in tune with the whole machine and the environment you're driving in. Nothing brings it all together like a manual transmission. (you'll know what I mean if you drive a manual enough) I feel like a spectator if I have to drive an automatic.
 
Motorcycles as well as cars.
A simple engine brake (by downshifting and letting the clutch come against it) ain't as easy to perform in an automatic. Apart from that, handbraking on snow is much more fun in the right gear ;)
In terms of motorcycles, manual shifting is a must. I want to control power, lean and speed and do not want to have a lazy vario deciding for me. That said, there's one exception. My old Göricke Panther from '58, basically a bicycle frame with a 50cc / 2-speed vario gearbox. But I love my oldies, so ;)
I'm not a fan of modern day scooters/vario gearboxes though, actually I'm not a scooter fan really but I'd ride the manuals, given the chance.
 
Learned to drive with a Triumph Spitfire and 1980 Honda Civic. Most of my cars have been manuals. We currently have an Outback wagon that's a stick. I prefer them over automatics because they last longer and they are more fun to drive. Most younger Americans I know (Millennial's) don't know how to drive a stick because few American cars have them anymore. For shame
 
Driving stick shift is alright, I personally don't like sequential shifts. Way way back in the day I would drive my gf around in a MGB with her hand on the stickshift while I shifted haha xD
 
Motor Sickles can do. Clutch in the hand and gear select with the other... fits my uncoordinated coordination but car/truck kicks me in the diaper. On the other hand which is really a foot, you never have to use jumper cables, as long as you have a wingman. Jam it into reverse and push it backward, pop the clutch et voila ici.
 
LittleSissieJolie said:
On the other hand which is really a foot, you never have to use jumper cables, as long as you have a wingman. Jam it into reverse and push it backward, pop the clutch et voila ici.

Had to do this a lot shortly after I got my current car when the battery was dying
 
Crinklebutt said:
Had to do this a lot shortly after I got my current car when the battery was dying

Been there done that! Don't need a wingman either. Just park on a slope and pop the clutch on your way down!
 
Spaz said:
Been there done that! Don't need a wingman either. Just park on a slope and pop the clutch on your way down!
Yep I've done that as well , even push started a 7.5t truck
 
Spaz said:
Been there done that! Don't need a wingman either. Just park on a slope and pop the clutch on your way down!
Try driving a stickshift for the second time in the dead of winter right after a blizzard and ice storm! Not a good feeling doing backwards spins back down the fricken hill and whos bright idea was it to put a red light in the middle of a fricken hill to begin with has to have a lobotomy! Dang clutch timing why is it so fickle huh? I swear I would never drive a stickshift again after that incident!
 
All my other automatic cars have a 1 and 2 Gear, or equivalently named. Just shift there and you will be engine breaking. With my Mustang, I can paddle shift down no problem. Its raining here, otherwise I'd be driving it more.
 
MickeyM said:
All my other automatic cars have a 1 and 2 Gear, or equivalently named. Just shift there and you will be engine breaking. With my Mustang, I can paddle shift down no problem. Its raining here, otherwise I'd be driving it more.

Well yeah, but ultimately you can control the amount of engine brake by the way you release the clutch. In an automatic you would have to shift to neutral and wait for the moment to kick in G1 or G2.
 
I shift between D and 1/2 in the winter with no problems at all, you don't need to go into neutral.. its an automatic ;)
 
I've driven manual & auto off-road where traction can be zero and control is critical - autos are kinder on the transmission and you can "point-and-squirt" to get up a climb, but manuals have the edge for control everywhere else (and tolerate faults better).

It's all marginal though, despite the fact that any thread on this subject anywhere on the internet will degenerate into a holy war / willy waggling... it's as much personal preference as anything these days. Drive what you like and wear what you like whilst doing it! :biggrin:
 
Yes, can drive a stick.
 

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so i'd opt for manual all the time. aside from a manual [clutch] allowing control over power delivery to the wheels, a manual [gearbox] also allows you to select a higher gear for low power starts.

i did used to have an automatic, an Audi 100 Avant, and it was a bit of a handful in slippery conditions, and i also had to leave it at the bottom of the hill on a few wintery nights (too heavy and with too little control over the power for getting up an icy hill and then to have to come down the following day, negotiating bends).
also, before getting injured, i did drive counterbalance FLTs on a daily basis, at a fast pace (the kind of pace that they don't/won't show on the telly because it's illegal, but which employers still demand); most CB FLTs are automatic, having just a direction lever and, combined with a lack of a limited slip diff or diff-lock, are absolutely shit in the wet, mud, snow and ice. in fact, the winter and the reason i was injured, you could engage drive on the FLTs and, without even touching the throttle, they would just sit there with wheels spinning away, going nowhere.
 
I can. Still do daily. Next car will be automatic, though so my mate can drive it also, since she doesn't want to learn stick.
 
I have driven a shift stick aka manual for a majority of my life. Got an automatic at the moment, its great for crappy traffic though. When I learnt to drive HGV trucks, again that was shift stick.
 
Being a professional driver I have been driving stick for a very long time (20+ years) and I still enjoy driving stick more than an slushbox but my age is starting to catch up with me and clutching at every intersection is tiring.
 
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