So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[belfastboy]

Any guesses as to the percentage of drivers these days who have never driven a car with a "standard" (standard no more) manual transmission?

My wife and I are committed manual shifters but it is getting harder and harder to find a model that offers a manual tranny. our last three autos have been different as they dropped the manual and we had to find alternatives. We are at 180K Km and about to contemplate a new car but have no idea what is out there in the market, just know it will be slim pickens...

 

[belfastboy]

I'd guess the overwhelming majority of people who learned to drive since 1980 haven't -- and unfortunately a manual transmission has gotten this aura of being "too hard" to learn. Which is the bunk. When I collapsed at work last year with appendicitis and had to go to the hospital a couple of The Kids -- who had never driven a car with a clutch before -- were able to teach themselves the rudiments just from having seen me do it, and were able to safely drive my car home with no damage to themselves or the car.

So I have to think it's less a matter of not knowing how as it is a matter of simply never having had it presented to them as an option.

When I entered college decided it was time to trade in my 56 Meteor, 8 cylinder 4 barrel (but alas an automatice) for a more sensible ride. Purchased a 1964 Beetle and the salesman assured me that he would teach me the art of the manual shift. After signing the papers and handing over the cash he leaned into the car, took 30 seconds to show me the H pattern shift and promptly left me sitting in the parking lot. I drove home the looooong way as each time I came to a hill I detoured around it, scared stiff about stopping on a hill. Towards the end of the trip I gave up and just ran the stop signs at the top of each hill. By the next day I was an "expert".

 

[tonyb]

When I entered college decided it was time to trade in my 56 Meteor, 8 cylinder 4 barrel (but alas an automatice) for a more sensible ride. Purchased a 1964 Beetle and the salesman assured me that he would teach me the art of the manual shift. After signing the papers and handing over the cash he leaned into the car, took 30 seconds to show me the H pattern shift and promptly left me sitting in the parking lot. I drove home the looooong way as each time I came to a hill I detoured around it, scared stiff about stopping on a hill. Towards the end of the trip I gave up and just ran the stop signs at the top of each hill. By the next day I was an "expert".

I had a '65 Ford Econoline that required special routes when the pavement was slippery on uphill sections. Starting from a dead stop had the speedo showing 35 or 40 mph while the rear wheels spun on the wet and/or oily pavement, which was (and still is) commonly encountered at intersections, where idling cars drop oil and coolant and transmission fluid.

 

[Edward]

I've been the last stop for every car I've ever owned, and the one that served me best and longest was a 1997 Toyota Corolla. I bought it with 82,000 miles on it when it was seven years old, and I got eleven years of good solid Maine winter use out of it before the calcium carbide destroyed the rear end. If it hadn't been for that, I'd still be driving it, and when I win the powerball one of the first things I'll do is track down and buy another one exactly like it.

As it happens, the '99 Subaru that now serves as my winter car is nearing the end of its life, and I find myself in a quandry because it's getting to be very difficult to find manual transmission cars on the used market, and I have had very bad experiences with automatic transmission cars in the snow. Give me a clutch or give me death.

My dad always shook his head at the idea of an auto - "too much to go wrong, too expensive to fix." He did have a couple of new Hyundai Sonatas back in the 90s which were under warranty, with an auto box. Nioce enoughb to driv,e but it always felt just too easy to me, somehow. Like I wasn't rallyh in control. Great, I suppose, for a lot of low-gear city driving, but not the same for the rural area we lived in. Mind you, I did in the past often consider a hearse for the city - the crawler gear on those would be great for saving the clutch when traffic slows to a walking pace!

My wife's car, a 1998 VW Golf, is a six speed, manual, clutch pedal car that she has owned and driven for almost twenty years. And my MG is one of those double-de-clutch affairs, anyone know what that means? Can anyone else do it?

I'm familiar with the concept from my Dad's 30s Austins, though I've never tried it myself. I imagnie the hardest bit is remembering to do it when you're not in a car with a synchromesh.

Would you ever consider the BMW version of The Mini? They are not so mini these days and they are plentiful in North America with a clutch pedal.

A friend has one of those. Similar floorpan size to the Fiestas I used to drive in the 90s, but with a much roomier back seat. I have a vague memory that there was a kit car in the eighties that used an Austin Maxi as a donor, and looked just like an original Mini but about 1.25 times the size.

 

[belfastboy]

The weirdest vehicle I ever owned was an old milk delivery truck. It was a Hercules with a really low ratio transmission designed for slow/multi stop driving. The weirdest thing about it was you could drive it standing up or sitting down with one pedal for both clutch and brake. It was a bitch to drive. Depress the pedal half way down to clutch and a millimetre more and you engaged the brake. Tough thing to drive but a great city vehicle designed to go not much faster than 30 mph. It was fun driving standing up but not much fun continually hitting the brake when shifting and tossing passengers off their seats.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Plodge has the smoothest transmission I've ever used -- only three speeds, but enough torque in any of them to pull stumps, and even without the "vacuum assist" gimmick it shifts with a fingertip touch. If you can't learn to drive a car like that, you can't learn to drive at all.

What I really hate about automatics -- other than how hard it is to get used to driving one when I have to -- is that they're pretty much impossible to rock out of a snowbank. I destroyed the transmission in my grandmother's '74 Ford Galaxie trying to do this, and it was then that I swore never to own an automatic car.

 

[Bamaboots]

Years ago when I was working in the family business, this is the same type standard transmission I learned on w/o ever having driven anything that had a clutch pedal. Double clutching required. Hills created fear. Graduated from this to a 13 speed transmission where the clutch wasn't used except for starting and stopping.

 

[tonyb]

I've driven vehicles with the clutch release mechanism out of order. Motorcycles are less challenging than larger vehicles, although I have driven old VWs back home without benefit of a functioning clutch release. Second gear is where you wanna be.

 

[Zombie_61]

...That car was underpowered, but I still enjoyed driving it because you feel, IMHO, more in control of the car in a manual and more connected to the driving experience...

Well stated, and I agree 100%.

...What I really hate about automatics -- other than how hard it is to get used to driving one when I have to -- is that they're pretty much impossible to rock out of a snowbank. I destroyed the transmission in my grandmother's '74 Ford Galaxie trying to do this, and it was then that I swore never to own an automatic car.

Also, in my experience, it's impossible to "push start" a car with an automatic transmission if/when the battery is dead. Even if you're parked on a nice, workable hill, you have to wait for a tow truck or someone with jumper cables.

 

[GHT]

Also, in my experience, it's impossible to "push start" a car with an automatic transmission if/when the battery is dead. Even if you're parked on a nice, workable hill, you have to wait for a tow truck or someone with jumper cables.

What you need is one of these.

 

[belfastboy]

Years ago when I was working in the family business, this is the same type standard transmission I learned on w/o ever having driven anything that had a clutch pedal. Double clutching required. Hills created fear. Graduated from this to a 13 speed transmission where the clutch wasn't used except for starting and stopping.

I would love to have had the opportunity to drive one of these.

 

[Zombie_61]

I would love to have had the opportunity to drive one of these.

I'd love to have an opportunity to try to drive one. Could they have possibly made it more complicated? If you have to take both hands off of the steering wheel to shift, it sounds like a bad idea to me.

 

[1mach1]

People that don't have change ready when they go through a tool booth. You know the toll is coming, and the signs are marked clearly as to how much exact change is needed. That digging around for change while holding up traffic irritates me.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

One of the scariest experiences of my young life was, at age 19, driving a manual shift in San Francisco for the first time. Balancing clutch against accelerator on those steep hills was hair-raising, especially when there was a car two feet behind your rear bumper (and there always was).

 

[Zombie_61]

One of the scariest experiences of my young life was, at age 19, driving a manual shift in San Francisco for the first time. Balancing clutch against accelerator on those steep hills was hair-raising, especially when there was a car two feet behind your rear bumper (and there always was).

Every manual shift car I've ever driven had a parking brake that was engaged and disengaged by a lever that was between the front seats. As long as those parking brakes were adjusted properly you could use them to hold the car in place, even on steep hills, while you found that balance between the clutch and accelerator. Once you find it you disengage the parking brake, and off you go. It worked on all of the larger delivery trucks I've driven as well, but the handles are almost always under the far left side of the dashboard (or right if you're driving a right-hand drive truck, I'm assuming) and aren't quite as easily accessible. Still, it's a handy "trick" that takes little practice to learn, and I'm surprised more people aren't taught it when they're learning how to drive a "stick shift".

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

When everybody has such irregular mealtimes that you end up eating out more than you would like. And now I'm also going through cat food like crazy because the dog, Roxy, likes to eat Louie's food when my back is turned!

 

[Zombie_61]

...And now I'm also going through cat food like crazy because the dog, Roxy, likes to eat Louie's food when my back is turned!

We had the same problem when we first brought our dog Butch home. This clearly wouldn't work for everyone, but our solution was to place our cat Shadow's food dish on the counter in the half-bath adjacent to the kitchen. She can jump up on the toilet seat lid, then jump from there to the counter. Butch can't, so her food is safe from him there. We still haven't figured out what we're going to do when Shadow gets too old to make those jumps, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

 

[Edward]

The Plodge has the smoothest transmission I've ever used -- only three speeds, but enough torque in any of them to pull stumps, and even without the "vacuum assist" gimmick it shifts with a fingertip touch. If you can't learn to drive a car like that, you can't learn to drive at all.

What I really hate about automatics -- other than how hard it is to get used to driving one when I have to -- is that they're pretty much impossible to rock out of a snowbank. I destroyed the transmission in my grandmother's '74 Ford Galaxie trying to do this, and it was then that I swore never to own an automatic car.

Yeah. I also maintain cars went way downhill when FWD replaced RWD. That, and it's not a real Porsche at all if the engine is watercooled and in the nose....

When everybody has such irregular mealtimes that you end up eating out more than you would like. And now I'm also going through cat food like crazy because the dog, Roxy, likes to eat Louie's food when my back is turned!

Yes, you'll want to watch thaT. Dogs can't process protein so well, which is why their food is overloaded with it - they won't get enough if they live on the catfood! (Conversely, dogfood can be lethal to cats by overdoing the protein. I've known one to have kidney failure caused by eating too much dogfood.)

 

[GHT]

Yeah. I also maintain cars went way downhill when FWD replaced RWD. That, and it's not a real Porsche at all if the engine is watercooled and in the nose....

Sorry to sound pedantic Edward, but front wheel drive has been around long before the success of The Mini, the car that kicked off the FWD manufacturing preference. Arguably the most famous of front wheel drive cars is that of the choice of the fictional French detective, Maigret. The 1938 Citroen Traction Avant.
That said, front wheel drive was around at the end of the nineteenth century:

In 1898/9 the French manufacturer Société Parisienne patented their front-wheel drive articulated vehicle concept which they manufactured as a Victoria Combination. It was variously powered by 1.75 or 2.5 horsepower (1.30 or 1.86 kW) De Dion-Bouton engine or a water cooled 3.5 horsepower (2.6 kW) Aster engine. The engine was mounted on the front axle and so was rotated by the tiller steering. The name Victoria Combination described the lightweight, two-seater trailer commonly known as a Victoria, combined with the rear axle and drive mechanism from a motor tricycle that was placed in front to achieve front wheel drive. It also known as the Eureka.

 

[Edward]

Interesting - I think it's only really since the 70s that FWD has been completely popularised (most Fords, if memory serves, were RWD as late as 1980). I was, of course, aware of the Mini, but I had no idea it went back quite as far as such early days. I always preferred something about the feel of RWD to drive (my dad always said RWD was much more satisfying to drive in anger, but he had raced, rallyed and auto-tested; I was never one for speed). That said, if the rear wheels get sunk in the sand or the mud, it's a lot easier to have FWD to pull you out, so I guess there's an element of swings and roundabouts to it....