Nope, heel-toe can be beneficial on the road. It puts less stress on the entire drive line of the vehicle, and can even extend the life of components like the clutch. It also enhances smoothness and comfort for passengers or if you, say, deliver tofu up Akina pass in your AE 86 Corolla. Long term autos are cheaper. My Mustang is about 5,000 miles past due for a clutch, and to have a shop do it (if you aren't mechanically inclined) it can be anywhere from $500 to $2000 depending on the vehicle. My friend just had the clutch in his MX-5 done and it was $500, where as I've been quoted $1,600 for a shop to do the one in my car. However, if you are mechanically inclined (like I sort of am) it can be a lot cheaper. I can have a Chinese replacement clutch and flywheel in my car for as little as $250. However, manual cars in the U.S. are usually MUCH cheaper to buy, they get better gas mileage on average, and if you blow the transmission up, they're cheaper to replace than autos.
Depends on the Auto really, some cars can have finicky auto's that like to break (eg: Honda civic auto's in the early 00's). As robin posted later on Manual transmissions get better gas mileage than anything but a dsg automatic, which is technically an automatically shifted manual; If you count gas mileage, manuals are cheaper to own long term, plus if you drive smoothly a clutch will last a long time. I just got my clutch replaced that had about the equivalent of about 90k-ish miles on it (147k km) and the clutch was only about 50% worn, though it should be mentioned a good portion of that was highway kilometers. A friend has a 240k km Toyota Matrix with the original clutch, though it will probably need a replacement soon since it has begun to slip. As with any car, if you can do your own repairs things get exponentially cheaper, especially with things like clutches, as labor in most repairs makes up the bulk of any payment. If you respect your components (aka drive smoothly, rev match on downshifting as robin mentioned, etc) things last a long time and generally speaking manuals tend to outlast automatics in the used car market, especially if you live in the US; Automatics run a risk of being owned by people who see their car as an appliance, often neglecting maintenance that will become costly down the road.
Just to clarify, heel-toe is when you granny shift while braking right? Or do you just mean just normal granny shifting(clutch out, neutral clutch in, blip, cluch out, downshift, clutch in)? As for being mechanically inclined I am not in the slightest, I mean I could list various components of a car and describe how they all work, but when it comes to actually working on a car the most I've done is replace the rear wiper once. Another problem I'd have when it comes to manual transmissions is just that it's so hard to find a car with one from post 1996 and most of the ones you do find are normally small japanese FWD economy cars, muscle cars, sports cars, european cars, and a few pickups. No cheapish "luxury" cars where the only luxury parts are soft suspension and comfortable seats. more editing: The final problem I'd have with getting a car with a manual transmission is that the owner have been more likely to have driven it somewhat hard sometimes which could probably lead to issues.
Hardest part about learning a manual is taking off smoothly by keeping the RPM's steady and being smmoth on the clutch release so it doesn't shudder, stall or jerk forwards. For me it was easy to learn as I basically had to or i would miss out on racing on a track and doing all of the activities where we learnt racing techniques and some racecraft.
It's fun to see people complaining about not finding cars with manual Gear box. Here we don't even know what an "Automatic gearbox". Basically all cars, low end or high end have manual gearbox. I have seriously never saw one.
dunno if its true because you cant feel g force through BeamNG, but i can revmatch pretty much any of the manuals in this game, another sign that i should play another game sometimes i mismatch the gears but its never more than around 100rpm difference.
Same here. Usually I only see automatics on high-end mercedes and newer luxury/sports cars. Despite that a good ammount of new BMWs/Mercedes/Audi etc. still come with manual transmissions.
I'd love to live where the auto is a rare sight. I invite you all to come to new York City and experience what it's like first hand to contend with so many drivers that just don't have what it takes to drive. I honestly believe if you had to pass your license test on a manual car, HALF the drivers in the city would be taking the train. I don't want to aim my disdain at any ethnic group in particular, but when you live in THE city of immigrants, you get a lot of people who moved here and never drove, and now are driving every day in the most demanding and aggressive traffic on the east coast. it is fun tho. If someone wants to pull my Trans and do a clutch job for 500 I'd probably let them. here its going to cost at least a grand. this brilliant Indian guy owns a gas station/repair shop near me and he's always so entertained by the state of my car. whenever I'm about to do a job myself I get a quote from him to make me feel better. 1k for a clutch job, and 450 to install suspension I supplied. Heel and toe is absolutely a performance thing that doesn't need to be done in every day driving. you can blip and change down first than brake. feels good tho.
I've been looking into electric cars ever since I tried the electric bolide by @AdamB and holy damn it's much simpler than I imagined. This guy converted his pickup truck to electric with a motor from a forklift, and a few batteries. Much less maintenance, and you got that instant torque. Actually, I'd love to take an old toyota like this and drop in an electric drivetrain.
Just wondering, if autos are cheaper(and definitely easier) to maintain, why are manual transmissions still so popular in other countries?
Actually here, the really rare cars which have the option for an Automatic gear box aren't cheaper. Manual gears boxs allow you to have a better control over your car, give more perfomence and it's more fun to drive. But you can also save fuel.
No, I meant cheaper long term, not for initial purchase, and the fuel savings seem like they would be minuscule and would require the driver to know how to drive at maximum efficiency.
Yup, it's downshifting while braking. Some BMW's can be found with manual transmissions here. Unfortunately, what you want will be impossible to find. My Mustang started out in life as an Enterprise rent-a-car, then it saw another 3 owners after that. I can say that I've yet to have a major problem with the car.
A single mpg can save around a hundred dollars a year, assuming you drive a decent amount. as for driving at maximum efficiency In my experience it has been that in the automatic you are forced to feather the gas to get anywhere near the posted city mpg ratings, whereas a manual, as long as you are not regularly achieving high revs on acceleration your mpg will be near the manufactures values. Most automatics use a torque converter system, which is really a turbine type device spinning in a case of oil which creates a loss of efficiency as a decent amount of power initially goes into spinning the oil, hence the slushy feel they provide, and hence the term "slushbox". The one exception to the rule is a DSG automatic, which is an automatically operated manual transmission with a dry clutch system, plus those often let you set your own gears so they can be as good as a manual in terms of efficiency. Note that older automatics are much worse in terms of efficiency, newer systems are better.
You have a point. automatic transmissions have come further than any other drive train component has in the last 30 years. back in the day you could expect 20 percent better fuel economy from a manual but those days are most certainly over. the flip side is that auto Trans will ALWAYS aggressively shift up when you don't need the power. around town I do the same but once in a while I don't. cruising in at 20mph in 5th is normal but when you have 4 other gears you to pick at that speed there will always be....."indiscretions" When porsche announced that the 991 gt3 would NOT be available with a manual 2 things happened. first off the price of uses 997 gt3s jumped 20k dollars in 1 day. the other is BMW proclaimed they would ALWAYS offer a manual transmission as on option forever. What he said.
It isn't slow, I think most newer small cars have 0-60s in the high 7s at least, but it feels unsafe to me. My accord had a 0-60 of 7.5 when it was brand new IIRC so it's probably a bit slower now, but merging into traffic can feel really unsafe. I misjudged distance the other day and it simply didn't have the power to get to 55mph so the guy I (accidentally) cut off had to slam on his brakes. And my foot was on the floor the entire time, it just wasn't enough. In a newer car I think high 6s would be about as high as I would like, and if I can find a car that pushes 5.5 I'll be really happy. That's just for fun though.
No offense, but I think it's partially operator error at play there. I never have any trouble whatsoever merging in a vic, which is ~8s 0-60. I can only remember one specific time where I had trouble merging in the truck, which is 10 or 11 or something seconds to 60, at a particularly tedious uphill interstate on ramp. It wasn't close at all, though. I found a gap.
well dishwasher me was tired of not having heating in the expedition, decided i'd look into seeing what's wrong, checked the hoses going to the heater core, both are hot to the touch, meaning the problem is most likely the blend door actuator or the blend door itself, which on the expedition requires taking apart the center console to get to, so guess i'll be stuck with no heat for quite a while
I drive my mom's car atm (i just go my licence and im looking for a car) and it does 10.5 s to 60 (yes... its a small european suv so don't expect sports car performance) and it feels really quick... I don't see any reason for a non sport oriented car (e.g a large sedan) have 0-60 times in less than 8
i agree with everyone else, that's not slow at all, sounds more like operator error, my family's 98 expedition has a 0-60 of about 9-10 seconds and i've never had a problem getting up to speed in time, and i don't even floor it so i'm probably taking longer then those 9-10 seconds
