Pros/Cons of a fully auto tranny

[Keef]

Gearchanges are phenomenally dangerous. What any gearchange does is suddenly remove drive from your car and suddenly reapply it - in fact the amount of time spent without drive is irrelevant (with one exception), so the speed of the change itself isn't important, rather that drive is suddenly diminished and repplied. Just watch the occupants of a car driven by someone who can't drive stick properly lurch about with each change - which, on the face of it, seems an argument against the manual 'box, but it's an exaggerated example of the forces at play. Gearchanges - even seemingly perfect rev-matched DCT changes - unbalance cars significantly and you should seek to minimise them at all times (especially while cornering). This is the issue with flappies - you can't block shift and block shifts have important safety aspects.

I've been in quite a few situations where mid-corner upshifts required a special finesse and I had to shift much differently than I normally would If I'd have shifted quickly like on a straight portion I'd have upset the rear of the car and ended up in a gnarly drift. Instead I had to be quite smooth as if I were trying to impress a passenger. The last DSG I drove only had one mode of shifting - lighting quick but not always buttery smooth.

Speaking of passengers, the way a couple of my friends shift on the road drives me up a wall. Josh in particular will abruptly let off the gas, do a slow smooth shift, then abruptly feed the power back in. I'm not a fan of heads flying back and forth. I slowly ease of the gas pedal to minimize that, shift quickly, and slowly feed the power back in. Sometimes it feels like it never even happened.

 

[Famine]

Crap drivers are crap whatever they're in. A manny box just gives them something else to break.

 

[AlexGTV]

Crap drivers are crap whatever they're in. A manny box just gives them something else to break.

That is to be said. I was in this public bus one day, packed and heating, and the driver I swear was like a monkey that escaped the zoo. You could see old women flying all over the place and there was this Congolese man with a giant sack packed with merchandise that ran over 5 or 6 people.

 

[Kryz11]

For me, I love AUTO transmissions because it gives me more relaxing ride. As well it saves a hustle in city, traffic, and uphill or downhill parking.
So this is the Advantage of the AUTO.

Manual? More fun more control over the car.

 

[Eric.]

When did we decide that a plain slush-box, torque-converter automatic is the fastest shifting transmission?!

The only situation I see that happening for is to be going along slowly in top gear, then hammering it. So it may be faster to shifter from 4 (or higher..whatever it is) to 1.

But a fast upshift from a regular automatic? Hardly.

And up until this thread I never heard anything about the DSG being slow, laggy, not rev matching, or otherwise being so terrible. I'm going to have to drive my friend's GTI at some point.

 

[Wolfe]

👍 to Famine's comments, and others here.

Hmmm, user error results in catastrophic loss? That's a dysfunction interface. Imagine if, for a moment, your computer exploded into bits if you clicked on a particular button in the operating system.

Even today's operating systems can 🤬 themselves over if you give them the wrong command. As the proverb goes, whenever you attempt to invent something foolproof, nature will invent a better fool.

What a generously adept comparison you've made, too. Consumers can potentially "brick" their system or otherwise impair their software by "jailbreaking" their smartphone or "soft-modding" their videogame console. However, doing those things (and pulling it off correctly) is the only way to run any software you like and have complete control over your phone/console.

Such devices are already competent media outlets as shipped from the factory, and work just fine for most people. However, the possibilities become almost limitless once you perform the modification. All you're really doing is removing artificial software limitations on what you can do with the hardware (much like how a DSG, though offering many of the same primary benefits of a manual, imposes artificial limitations on your control of the drivetrain), but doing so provides the ultimate level of customization, choice of options, and flexibility of purpose.

Not everyone wants to jailbreak or soft-mod their stuff. Some people do. Not everyone needs or wants the extra flexibility and control a manual transmission offers. Some people do.

But there is an advantage I see for a manual. If you're poor and can't afford a car with a decent engine or a DSG, and you're worried about the car breaking down and having to repair it yourself or simply worried about getting the car home because it has 250,000 miles and things aren't working as well as they used to - the manual is cheaper, mechanically simpler, and more robust in these scenarios.

Why does a car have to be old and starting to fail before a manual transmission is justified? I imagine a DSG would have a harder time reaching that point in a car's life in the first place.

Do you advocate a shift toward cars that are more "disposable" for the sake of what amounts to a technological convenience?

You need this because.... ? there are a few answers that come to mind and none of them should be this high on the priority list.

The control. It's that simple.

There are certain things that a car can handle just fine on its own, and certain things that a driver should have control over. The line that separates those things will always be different depending on who you talk to (eg. synchros vs no synchros, defeatable traction control vs permanent traction control, etc.) but I, personally, cannot stand not having the option or ability to dictate, physically and manually, when my engine sends power to the drivetrain. And slotting an auto/DSG into "N" just doesn't cut it.

Automatic transmission cars "creep." With no input at all, they'll automatically apply power to the wheels and roll forward; as I said in my last post, it's strenuous and highly annoying to have to "hold back" an automatic car while stopped in "D." Automatic drivers everywhere absent-mindedly bump into other cars (someone did it to me) and risk pulling out into cross-traffic if they happen to not hold down the brake enough. The solution is to shift into "N," but that's only a stopgap (and a difficult one with sloppy shifters) for the lack of a manual transmission. Why should I need to "manually shift" an automatic between "D" and "N" to improve upon its convenience?

Most automatic cars (due to torque converter slip or whatever reason) hardly slow down in normal driving conditions unless you apply the brakes. Brake lights only offer "on/off," so you can't make minor adjustments to speed without giving the driver behind you the same exact signal (for a split second) as an emergency stop. Traffic often backs up on busy freeways for exactly this reason -- jams caused by cascades of unnecessary brake lights. When behind the wheel of an automatic transmission car, it irritates me to have no choice but contribute to this problem. You might say that it's more dangerous to slow down in front of people without illuminating your brake lights, and in this age of increasingly distracted drivers, that's probably true. But at least a manual transmission provides the option to do it.

Furthermore, on an older car such as mine, similar to what you said about "poor" people (like me I guess), it would be inconvenient (or perhaps impossible) to drive in everyday situations if it had an automatic. A few of the workarounds I live with, thanks to the manual transmission:

1. Coaxing the dysfunctional idle (which bounces incessantly if unattended) into a steady RPM by applying slight throttle input anytime I need to, without accelerating or having to shift into neutral
2. Launching the car slowly and smoothly despite the unstable idle
3. Cutting power to prevent the violent bucking the idle can cause when putting around in-gear near 1500 RPM
4. Cutting power to kill wheel hop in the winter (not a problem with my last set of tires, but my current ones kinda suck in winter)
5. Cutting power to kill wheelspin, perhaps while knowingly coasting across a patch of ice, or to end oversteer before it turns into a full spin (traction control is a stand-in for this, not the other way around)
6. Bump-starting my car during the months my battery randomly died (fixed this, but I never worry about accidentally leaving the lights on for a few hours either)

My clutch serves as an easy fix for a nearly-impossible-to-diagnose engine problem (we've tried), a drivetrain-lash arrester, and a substitute for a set of jumper cables (plus another car to provide a jump). What can your automatic do?

It sounds like you really enjoy two things, driving, and operating a manual transmission. I prefer driving. If I wanted to operate a manual transmission, I'd have one in my house that I could play with when I got bored. You don't have to be driving to move a lever back and forth. You can do that anywhere.

I own a G25 and use it to play Live for Speed (best clutch and H-shifter simulation I've found), and I certainly have experience rowing the shifter in my car while stationary. Not even close to the same; the clutch and shifter are used in LFS because it's as close as it gets. This argument is flawed.

Operating a transmission is not driving - it's operating a transmission.

Operating a clutch/shifter and pulling off a heel-toe downshift has no less to do with driving than operating a steering wheel and smoothly swerving around a deer, or operating a brake pedal and pulling off a smooth emergency stop.

Sure, a computer can rev-match downshift for you RIGHT NOW. It can also swerve around an obstacle for you RIGHT NOW or brake to avoid that unexpected car for you RIGHT NOW (see Mercedes-Benz's recent efforts in automated car safety). But does that mean there's no point in bothering with that stuff ourselves? Where do you think we should draw the line between cars as we know them now, and the "cars that drive themselves" of the fantasized, dystopian (IMO) future? What aspects of driving do automotive enthusiasts deserve to keep as a part of the fun (ignoring unyielding industry trends)?

As I understand it, you don't believe shifting/using a clutch should matter to anyone. I know people like to "har, har" at manual transmission purists by pointing out how people used to cling to synchro-less transmissions, but we're honestly talking about a much greater difference in control, with applications extending beyond the simple act of shifting. I believe manufacturers found a "sweet spot" in control vs convenience when they came up with the modern synchro'd manual transmission, and its oft-cited age only serves to illustrate the point.

Why should everyone abandon it when its only major flaw is a subjective perception of inconvenience among a subset of the population served perfectly well by other options?

 

[Danoff]

Gearchanges are phenomenally dangerous. What any gearchange does is suddenly remove drive from your car and suddenly reapply it - in fact the amount of time spent without drive is irrelevant (with one exception), so the speed of the change itself isn't important, rather that drive is suddenly diminished and repplied. Just watch the occupants of a car driven by someone who can't drive stick properly lurch about with each change - which, on the face of it, seems an argument against the manual 'box, but it's an exaggerated example of the forces at play. Gearchanges - even seemingly perfect rev-matched DCT changes - unbalance cars significantly and you should seek to minimise them at all times (especially while cornering). This is the issue with flappies - you can't block shift and block shifts have important safety aspects.

What's the primary concern here? Throttle-lift oversteer? Why do you need to get on the gas in the middle of a turn for safety? I realize that there might be a boulder following behind you going around a bend and that you need to get through quickly to avoid getting run over, but in terms of successfully surviving a turn you entered too-hot into, the main time I can see staying on the gas being a requirement is to avoid throttle-lift oversteer. I just want to be clear on what the condition is that you're concerned about.

It seems to be a cultural difference. I wouldn't say that everyone over here is perfection with a clutch, but the massive difference in relative proliferation means that people here are more familiar with manuals and have a pretty high success rate with manual gearchanges. I wish the stuff I've written above was taught as standard rather than Roadcraft, but generally we seem pretty good with them.

I doubt this is the issue. I'd guess that I'm better with a stick than 99% of all Americans who drive stick. Only a small percentage of them ever even attempt heel toe, and then only a small percentage of them can do it on a regular basis. I'm probably better than your average European driver with a stick. Keep in mind I learned to drive on a stick in a car that couldn't idle, so every time I put the car in neutral to downshift under braking I had to hit all three pedals to keep the engine from dying, or do a rolling start if I didn't manage it.

I wasn't saying that I'm likely to flub gear changes. I was saying that it's unlikely to need to hop on the accelerator during a turn in just the right gear for safety purposes.

Even today's operating systems can 🤬 themselves over if you give them the wrong command.

This is not a catastrophic failure. It's easy to put a new operating system on a machine and be back up and running. The computer doesn't physically disintegrate because you used it wrong.

Such devices are already competent media outlets as shipped from the factory, and work just fine for most people. However, the possibilities become almost limitless once you perform the modification.

The computer hardware is never at risk. That's my point. You're not ever in danger of turning your computer into shrapnel just because you botch your OS partition.

Why does a car have to be old and starting to fail before a manual transmission is justified? I imagine a DSG would have a harder time reaching that point in a car's life in the first place.

Agreed. But that's because it's relatively new.

Do you advocate a shift toward cars that are more "disposable" for the sake of what amounts to a technological convenience?

You're going to get better performance out of the latest technology. A bicycle is less likely to break down and simpler to fix than a car is.

The control. It's that simple.

For what....

Automatic transmission cars "creep." With no input at all, they'll automatically apply power to the wheels and roll forward; as I said in my last post, it's strenuous and highly annoying to have to "hold back" an automatic car while stopped in "D."

Give me a break. Do you live only in places where it's flat? You have to hold back your car with the brake in a stick too, because it'll roll down the hill.

Most automatic cars (due to torque converter slip or whatever reason) hardly slow down in normal driving conditions unless you apply the brakes. Brake lights only offer "on/off," so you can't make minor adjustments to speed without giving the driver behind you the same exact signal (for a split second) as an emergency stop.

My RSX would go farther faster in neutral than my hond accord will go in D. I make speed adjustments in my automatic all the time without using my brakes. It's not particularly tricky. Granted, my manual would slow harder with my foot off-the-gas-but-in-gear than my accord will, but neutral is not the key there.

Traffic often backs up on busy freeways for exactly this reason[/URL] -- jams caused by cascades of unnecessary brake lights.

This is caused by bad drivers, not a bad interface. I see people braking unnecessarily all the time. These days I primarily drive a full auto and I probably brake only a fraction as much as the people around me. This is not a limitation of the transmission as much as it is bad driving.

And if you want to rant about unnecessary lights creating traffic jams, how about everyone's automatic lights coming on when they go under an overpass. I've come up to many an overpass in the middle of the day where suddenly all of the traffic in front of me is lighting up their tail lights. I recognize that it's because their automatic lights are powering up for 2 seconds just to turn off again and the tail lights come on with them. But many of the drivers around me don't. I consider this to be a legitimate problem with a technological "advance".

When behind the wheel of an automatic transmission car, it irritates me to have no choice but contribute to this problem. You might say that it's more dangerous to slow down in front of people without illuminating your brake lights, and in this age of increasingly distracted drivers, that's probably true. But at least a manual transmission provides the option to do it.

I do it all the time in my auto. Not sure what the issue is.

Furthermore, on an older car such as mine, similar to what you said about "poor" people (like me I guess), it would be inconvenient (or perhaps impossible) to drive in everyday situations if it had an automatic. A few of the workarounds I live with, thanks to the manual transmission:

1. Coaxing the dysfunctional idle (which bounces incessantly if unattended) into a steady RPM by applying slight throttle input anytime I need to, without accelerating or having to shift into neutral
2. Launching the car slowly and smoothly despite the unstable idle
3. Cutting power to prevent the violent bucking the idle can cause when putting around in-gear near 1500 RPM
4. Cutting power to kill wheel hop in the winter (not a problem with my last set of tires, but my current ones kinda suck in winter)
5. Cutting power to kill wheelspin, perhaps while knowingly coasting across a patch of ice, or to end oversteer before it turns into a full spin (traction control is a stand-in for this, not the other way around)
6. Bump-starting my car during the months my battery randomly died (fixed this, but I never worry about accidentally leaving the lights on for a few hours either)

My clutch serves as an easy fix for a nearly-impossible-to-diagnose engine problem (we've tried), a drivetrain-lash arrester, and a substitute for a set of jumper cables (plus another car to provide a jump). What can your automatic do?

See my example of my first car above. The carburetor was a piece of junk. If I entered a turn under braking and took it out of gear, the car would die. Now, in an automatic, I don't know if that would have even been a problem. But I'm willing to assume that it would have been, and that it would have required a repair that my crappy car didn't have to have because I could just mash all three pedals to keep the car alive.

You're totally right, my clutch fixed the problem - and so my depleted bank account didn't have to suffer. It was also much more dangerous for me to drive that way.

I own a G25 and use it to play Live for Speed (best clutch and H-shifter simulation I've found), and I certainly have experience rowing the shifter in my car while stationary. Not even close to the same; the clutch and shifter are used in LFS because it's as close as it gets. This argument is flawed.

I'm apparently not communicating very well because you're missing the point. My point is that you're trained at doing a dance that you don't need to do. You're good at it, so you want to keep doing it - but don't pretend that this dance hold some sort of meaning.

Operating a clutch/shifter and pulling off a heel-toe downshift has no less to do with driving than operating a steering wheel and smoothly swerving around a deer, or operating a brake pedal and pulling off a smooth emergency stop.

Wrong. Totally absolutely wrong. Driving is about accelerating (or not accelerating) your car. Making it go forward, backward, hold velocity, change direction, hold direction, etc. Pulling off a heel-toe downshift is no more a part of driving than making sure your tires are inflated. It's a manipulation of a mechanical component of the device you're using to drive. Steering is also not fundamental to driving, nor is mashing a brake or accelerator pedal. These are manipulations of mechanical components for the purpose of driving. If the steering wheel were replaced with a mind-control device that articulated the direction of your front wheels, I'd be saying the exact same thing to the purists who wanted to use their hands to manipulate the steering wheel. The point is this - operating the mechanical device you're sitting in is not driving. Driving is dictating the acceleration of your car. You've waxed poetic about how you'd like to have your car accelerate using one pedal instead of another, or how you'd like to control whether a light on your car comes on when you accelerate in a certain way, but the bottom line is that the capability of controlling the acceleration of your car is what defines driving. This is why I take Famine's argument more seriously than I do the argument about enjoying moving a lever back and forth. Because moving your lever back and forth isn't really driving. You've just made that association in your mind and can't break it.

 

[YSSMAN]

But a fast upshift from a regular automatic? Hardly.

Well, how are we quantifying "fast" these days? Ferrari sets an awfully high standard with their new twin-clutch gearboxes, as well as Porsche's PDK setup, and so on. But, we shouldn't act like the new Jaguar/ZF box isn't quick (I seem to remember reading that it was nearly as quick as the old single-clutch Ferrari F1 box), or that the GM 6L90E isn't effective either. They are not a replacement for a dual-clutch or full out manual gearbox, but they are well designed pieces of engineering that are surprisingly good as far as automatic gearboxes go these days.

 

[Keef]

The word "man" is in "manual" for a reason.

/thread

 

[Kryz11]

The word "man" is in "manual" for a reason.

/thread

Oh god...

 

[Kylehnat]

What's the primary concern here? Throttle-lift oversteer? Why do you need to get on the gas in the middle of a turn for safety?

As he said, bad, ill-timed gear changes unsettle the car...sometimes irrecoverably. At the track, or even in spirited street driving, a bad downshift during braking can send the back end around. Upshifting in the middle of a corner can also induce that pesky lift-off oversteer. In these situations, yes, a DSG that never shifts on its own is more consistent, and thus, a safer bet. But, pulling this scenario back to the street...If I'm going around a medium-speed corner, a full autobox will want to downshift as I go back to the throttle at the apex. I don't want another gear--I just want the throttle to open. As I start to understeer because of this, I have no choice but to lift. Now the car downshifts, changing the weight-distribution again and taking away some engine braking. It's possible (and I have done it) to lose control of a car simply because the transmission won't stay put. Yes, you can learn how sensitive a transmission is to throttle inputs, but this varies car-to-car, and in my opinion, the gas pedal is only for opening and closing the throttle body, not controlling the transmission.

Now, as for DSGs, they may be more consistent than me, but they do not have the benefit of my five senses. When you call for a shift, it does it without asking why. With a traditional stick, if I sense that I've made some other driving error, I can abandon my gear change, even in the middle of it, and make an adjustment (keep the clutch in, re-engage the same gear, etc). The DSG can't be interrupted, and the re-engaging of another gear may be just enough of a hiccup to twitch the car off the road.

 

[Eric.]

Well, how are we quantifying "fast" these days? Ferrari sets an awfully high standard with their new twin-clutch gearboxes, as well as Porsche's PDK setup, and so on. But, we shouldn't act like the new Jaguar/ZF box isn't quick (I seem to remember reading that it was nearly as quick as the old single-clutch Ferrari F1 box), or that the GM 6L90E isn't effective either. They are not a replacement for a dual-clutch or full out manual gearbox, but they are well designed pieces of engineering that are surprisingly good as far as automatic gearboxes go these days.

I've never been in a torque-converter automatic car that seems to hammer off upshifts as far as I can in my car. They usually have that kind of drag as if you just lightly released the clutch pedal in a manual to bring the revs down.

Granted I haven't driven any high-performance automatics in some time. Last one would be an LS2 GTO, but I didn't drive it hard.

 

[Perfect Balance]

I'd like to know what Danoff considers "driving".

I'd also like to know how one is able to enjoy this "driving", if it doesn't involve enjoying physically controlling the vehicle.

Which, IMO, if you're not controlling the vehicle, then you're simply riding, and that's not driving at all.

 

[Eric.]

It sounds like it should involve a car with just steering and two pedals. Not a throttle and a brake, but rather pedals that control sensors that tell the car to "increase speed" and "decrease speed". If the computer happens to decide that to "increase speed" it has to open the throttle more, then so be it. However, having an archaic pedal like we do today to control a butterfly valve in a throttle body has nothing to do with driving and should not be the way acceleration is handled.

Just what I'm getting out of it. I think you can get creative on slowing a car down too.

 

[Danoff]

I'd like to know what Danoff considers "driving".

I'd also like to know how one is able to enjoy this "driving", if it doesn't involve enjoying physically controlling the vehicle.

Which, IMO, if you're not controlling the vehicle, then you're simply riding, and that's not driving at all.

Driving is in your head. It's the decisions you make to accelerate your car - you deciding to speed up, slow down, turn left, etc. In order to make those decisions come to life, you operate the vehicle. Manipulating the control surfaces is operation. Being physically present in the car while it's coursing through the road is riding. When you get in your car and go to work, you're doing all three.

Now, you can ride without driving. You can ride without operating. You can operate without driving (my driver's ed instructor did this to me). You could operate without riding (Mythbusters does this). You can drive without riding, and in theory you can drive without operating.

If you're struggling with this concept, ask yourself if this guy is driving the boat.

He's not operating all of the control surfaces, some of them the captain orders the crew to perform. He has a completely different set of control surfaces than you do in your car. He doesn't have a manual gearbox, or any gears at all. And yet, he's still driving (he's also riding).

Here's another driver:

Again, not the same set of controls. Here he's the operator and the driver, but not a rider.

When you drive a motorboat, you don't say that you're not really driving unless you have a clutch.

The DSG can't be interrupted, and the re-engaging of another gear may be just enough of a hiccup to twitch the car off the road.

That's because you can't react in the time it's switching gears.

 

[Eric.]

Capt. Sparrow is merely steering the boat and that's not even a correct analogy. It takes one person to operate a car.


Do you fly a plane when you only operate the rudder?

 

[Wolfe]

Give me a break. Do you live only in places where it's flat? You have to hold back your car with the brake in a stick too, because it'll roll down the hill.

No one has a choice about gravity. I do have a choice of whether to put up with a car that second-guesses what I ask it to do.

This is caused by bad drivers, not a bad interface. This is not a limitation of the transmission...

It's not always a limitation (some automatics seem to coast forever, and few can engine brake enough for tight traffic), but the transmission provides encouragement for a bad habit.

I'm apparently not communicating very well because you're missing the point. My point is that you're trained at doing a dance that you don't need to do. You're good at it, so you want to keep doing it - but don't pretend that this dance hold some sort of meaning.

The meaning of it is the satisfaction derived from driving smoothly/efficiently and taking advantage of the additional control. The end result is very similar to flipping a flappy paddle, tugging a +/- stick, or doing a different sort of dance with the accelerator pedal to get a traditional slushbox to wake up, but the process is not at all the same.

With the automated gearboxes, you have to "communicate" with the transmission to get the response you're looking for. With a manual transmission, you direct the transmission yourself.

As you say...

Driving is about accelerating (or not accelerating) your car. Making it go forward, backward, hold velocity, change direction, hold direction, etc.

Driving is dictating the acceleration of your car.

...and I agree completely. To that I would add, the more complete control you have over the vehicle you're "driving," more precise and flexible you can be in any situation.

It's like the difference between a standard bicycle, and a fancy electric one where you spin a generator that powers a motor on the rear wheel as you pedal. Both allow you to accomplish the task of "driving," as defined -- making it go forward, hold velocity, change direction, etc. -- but the electric bike doesn't really care how exactly you pedal. It just takes pedalling as a suggestion to move. On the standard bicycle, the nature of acceleration and speed control is a direct reflection of your input and effort.

A fixie offers even more control than the standard bicycle, enabling maneuvers and tricks that are impossible on a multi-speed. A manual transmission offers much the same sort of driveline control as the fixie, but without the drawback of only a single gear.

This is why I take Famine's argument more seriously than I do the argument about enjoying moving a lever back and forth. Because moving your lever back and forth isn't really driving. You've just made that association in your mind and can't break it.

It doesn't matter whether you agree "moving a lever back and forth" is enjoyable. The joy is secondary to the satisfaction in the control of the car. And the control is what sets the manual transmission apart from the automated types.

Who here doesn't have an association in their mind regarding what "driving" means? If there was only one acceptable definition, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

[Famine]

What's the primary concern here? Throttle-lift oversteer? Why do you need to get on the gas in the middle of a turn for safety?

You don't.

The reason you shift down into (chosen lower gear) is because it gives you better fine control of your speed and because it shortens your stopping distance should you need it.

I doubt this is the issue. I'd guess that I'm better with a stick than 99% of all Americans who drive stick. Only a small percentage of them ever even attempt heel toe, and then only a small percentage of them can do it on a regular basis. I'm probably better than your average European driver with a stick. Keep in mind I learned to drive on a stick in a car that couldn't idle, so every time I put the car in neutral to downshift under braking I had to hit all three pedals to keep the engine from dying, or do a rolling start if I didn't manage it.

I wasn't saying that I'm likely to flub gear changes. I was saying that it's unlikely to need to hop on the accelerator during a turn in just the right gear for safety purposes.

You don't need to heel-toe on a public road - in fact I'd probably even say you shouldn't do it (and I'll add that I can't do it at all in the BMW because of the bloody floor-mounted accelerator - and that I don't necessarily always eschew what I shouldn't do... ). I wouldn't take heel-toeing as an indicator of effective gearbox use, more effective pedal use.

 

[homeforsummer]

Well, quite. The synchromesh effectively negated the requirement to heel/toe and double de-clutch, although the former is obviously something that can still be useful in certain situations.

Can't remember who mentioned it before, but I'd agree in saying that the modern manual synchromesh transmission is just about the right compromise between having control and not being required to do too much of the gear-shifting process yourself.

 

[Danoff]

No one has a choice about gravity.

But the bottom line is that you're holding your car back at the stop light just like the guy in the auto next to you.

The meaning of it is the satisfaction derived from driving smoothly/efficiently and taking advantage of the additional control.

I'm fine with that, just so long as the additional control is actually a useful advantage. If this conversation were limited to a manual transmission vs. a nominal automatic, I'd concede the point that you have more control with the manual and move on to other more subjective points. But the addition of a DSG throws a monkey wrench into the conversation.

...and I agree completely. To that I would add, the more complete control you have over the vehicle you're "driving," more precise and flexible you can be in any situation.

No argument in a generic sense. Although I will point out that you can have additional control without added flexibility - and especially without added useful flexibility.

You don't.

The reason you shift down into (chosen lower gear) is because it gives you better fine control of your speed and because it shortens your stopping distance should you need it.

The fine control over speed argument I'm not sure I agree with. It gives you greater control over your speed - access to accelerations that you couldn't get with a higher gear. But as you say, you don't need that for safety.

The other argument I don't understand at all, why does it shorten your stopping distance? (please don't say it's because of engine braking) If you're assuming a rear wheel drive car, are you trying to suggest that being able to engine brake on the rear wheels without applying brakes to the front wheels is the advantage? Again, just trying to get at the crux of the issue.

 

[Famine]

The fine control over speed argument I'm not sure I agree with. It gives you greater control over your speed - access to accelerations that you couldn't get with a higher gear. But as you say, you don't need that for safety.

Well... there are situations where accelerating in a lower gear is a safer option, but we don't really need to go over them. They're in the realms of advanced driving that not only doesn't seem obvious when you say it but don't actually make that much sense*. Besides which, if you need to accelerate to avoid a hazard you were doing something wrong in the first place.

However, lower gears do give you finer speed control. A unit of pedal travel (let's call it a "Decipedal") in a gear that covers 10-140mph may correspond to a gain or loss of 10mph, but the same decipedal in a gear that covers 0-85mph will correspond to a gain or loss of 5mph. It's the loss that's important in the unassessable corner example - the lower gear gives you access to smaller increases and decreases in speed at a higher rate.

The other argument I don't understand at all, why does it shorten your stopping distance? (please don't say it's because of engine braking) If you're assuming a rear wheel drive car, are you trying to suggest that being able to engine brake on the rear wheels without applying brakes to the front wheels is the advantage? Again, just trying to get at the crux of the issue.

Engine braking plays a role, certainly. In the n time it takes you to leap off the gas and apply enough pressure to the brake pedal to bring the pads into contact with the discs (screw drums), the flywheel will have dissipated the stored energy and the car will have started to decelerate in third gear, but not in fifth - and it will decelerate more in third than in fifth (for exactly the same reasons that you can accelerate harder in third than in fifth). The other advantage to it is at the bottom end, where in fifth the car will reach a stall speed much sooner than in third (many cars can actually set off from rest in third, so it may not reach a stall speed at all). You'll have to press the clutch, disconnecting the engine from the drivetrain and losing engine braking and run the risk of locking the freewheeling wheels all at a far higher speed in fifth than in third. The bulk of the deceleration phase - pad on disc - is unchanged.

I'll be the first to say that the difference is pretty small, but not hitting something by to two inches is a lot better than hitting it by six.

All of this is freely testable (though be careful of brake fade, which can skew the results) and is taught in advanced driving.


*One of them is that, on a three-lane motorway, you should never use lane 3 to overtake a vehicle that is using lane 2 to overtake a vehicle in lane 1 - always wait until the vehicle in lane 2 has completed the overtake. Basically never make a line of n lanes of vehicles abreast of one another. That one takes a lot of explaining.

 

[Danoff]

However, lower gears do give you finer speed control. A unit of pedal travel (let's call it a "Decipedal") in a gear that covers 10-140mph may correspond to a gain or loss of 10mph, but the same decipedal in a gear that covers 0-85mph will correspond to a gain or loss of 5mph. It's the loss that's important in the unassessable corner example - the lower gear gives you access to smaller increases and decreases in speed at a higher rate.

Seems like it would be the opposite to me. You have greater horsepower at higher RPM, since your throttle is controlling the flow of fuel, you'll get a greater acceleration per decipedal when operating at higher RPM. I think the higher gear gives you finer control over the acceleration while eliminating the highest accelerations that you can achieve.

Engine braking plays a role, certainly. In the n time it takes you to leap off the gas and apply enough pressure to the brake pedal to bring the pads into contact with the discs (screw drums), the flywheel will have dissipated the stored energy and the car will have started to decelerate in third gear, but not in fifth - and it will decelerate more in third than in fifth (for exactly the same reasons that you can accelerate harder in third than in fifth). The other advantage to it is at the bottom end, where in fifth the car will reach a stall speed much sooner than in third (many cars can actually set off from rest in third, so it may not reach a stall speed at all). You'll have to press the clutch, disconnecting the engine from the drivetrain and losing engine braking and run the risk of locking the freewheeling wheels all at a far higher speed in fifth than in third. The bulk of the deceleration phase - pad on disc - is unchanged.[/size]

But wouldn't the safest approach of all to simply be ready for left foot braking - which is accommodated by either transmission?

So let's look at the scenario here:

You're entering a turn slightly too fast, with low visibility and want to be prepared to brake as early as possible in case there is an obstruction around the bend. You figure this out late in the game so in the manual you're able to shift from 5th to 2nd in time for the turn, whereas in the DSG you're only able to get from 5th to 4th. During the turn you find that there is an obstruction, so you take your foot off of the accelerator and hit the brakes. In the manual you have 2nd gear engine braking for that fraction of a second, while in the DSG you have 4th gear engine braking for that fraction of a second. 2nd gear engine braking > 4th gear engine braking, therefore the manual is that much safer than the DSG.

Here's my question. This is a daily-driving scenario. You entered into a turn too hot and have low visibility - why is your foot on the accelerator? Isn't it safer to be ready to brake as you bleed off excess speed during the turn, or even just braking?

 

[Keef]

Seems like it would be the opposite to me. You have greater horsepower at higher RPM, since your throttle is controlling the flow of fuel, you'll get a greater acceleration per decipedal when operating at higher RPM. I think the higher gear gives you finer control over the acceleration while eliminating the highest accelerations that you can achieve.

Lower gears do. Lower gears have higher ratios and that means the engine's max acceleration and deceleration are greater. Lower gears allow you much finer control of the throttle in a corner, for example, where you can use the throttle to control the car's attitude. Drifting is a great example of precise throttle control. And it doesn't work in fifth gear. At that low a ratio you can't use the throttle for control because it doesn't have a strong enough affect on the car's weight.

It is also true that lower gears are sometimes too sensitive to be precise. Ever tried to drift in 1st gear? Just as impossible as fifth. Your best results happen in 2nd and 3rd depending on your speed and how powerful your car is.

 

[Danoff]

Lower gears do. Lower gears have higher ratios and that means the engine's max acceleration and deceleration are greater. Lower gears allow you much finer control of the throttle in a corner, for example, where you can use the throttle to control the car's attitude. Drifting is a great example of precise throttle control. And it doesn't work in fifth gear. At that low a ratio you can't use the throttle for control because it doesn't have a strong enough affect on the car's weight.

It is also true that lower gears are sometimes too sensitive to be precise. Ever tried to drift in 1st gear? Just as impossible as fifth. Your best results happen in 2nd and 3rd depending on your speed and how powerful your car is.

My point exactly. 👍

 

[AlexGTV]

Wow to the walls of text. I suppose when (and if) we all drive autos there won't be much to talk about. It would be like "My engine revved constantly at the same level all along. Again."

 

[Perfect Balance]

Driving is in your head. It's the decisions you make to accelerate your car - you deciding to speed up, slow down, turn left, etc. In order to make those decisions come to life, you operate the vehicle. Manipulating the control surfaces is operation. Being physically present in the car while it's coursing through the road is riding. When you get in your car and go to work, you're doing all three.

I don't really understand if you would get any kind of satisfaction, or if it would be at all possible to drive a car at the limit of adhesion without getting any kind of physical feedback normally felt through the steering wheel, pedals and the seat of your pants, which is normally how you receive information about what the car is doing.

My enjoyment from driving comes from getting the most out of a vehicle, taking a turn as quickly as possible, for example. It's fun for me because of the feeling I get through the the car itself, you can feel it struggling to maintain grip as you fine tune the controls, including the gearbox. It's fun because of the physical aspect of it. You feel like you've gotten absolutely everything it's got to give. With an auto box, every time after that kind of situation, you drive away from the corner knowing you would have been able to take it quicker, had you been able to to have the more precise control a manual box offers.

This is also what defines a good "drivers car". It's not how quickly you can take a corner, it's simply how good it feels, physically, to drive. Without this aspect, I don't think I could enjoy driving the car. It's not fun to drive a boat-like Buick for that reason, it just soaks up everything that makes driving fun and you're left with spinning a circular object around and moving your foot around, with nothing to let you know you're moving except for what's out the windows, which may as well be television screens that depict a scene from a moving object.

If you aren't one that likes driving for the physical aspect of controlling a car, then you probably aren't able to extract the benefits of a manual transmission, therefore making this whole discussion kind of unrelated.

I think someone already said in this thread, but it's kind of a thing where if you don't already understand it, then you won't understand it. It was really difficult coming up with a way to describe why I enjoy driving, and I still feel the description sucks, but I can't think of a better way to put it.

 

[eiriksmil]

I floor it and shift at the redline, I'm happy. I downshift and revmatch and floor it, I'm happy. I do it myself, no one does it for me. Also, I can 'drive to the grocery' as Danoff puts it and shift like a sane person. I can also be happy whenever I want to

The joys of a manual transmission for dummies

Also, as Perfect Balance points out, while a machine does something faster than you can, there's no passion in it..

 

[kingcars]

You guys can argue till youre blue in the face about how all these different types of transmissions are technologically superior to true manuals and all that crap. The fact of the matter is that they will NEVER recreate the experience of driving a car with a true manual. I gladly dumped the slushbox automatic out of my V8 Tbird in exchange for a 5 speed and a clutch pedal. The Thunderbird Turbo Coupe I just bought is a 5 speed as well because there's no way I was going to buy an auto version. Every time I'm stuck driving an automatic, I wanna gouge my eyes out from the boredom.

My two Tbirds also don't have cupholders. And very seldom do I use my cell phone while driving them. For me, it's all about the driving experience. So what if I lose 2 thousandths of a second for every shift - I'm going to have infinitely more fun than the guy running laps 2 tenths faster than me with a flappy paddle gearbox. Even if I were in the market for a high end sports car/exotic, I'd completely ignore any car without a true manual.

 

[YSSMAN]

I've never been in a torque-converter automatic car that seems to hammer off upshifts as far as I can in my car. They usually have that kind of drag as if you just lightly released the clutch pedal in a manual to bring the revs down.

Granted I haven't driven any high-performance automatics in some time. Last one would be an LS2 GTO, but I didn't drive it hard.

I've been in some older GM vehicles that shift up/down pretty hard and fast, but that depends on how well it has been setup. Some kids they make for the old Turbo 400 will make that thing snap pretty hard, enough to surprise me.

 

[Danoff]

The fact of the matter is that they will NEVER recreate the experience of driving a car with a true manual.

...and you've decided that nothing else is acceptable. I personally find driving with a DSG to be a much more enjoyable and pure driving experience. Instead of dancing around trying to finesse a gear change with my whole body, it happens in the blink of an eye with a twitch of my finger. I think it, and it happens. It's precision, instant, even digital.

But then, this is why I don't like Apple computers. Everything is supposed to be organic. You're supposed to see things moving, blinking, shrinking, expanding, scrolling. I prefer for things to appear and disappear the instant I indicate that it should. Perhaps I'm a product of the digital age, but to me, the manual gearbox is an unnecessary and unwelcome interface. It's a ramp instead of a step function. It's an art rather than a science (and not the art I'm interested in). It's an organic version of something that should be digital.