Why Automatics Are Better Than Manuals

[bluebeastsrt]

I feel like this will be the last auto/manual thread we will ever see on this forum. I feel like this will be the big breakthrough where people will finaly realize. That ford makes both transmissions. And different people value different things.

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[Rapid Red]

I feel like this will be the last auto/manual thread we will ever see on this forum. I feel like this will be the big breakthrough where people will finaly realize. That ford makes both transmissions. And different people value different things.

But I doubt it............ what the best oil, my Mustang has a tick..

 

[lonegunman]

John Wick drives an automatic Mustang. That's enough for me.

You do know that is pretend, right?

 

[Shane361]

Meh...
I've enjoyed both sides of the fence.
96 Mystic Cobra, 5 speed
02 GT Auto..Procharged with 4.10 gears, 2800 stall
04 Mach 1, 5 Speed
04 KB Cobra, 6 Speed
11 5.0, 6 Speed
15 Procharged GT, Auto
If I dedicated the car to the drag strip no way I would use a manual. If it was an all around car I would own a manual, road course manual. I sold my 11 GT because it was hurting me to drive it, knee accident in the Middle East and hurt my shoulder when I wrecked my bike at 80mph. Hence my current boosted auto. But my next Mustang will be a GT350 and obviously a manual. Nothing wrong with either, it's just personal taste. I can't tell you how many people with manuals feelings I have hurt at the drag strip. Manuals are more enjoyable, no doubt but also about to be a thing of the past and for good reason. Hence the transmission choice of the GT500..or lack there of.

 

[Hack]

Nothing wrong with either, it's just personal taste. I can't tell you how many people with manuals feelings I have hurt at the drag strip. Manuals are more enjoyable, no doubt but also about to be a thing of the past and for good reason. Hence the transmission choice of the GT500..or lack there of.

Manuals are more enjoyable but about to be a thing of the past - because nobody wants to enjoy driving any more? I'd like to think manuals will go through a resurgence because people realize they are more fun. And nowadays there's no reason a car needs to have a heavy clutch pedal, even if it makes over 500 hp.

Yes an automatic is faster at the dragstrip. That's why I have a lot more respect for people who run the 1/4 with a manual. It's a lot more difficult. But I agree there's nothing wrong with either transmission. They have their uses.

 

[Norm Peterson]

I’ll offer another idea though, a clutch less manual. It’s been done on other cars in the past and I believe Hyundai is doing it now on a car. The how it works I’m not sure but from reading I see it says “it predicts” when you want to shift. I’d like to see a system that maybe knows by pressure being put on the shifter that the driver is ready to shift and instantaneously engages the clutch and tells the PCM to do all the appropriate stuff to allow the shift into a higher or lower gear.A transmission like this would help those that want to drive a manual but have never driven one and would help the popularity of the manual while bridging the gap between a manual and an auto.

I think you mean 'disengage', but Porsche basically did this part . . . oh, a little over 50 years ago with their 'Sportomatic'. You still had to work the H pattern, but you didn't have to get your right arm/hand and left leg/foot on the same page.

Porsche Sportomatic. The Sportomatic transmission was introduced in Zuffenhausen in 1967. Based on the type 905, the Sportomatic transmission was an efficient and effective vacuum-operated single-disc dry clutch.

Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

Dude, the human is the inefficient part. Embrace the cold, unfeeling machine.

In terms of mechanical efficiency, a torque converter is never going to be able to match the old-fashioned conventional flywheel/pressure plate/clutch disc combination. Even lockup torque converters would be exhibiting efficiency losses due to fluid pumping requirements (not just in the transmission's oil pump).

So yeah, it comes down to the human. Including the humans who develop such things as shift schedules and any machine "learning" about how any given driver tends to drive.


Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

They are faster. That's what I always hear across the internet.

That's because drag racing and its rather less legal street cousin have always made up the majority of the car enthusiast population. For most of us the first kind of car excitement we get to experience is what happens when the throttle is matted. Even if you were only a passenger at the time. And it's certainly the easiest kind of performance driving for a newbie driver to duplicate with much chance of success. Or appreciation by your peers.

I've also heard that the paddle shifters are just as fun.

You're going to hear that without hearing the agenda lurking quietly in the background.

Are paddles more fun than just slapping it in 'D'? Sure, but only when you want to and not because you have to.

From the mfrs' side, yeah we really would prefer to minimize the number of powertrain combinations (especially when the ones we want to keep can justify higher prices in most cases).


Norm

 

[Shadow277]

I drove a Sonata with a slap stick. It shifted on its own when you hit the optimal point. Very disappointed. That was almost 10 years ago and I am sure the gears can be locked. Idk, I just really like rowing my own gears and I know I'm not a pro trying to set records so the fun factor matters most to me.

 

[Silver Bullitt]

Manuals all the way. Best damn 20 second video ever.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Aaaaannnndddd... I made 30

3 pages in, and I've almost won!

So here's one I don't think you've heard yet . . . Free Shift fodder?

When you hear a DSG car playing upshift/downshift tunes off in the distance, it sounds like the driver knows what he's doing. Even if he hasn't got a clue.

When you hear an automatic doing its normal automatic upshifting thing out there in the distance, it sounds like the driver doesn't know what he's doing even when he knows exactly and intends it that way.

Only with a conventional 3-pedal MT does the sound off in the distance accurately reflect how well or how poorly a driver is calling the shots as far as gear choice is concerned.


Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

Perhaps not on LI, but where I am there are two 4-lane highways close enough to hear what drivers in only slightly louder-than-stock vehicles are up to most of the time, and on a quiet night with the windows open I can hear what louder cars, trucks and bikes are doing over a mile away on a third 4-lane and out on the nearby Interstate as well. Hearing anywhere from an eighth of a mile to well over half a mile of somebody's running.


Norm

 

[NoVaGT]

Automatics are so ghey, they gave Freddie Mercury AIDS.




























I'm just kidding. I don't care what you drive.

 

[Rogues Gambit]

Personally, I think it's a stretch, a long stretch, that we still call a modern transmissions in a car with no clutch pedal an automatic. There's no comparison to a modern transmission of today with what most of us reference to that word, minus the missing pedal.

Although not a performance car, I do have an auto with paddles in an otherwise fun car (Lexus IS). The paddles lasted about 2 minutes and I haven't touched them since.

But for the sake of entertainment....my son has a manual S197 car (I did not give him the option of an auto, but that's a separate story). He has buddies and friends at school that not only do they not know how to drive a manual, they've been in his car and didn't even understand what they were looking at. They had zero idea what a manual tranny is or that such a contraption even existed. They had no clue or comprehension of what they were seeing.

That's gonna be my future kids in like 20 years

"Bro, the hell is that?!"
"Why doesn't your car drive itself?"
"Why does it make so much noise??"
"Whaddya mean you have to shift gears??"

Yeah, not giving into the EV Apocalypse at all

 

[Norm Peterson]

Personally, I think it's a stretch, a long stretch, that we still call a modern transmissions in a car with no clutch pedal an automatic. There's no comparison to a modern transmission of today with what most of us reference to that word, minus the missing pedal.

I agree that today's automatics are much better than they used to be. I remember when some automatics truly were 'slushboxes', even when they were in perfect working order.

But what makes them all automatics is the fact that they can completely automate their own forward gear selection. Automation isn't about the internal bits like the planetary gearsets, clutches, bands, or the torque converter, it's the capacity for making some of its own logical decisions that makes an automated transmission an automatic. In years past, automated forward gear selection was handled by hydraulic means - think of valve bodies as being yesteryear's "hydraulic transmission control modules". Today, the same decisions are handled by electronic logic, but as far as the driver is concerned, there isn't a whole lot of difference . . . it's still the same old "select 'D' and go".

Although not a performance car, I do have an auto with paddles in an otherwise fun car (Lexus IS). The paddles lasted about 2 minutes and I haven't touched them since.

Somehow I'm not surprised.


Norm

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