Standard vs. automatic

[MaximRecoil]

Most Chargers were automatics (something like 75% of them I believe), and most passenger vehicles in general are automatics (in the United States at least), to the point that no new full-size pickup trucks from the Big Three are even available with a standard anymore (that's what I heard anyway, correct me if I'm wrong). According to Jay Leno, even some European sports cars have eliminated the manual transmission as an option.

When talking to people (guys at least), it seems that there are far more of them that claim to prefer standards than there are that actually own standards.

So maybe women are largely responsible for the death of the standard, after all, they account for about half of the population, and most of them prefer automatics and aren't ashamed to admit it. However, even vehicles which are predominately owned by men, such as pickup trucks and muscle cars, are mostly automatics.

Personally, I prefer a standard, and I've always gone out of my way to own one. My '69 Charger is unfortunately an automatic, but that was a case of "beggars can't be choosers". Eventually I want to convert my car to a standard though. That would actually make it fun to drive, even though it doesn't have much of an engine.

My Dodge Dakota is a 5-speed. It needs a new clutch though, and has since I bought it, so its current chattering clutch sucks the fun out of driving it.

[burnout.dawg]

Yes, manual is fun to drive...but living in a city where it seems every other corner has a traffic light...automatic trumps manual. Does this make me a woman driver?

[6spd68]

I think standard transmissions for most guys is like "hair on the chest", gives them that "OH I KNOW HOW TO DRIVE STICK" statement, when in reality they suck at it.  Hence why as you said \/

When talking to people (guys at least), it seems that there are far more of them that claim to prefer standards than there are that actually own standards.

Much like how many guys will claim to be car guys while knowing SFA about them.

For me, I live in the heart of downtown Toronto (A big Canadian City).  Think Chicago with a waterfront.  Driving around there during the day?  No question in my mind I'd want an automatic.  Now at night or driving somewhere with less traffic, I'll take standard hands down.  I prefer driving standard when it's ideal to do so.  The last thing I want to do is sit in bumper to bumper traffic for an hour going clutch, clutch, clutch, clutch, clutch, clutch, clutch, clutch, clutch, clutch, clutch, clutch, clutch.

That being said though, if I'm driving a 5-ton or another big utility truck, give me a 6-speed all day.  (Used to for work)

I grew up in the suburbs, and for the last 8 years, I've always owned two cars.  My T-bird (5-Speed) for fun.  And my G-body Bonneville's (automatic) to get me around and run errands with.  Standard is more fun for spirited driving and really feeling the car, the road, and just an overall sense of control over the situation.  Automatic is more of a simple, get there, from A-to-B type drive.  Now that I live downtown, I only need one car, hence 68 Dodge Charger.  Being as it will serve me as a fun car, it will be a 6-speed.  For anything else, I can either walk, or hop on a streetcar.

Based on my experience, I come to my personal conclusion that most people just don't have a fun car on the side anymore, and just drive automatic for the convenience factor.  Plus it's an easy pass to say "I'd rather drive stick", and make it look like you've got some hair on your nuts when around manly men.

I still remember when I first got the T-bird I have now(Circa 2006).  I'd had my complete driveline out of the T-bird I had prior (Built 302 + TKO600) ready to drop in over the winter, but for the fall I drove around with the 2.3 turbo and 5-speed.  A couple times I had friends like that, the "I LOVE STANDARD! I HATE THAT MY CAR'S AN AUTO!" crowd.  Hand'em the keys, cause hey, not like they'll brake anything important.  Keep in mind, this is a 87 Turbo coupe w/ 90K miles on it (Mustang SVO tranny that shifted like butter).  Car starts, 1st gear (Almost stalls), 2nd gear (Loud synchro rev correction), 3rd gear (ASKJDHASJKDH IASHDKLSAHDLKJSABHDJK).

^this happened more then once with slightly different outcomes.  Needless to say I do not let anyone drive my car now that it has the 347...

Therefor, I think the claims hold little to no warrant without actually having a vehicle to back it up.  Much like when you get that friend who claims they can drink, and 5 beers deep you find them praying to the porcelain gods.

I'd say most true DRIVERS prefer standard, commuters and everyone else can have auto.

[maxwellwedge]

Chicago has a fantastic waterfront - Toronto could learn a lot from them on what they should do with theirs...

Yes - A stick is brutal in bumper to bumper traffic....but great anytime else. I have a combo of auto's and sticks....they are what they are seeing how they are all on 40+ year back-order! 

But - A stick screams musclecar more-so than an automatic.

[6spd68]

Chicago has a fantastic waterfront - Toronto could learn a lot from them on what they should do with theirs...

Indeed,

They're working on it though...  I have to live with the construction until 2015 

[Tilar]

I'm torn on this very decision on my 68. Albeit a 3 speed on the column, it was originally a standard transmission car so changing it to a 4 speed would be very easy, plus fun to drive around here. That being said I have a 518 3 wire transmission that I've thought real serious about rebuilding and using because that would make it easier on gas on a road trip... and I like to travel. 

[6spd68]

Here's how you've gotta look at it.  When do you plan on driving the car the most?  What is your true "Free" moment in the car where you're one with it?  If that's when you're out alone at night in low traffic, go stick.  If you'd rather do long road-trips where you may run into insane highway traffic jams, or if you plan to just putt around in the car and take it to car shows, auto may be a better friend to you. 

[maxwellwedge]

Chicago has a fantastic waterfront - Toronto could learn a lot from them on what they should do with theirs...

Indeed,

P.S. I was born in and have lived in Toronto all of my life.....I wish we would do something "organized looking" with our waterfront....it could kick ass....but our politicians would take 50 years thinking about it.  

But I digress......

[bull]

I prefer the four speed to auto in my Charger. Lots more fun. But I wouldn't really want one in a commuter car, even though my commute is mostly freeway.

Went for a drive with the wife in the Charger the other day on a long, two-lane highway with no stop signs or lights. I got very bored and took a different route home just so I could hit some stop lights and do some shifting.

[chargd72]

Manuals are more fun to drive but autos are faster in the 1/4.

[MaximRecoil]

Yes, manual is fun to drive...but living in a city where it seems every other corner has a traffic light...automatic trumps manual. Does this make me a woman driver?

I live in a small town, and the nearest cities are small (Bangor, Maine is the biggest one within an hour's drive), but I lived and worked in Tuscon, Arizona for almost a year (about the same population as the entire state of Maine), and had a 4-speed '79 Toyota 4WD pickup, and I never thought twice about it in traffic.

Now if it had been my father's old 1980 4-speed (L, 1, 2, 3) Chevrolet K10, I would have had an issue with it. That thing had a ridiculously stiff clutch for whatever reason, plus something wasn't right with it, i.e., even with the seat as far forward as it would go, it was still a stretch to push in the clutch pedal all the way (and I'm 6' 2"), so city driving in that old beast would have sucked. For that matter, driving it anywhere wasn't much fun, though when he first got it it liked to backfire through the exhaust if you wound it up in low and quickly hit the clutch, which I thought was hilarious (though Dad didn't).

Manuals are more fun to drive but autos are faster in the 1/4.

Not necessarily, especially if your name is Ronnie Sox. But regardless of that, I've never been on a drag strip, so I've never worried about tenths of seconds. And even if I did take a street car to a drag strip from time to time, 99.99% of driving would still be on the road, where with a standard you have more fun (or at least less boredom), plus more power to the wheels and better gas mileage to boot. Also, being able to push-start my vehicles has come in handy quite a few times over the years.

[6spd68]

Also, being able to push-start my vehicles has come in handy quite a few times over the years.

Starter gone?  Bump that!  Finally get it fixed 2 months later when you're sick of findind a hill to park on, or that night you get blocked in on a side street. 

[MaximRecoil]

Starter gone?  Bump that!  Finally get it fixed 2 months later when you're sick of findind a hill to park on, or that night you get blocked in on a side street. 

My mechanic friend's neighbor drove a 5-speed Ranger around for about 2 years with a starter that didn't work. I only ever saw him coming and going from his driveway and into my friend's garage driveway, both of which are hills, but I don't know what he did when he went to e.g. the local grocery store, which has a flat parking lot. Either he left it running or got a good workout every time.

I had an '83 Ford F100, 3-speed on the column, that I had to push-start every now and then because it would refuse to start via the key. Once you forced it to wake up by push-starting it, it would run rough for a few minutes and then come out of it, and be fine for the next several months, or even a year.

[Homerr]

I would rather drive a Toyota Corolla with a manual than a Porsche 911 with an auto.  No really.  I sold my old Charger I restored because it was an auto.

I get that an auto is good for the consistency for drag racing.  An auto with a V8 might be acceptable for some for daily driving.  But I've been living in the auto + 4-cylinder world the last couple of years.

I think autos suck in traffic.  I've been driving a stupid auto the last 2 years (wife's car since mine was stolen, we decided to drop to one car).  It's a 4 cylinder Impreza, or 'NotSoImpreza'.  In stop and go traffic I find that the auto just wants to go at one speed based on what gear it picks.  The problem is that that speed is almost never what speed the car in front of me is piddling along at.  The auto has very poor engine braking, if at all.  More than likely if I am on a slight downward grade the car will accelerate and even upshift with the foot off the gas.  For around town here we have 30mph arterial speeds.  The dumb autobox likes to shift in to its top gear at 31mph under light throttle, so it's constantly clunking in and out of top gear.  Any throttle input beyond tooling along it then needs to downshift to get out of its own way.  Or I have to just 'get beyond' the shift point and drive 35 in the 30.

Freeway on-ramps.  This Impreza, and several auto rental cars that I have had, are all just unsafe compared to a manual.  Rolling on the throttle to accelerate to merge at 60+ but starting at 40+ mph means the dumb thing is already in its top gear and it wants to stay there even if the throttle is mashed to the floor.  So it accelerates like it is towing a 5th wheel for a couple of seconds and then, bam! it downshifts and revs go from 2,000 to 3,500 but its not going any faster, then another second and bam! it downshifts again and climbs to 4,500 rpm for 0.5 seconds and pulls itself up to 50mph.  I have a shorter, slightly uphill on-ramp I deal with this everyday on and manual shifting the auto does nothing, repeat nothing.  It finds what gear it wants despite my 'suggestion' with the shifter.  The timing of this BS while its raining, I'm full-throttle, mirror/signal/headcheck, traffic is still going 5mph faster than me, and then a transmission that is like a Kato surprise judo attack.

I now understand that on an on-ramp me giving a shitbox car 100% yields about 5% better results than some old lady giving 30% throttle in her Camry.  I'm merging at 52mph and she's merging at 46mph.  Both suck.

At least with all of the above in a manual car I have some control over what is happening.  I can accelerate where I want to on an on-ramp (not the last 50' of it), I can engine brake on hills, I can drive without some stupid computer profile clunking shifts up and down over 1mph.


TLDR:  autos are utter crap.

[MaximRecoil]

I would rather drive a Toyota Corolla with a manual than a Porsche 911 with an auto.  No really.  I sold my old Charger I restored because it was an auto.

I'm the same way, though I wouldn't go so far as to sell my Charger; it would be too much of a headache and expense to get another one. I console myself with the idea that I'll convert it to a standard one of these days.

TLDR:  autos are utter crap.

I read it all; funny post, and I agree with it. I live in a very hilly town, and my Charger loves to stay in 2nd gear when I make a 90 degree turn onto an uphill street, which always reminds me of where the term "bogamatic" came from (doesn't help that it is only a tired 318 under the hood and 2.71:1 gears in the back). I can either floor it to get a fairly instant response to shift to first or I can lightly increase the throttle and sometimes it will decide to shift to first and sometimes it won't. I can also manually shift to first, which isn't particularly natural when driving a column-shift automatic. When driving my Dakota, or any other standard, I shift it into the correct gear as I'm turning the wheel to head up a hill (usually second, which is of course a lot different than second gear in an automatic).

[chargd72]

Manuals are more fun to drive but autos are faster in the 1/4.

Not necessarily, especially if your name is Ronnie Sox.
[/quote]

Ronnie was definitely the man and owned the strip.  But that was some time ago.  In stock form, a manual can be faster depending of the driver.  But a fully built race auto will out perform a fully built race manual.  But, like you said, 99% will most likely never need to put that to the test.  Personally, I prefer full manual but my Charger is getting a manual valve body.

[charger_fan_4ever]

3 of my 4 vehicules are stick.

I like them as they are more bullet proof no sensors to go awol on you and not shift/downshift.
More economical than a slush box.
Way less to repair "if" you ever need to dig into one to fix it.

I have had 4 cummins diesel trucks. 2 autos and 2 sticks. Witht he same gear ratio the stick trucks out pull a load a lot easier than a slushbox hands down. A built auto for a diesel is $4k plus to get it to perform somewhat like a stick truck.

I thought the Rams were still available with a stick ?
Gm and ford are all autos for awhile now.

I personally think that not enough $$ is/was made on stick vehicules via repair. It seems that vehicules are not as reliable the more we go away from the tried and true mechanical way.

[MaximRecoil]

I thought the Rams were still available with a stick ?

I don't think the 1500 is, which is the most common size for the average Joe pickup truck buyer. The 2500 and 3500 are both available with a 6-speed manual transmission.

[myk]

Manuals are more fun to drive but autos are faster in the 1/4.

Not necessarily, especially if your name is Ronnie Sox.

Ronnie was definitely the man and owned the strip.  But that was some time ago.  In stock form, a manual can be faster depending of the driver.  But a fully built race auto will out perform a fully built race manual.  But, like you said, 99% will most likely never need to put that to the test.  Personally, I prefer full manual but my Charger is getting a manual valve body.
[/quote]

Manual valve body-there you go!

[MaximRecoil]

Manual valve body-there you go!

I wonder if a clutch could be rigged up to a Torqueflite with a full-manual valve body. Then you'd have something like a Lenco (clutch only used to start off, clutchless shifts thereafter). I still prefer an H-pattern shifter though, and to use a clutch to regulate power back to the wheels after every gear shift.

[Cooter]

It was called something like a 'clutchflite' and a lot of explosions..4500rpm clutch dumps are for cast iron, NOT aluminum.ask any die hard Chevy guy about modding a Chrysler 833 to take the place of the weaker Muncie M22.

Straight gear till I'm too old to depress the clutch.

[ACUDANUT]

Rodney and Ponch are both here. 

[charger_fan_4ever]

I thought the Rams were still available with a stick ?

I don't think the 1500 is, which is the most common size for the average Joe pickup truck buyer. The 2500 and 3500 are both available with a 6-speed manual transmission.

Yup true enough don't recall the last model 1500 that came with a stick.

Even more ridiculous is the ford and gm 2500/3500 diesel trucks being auto only. I mean come on they were made to work.

[F8-4life]

As much as I want a 4 sp, 6 screws & a bracket in my right shoulder tell me automatic.

[John_Kunkel]

For a daily driver the standard is a PITA but I prefer them for all other cars. IMHO, the demise of the stick is due, in general,  to a laziness (or malaise) in the people as a whole. (Let George do it)