In another sure sign of the apocalypse, Heard this on the wireless on the way to work this am.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/30774...th-manual-transmissions-in-the-us-report

Last quarter, EVs such as Teslas, Nissan Leafs, Chevy Bolts, and others accounted for 1.9 percent of all cars sold in the U.S. while vehicles equipped with the stick accounted for just 1.1 percent, which is an all-time low. Jominy points to "the discontinuation of many compact and subcompact sedans where manuals were purchased primarily as a lower cost of entry to a new vehicle," for the manual gearbox's latest decline. As the number of new cars available with a manual continues to dwindle, Jominy warns enthusiasts to get their hands on those manual-equipped sports sedans, track toys, muscle cars, and Jeeps while they still can.

I currently don't have a manual shift car/truck but will when we leave here. I'll admit after having to commute to and around Baltimore/DC/Northern VA for years I went automatic years ago except for the Alfa toy car and that's been gone for 7 but in retirement away from here I'll have another.

The HORROR...

I like a standard, I’ve always owned a jeep, had four in my lifetime. All three of my kids learned to drive the 89 I still own. I bought all three of them new Toyota small trucks for their first vehicles so they know how to drive a standard. There are a lot of people that can’t drive a standard transmission.

I tried to teach my daughter how to drive a manual

I gave up when I saw smoke coming out of the steering wheel.

Sold that car about a month later.

Very hard to find any vehicle with a stick. Even semis now are mostly automated transmissions.

Have had 7 Vettes, the last one not being a stick. It is still more than a little fun to drive. NBD, don’t miss the shifting. Nor do I miss those who have never driven a stick pulling up a couple inches off my back end on a steep hill.

Don’t miss open sights all that much either. Would miss not having computers, even the one on my wrist. Don’t miss arctic buckle boots for hunting or wall phones, or....

Hills and sticks are interesting, mostly flat around Houston.

Ha!! When I was a young driver, I’d stop at a front yard yard to check on old hot rods for sale.

Look in the window...”awwwwe man it’s a goddamm automatic,,,....fuggin grandma car....nevermind”

😃🤣


I drove a 4-speed dodge power wagon to high school. Lots of steep hills around here in town. Many downtown traffic lights are on hills. I’d always give the bump kissers a 5ft rollback checkfire. Their eyes would get real big when they’d side a 4ft tube steel bumper eye level with their windshield. 👍

I’ve had four vettes. The last two sticks. They’re a lot more fun. That includes my current 7 speed manual.

I lament the passing of the manual transmission. When I acquired one so equipped (Saab) after having been away from having to use both feet to drive for many years, I was reminded of how much I missed being more interactive with my vehicle. In the process of reacquainting myself I also remembered how much fun I used to have driving for driving's sake. And then a nifty vintage British machine caught my eye last year and I found myself with two cars with clutches to push. My left leg hasn't gotten so much exercise since I won the Ass Kicking Contest in 1996.

Pugs' reference to the locale of our respective abodes does point out my only complaint regarding a clutch-driven car- f*cking interminable traffic jams demanding I travel a half-mile over 20 minutes by riding the clutch. Not every day, but often enough to get my inner road rage percolating. But then the weekend arrives, the sun comes out, and I settle behind the wheel of the MG, and shed the week's cares away by stirring the gearshift on a twisty back road.

My '08 Dodge diesel is a stick. These days, though, there are no pickups from 1/2 ton on up through at least the 1 ton with sticks. The Dodge diesel was the last holdout and now it's gone, too.
We occasionally hear about someone planning to make an electric pickup. If there's even 1 sold, that's more than 0 so the OP would be true.

If you ever decide on a C8 you are going to have less fun.

Last stick I had was a 93 f150 with a 300 straight six

Was my ‘roofing truck’. The stick made that truck, great for pulling trailers full of tear-off, cordwood, lumber.

I love my jeep!!





jin kisaragi wallpaper

I miss my stick shifts. My wife had 2 Dodge Stratus 2 doors with a 5 speed manual. Fun to drive , low to the ground and 39 mpg. with the 4 cal. I wish they made more .

My everyday car (a Toyota), two of my pickups, my dump truck, my fire truck, and my Miata are all stadard transmissions. My 2017 Ram is an automatic because it's all I could find. While there are a lot of things I like about the new pickup, the transmission is not one of them. When I want the truck to be in third gear, I want it to be in third gear NOW; not when the goddam computer decides to put it there. Same thing with the engine brake; when I turn it on, that means I want it to start taking effect now and until I want it to stop. GD

Still have one, 02 Nissan Frontier.

'14 Tacoma here with 6 speed manual......hard to find too......

Just more fun than an auto.....honest 18 mpg average too with 20+ on hwy

I don't miss a stick shift. Any current auto can be run "like" a stick shift anyway, if that's what you want to do. I'll take an auto all day every day.

the sales with both characteristics have been tanking

Thats like saying electric cars are now out selling covered wagons.

I have a 2015 Tacoma with a manual transmission. Yes, it was hard to find. Glad I went to the trouble of searching.

Factory installed theft and appliance moving deterrent.

My daily driver is a 98 BMW M3 sedan with a 5 Spd manual.
I enjoy the hell out of it.

with a few exceptions my daily drive was a stick for my entire adult life, that ended in 2016 and i don't miss it

would still be fun as a second car

Was picking up an insanely prived part at the Toyota dealership in Bozeman the other day.

Walked through the floor and there were 3 Supras. All of them were around ~$60k.

Looked inside that little 2-seater sporty shoebox and it was an auto.

I shared this with my wife and asked her rhetorically, "who would buy a sports car like that with a manual tranny?"

Snowflakes will continue to imbibe whatever purple drank koolaid their low IQ leaders feed them.

Beyond the skill it takes to employ one's left foot in the management of one's car, and the lack thereof in most of today's society, consider vintage machines with unsynchronized gear boxes. Not many of us around anymore who out of necessity mastered the art of double clutching and matching revs/gears/road speed. You learned to think about what the car was doing, and think ahead to what happened next. The British machines I drove as my daily drivers in the 70's and 80's were all 50's-60's vintage things. Lord love the Moss gearbox fitted to the clapped out '59 Jaguar XK-150 I drove in college- straight cut gears and syncros only for third and fourth gear, but it did have electric-actuated overdrive. (Not to mention it's carbureted twin-cam 6cyl engine as an endearing feature.) Nary a college kid today who could hop behind the wheel of that elegant beast and maneuver it out of a parking lot- clutch be damned, they wouldn't know what the choke was for or how to start a recalcitrant cold analog based engine.

gnoahhh, I'd bet most college students couldn't get my '68 SS Camaro 4-speed out of the parking lot. And that's a helluva lot easier than a '59 Jag.

That reminds me, one of my early jobs as a teenager used old Army Mules for building trails and other maintenance. I had a ball on those things but can't imagine most modern-day teens even trying to drive one of those. Makes me a little nostalgiac...maybe I should try to find one for around the place....

As my Tacoma stays muddy and nasty most of the time, I bought a car for a daily. I enjoy a manual, so I found a late model Accord Turbo with the 6spd. It's fairly fun for a FWD sedan. My wife doesn't like driving it though.

I have a 2012 Audi S4--Quattro with a supercharged V6--with a manual. It is such a hoot on a canyon road. I figure that it is the last driver's car I'll ever have. No lane departure warnings or smart cruise control or any of that. It's all up to you.

Sticks are good. Lost track of the miles I covered with them. Probably something in the 750k range.

doesn't it seem like all automatic transmissions are huge pieces of schit nowadays?

My wifes car has a 7 speed, I've heard of 9 speed in some cars, those CVTs are all crap. I have a 5 speed now that seems pretty solid but seems like transmissions were rock solid in the late 70's thru the mid 90's

A guy in the business told me they went to [bleep] when they stopped using whale oil -- no idea if that has any bearing or not, you know how those guys all like to say "back in my day".....

that said, I don't ever want a stick again. I basically want to drive a lazy boy recliner around. A 1 hour traffic jam on the interstate is all I need to never want a stick again.

Two of our three vehicles are manual transmission. I consider the manual transmission a good anti theft deterrent. I had an 18 year old kid helping me in the woods lasts year using our two manual shift (using a rocker button with no clutch) ATVs. He mentioned that he had a tough time climbing a hill and I asked when what gear he was in - he said third (I was in 1st). I had to sit down and explain gearing to him.

You sure have a way with words

Wish my truck was a manual, not avaliable.

That's ok, They can't parallel park either and it isn't a requirement for a drivers license. States that have ditched the skill include Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming.

No, it can't. Unless it is specifically set up to offer manual shifting, the manual shifting feature is largely window dressing. Shifts are lethargic, when they happen at all, and, by the time the shift takes place, the need for it has passed. Even in a car with the so-called "sport mode", shifts occur much more slowly than I would do with a manual transmission. We had one car (a Mazda 626) which had a 5 speed. Mazda, in their wisdom, put a restrictor valve in the hydraulic cylinder so the clutch would engage more gradually. The result was that you could not shift quickly. I had to deliberately wait , maybe a half second, for the clutch to engage. This was especially so when temperatures were on the cold side. A driver who is used to a manual transmission wants to whole system to respond as guickly as possible. In most modern cars, throttle response is also sluggish which makes smooth, quick, shifting more difficult. GD

Add Maryland to that list.

A buddy is dangling his 2012 Audi TT, manual trans, in front of me. Low low mileage absolutely pristine, for a steal. Sorely tempted- may just hit the "buy it now" button. The car is a screamer- like driving something that would've outrun all of the entrants in an early 60's running of LeMans. (Not that it's faster. Brakes are light years better. Therein lies the true speed potential/applicability of any vehicle.)

The cell phone is what killed the manual transmission , people can't text & shift at the same time.


Mike

Guessing my old truck will soon become a collector item?

Nah, nobody wants those things. I'll give you $500 to save you the hassle of dealing with it.

But then I'd be.. afoot!

Back in the late 1940's my father was the first man in Nashville Tennessee to work on automatic transmissions. In 1958, I attended a class he was teaching for other mechanics in the area on rebuilding the Dual Range Hydra-Matic transmission. When I passed the end of course test, General Motors sent me a certificate stating I was a certified Hydra-Matic technician- - - - -at age 12! Dad had a saying that I totally agree with- - - - -"Automatic transmissions are smarter than all drivers and most mechanics- - - -there's no way to get one in the wrong gear!"

Now before some of you snowflakes flame me- - - -I also learned to drive a B-73 Mack with a Tri-Plex transmission- - - - -two shifters- - - - -15 forward gears and 3 reverse! And I can parallel park an 18 wheeler!
Jerry

When we bought our 2003 Ram 3500 in 2005, wife and I had to relearn stick (both of us learned to drive with sticks), after over 20 years of autoshifts. And both early 20 boys had never driven stick. They can now.

God, I hate the smell of burning clutch! Which blew up (literally) a few years later, for a $1,000, 119 mile tow bill.

It's working now. . Hell, we can (mostly) hit all the gears without any grinding..... I'm still working on getting my wife to pay attention to the tach and motor sounds, tho.

Buy 'em up now boys and stick them in storage. In a few years they will be worth real money.

I still have a 5 speed , don't expect to have it much longer though.



The only sticker on it.




Mike

That there is sig-line material.

When i bought my f150 i was looking for an auto for the afore mentioned traffic crawl. Found a nice clutch one instead. I do not understand 3.05 axle, big tires, and no granny or even low 1st. It has a lo transfer case though.

Daughter has a GTI with 6 speed. SIL has sinilar vw with 6 speed.

As for doudle clutching or no clutch the ford has the engine control that eases rpm down to 1700 for emissions so I have to wrap up to 3500 or 4000 to up shift, down can be done ok.

The smog test tech had no trouble with the clutch yhis time

While searching for Daughter #1's first truck, I looked and looked for an F-150 with a manual. No dice anywhere over multiple months. I found a few but the trucks were hammered. Finally gave up and bought her an automatic. She will learn to drive my F350 manual, though.

Bought our RAV4 new in 2016...........with an automatic transmission. The last one of them I had was my '54 Bel-Aire, which I managed to hold on to until '86 or so even with other standard vehicles. Married a stick shift driver, so the RAV4 was her first auto in many years too.

We figured, being of advancing age and having had between us multiple foot, knee, and hip surgeries we might want a vehicle we could easily drive with on foot if necessary as we live a bit outside town.

We do not necessarily like the dang thing though. After driving the other vehicles for a few days in a row, we have to remind ourselves not to shift when pulling up to stop signs.

The "sport" option I use on a road in OR going to a Dr appointment in Ashland. It's nice to have some downshifting capability, and I do mean "some", as it works somewhat to hold back the car on downhill twisties, but not like either the Tacoma or Matrix.

Another thing, and I think I read it was designed this way, let your foot off the gas in "D" and the dang thing coasts forever, hardly seeming to slow at all.

I can't complain much about the 30MPG average over the first 60K miles though.

Got real tired of rowing gears in the cities my wife lived and worked in when I came home during the off season. E WA is pretty open and once in 5th gear there sometimes was 30 miles between having to downshift again. Not like the stop sign and 3 stop lights in a half mile trip to the store at one place my wife lived.

Going to SoCal to visit relatives sucks even worse when I do so on the way home from a hunting trip with the Tacoma. SoCal freeways and surface streets are a good place for an auto transmission, as the MD guys have suggested.

Geno

One will be able to safely leave his keys in the rig from hence forth.

Still a manual transmission fan. My '06 Dodge 3500 diesel, '06 Honda Accord, and '02 Honda Civic.
The only auto is the wife's '19 Honda Pilot.
But I have to admit it is easier to like them when there is only two stoplights in my county.

Hey. Keeny. What's a doudle clutch???

I submit, sir, you never learned to drive a stick shift. A clutch is a nice convenience to have but not necessary.

I earned my son’s respect the first time when I was towing his Bronco to the mechanic about 45 miles away. Lost the clutch linkage coming up to the first light. Oops. So, I told him to watch my moves (on speaker phone, he was in the Bronco on the strap) and follow my lead. Time the lights, jake shift up to freeway speeds, and we were at the mechanic’s about 45 minutes later.

About the same time period on a trip to Calgary, I was coming down Crowsnest Pass in the semi, loaded at 80,000 lbs, and the same thing. Spring broke, no clutch.

Three hours later I pulled into the customer’s yard, and had to ask for a push back into the unloading area. Didn’t want to horse up the starter getting 80k lbs going on an uphill....

08 wrangler and 16 Camaro SS both manual. I had to special order the Chevrolet as the dealer said they only order autos for stock.

I also prefer sail boats which are the manual transmissions of watercraft.

Teenager at my old church knew my Ford Ranger had a manual transmission. He was looking at a car in his price range, but it too had manual transmission. He asked me if I could teach him how to drive one. I said sure. He said it was ok with his parents. I told him to have a parent call me to set up a time and date. His mom called within an hour. Couple of test drives later he test drove his new ride...and none of his friend could 'borrow' it. Good kid, nice family.

Broke the z-bar linkage in my chevelle roundabouts Butte MT, en route to Bellingham WA. No big deal, no starter interlock, no brains no headaches. Almost had to come out of 1st gear in seattle traffic though, and restart with the starter.

Spend some time maneuvering heavy trailers and things around the yard and boat ramp, and one soon appreciates a stick vs an auto. The ability to have absolute control over wheel speed in slick low speed heavy load conditions is well worth any "bother" that the third pedal contributes. Engine braking on log roads and on snow/ice: MT is the winner. Unplanned gear shifts on icy roads, causing near-wipeout: not a problem with MT.

Wife learned to drive with a MT diesel rabbit, then a MT honda CRX. This after driving all manner of farm tractors and motorcycles as a kid. She can drive about anything, and do it right without riding the pedal. But she likes autos better.

That's depressing. Just wait until Nascar goes all auto.

But yeah, you're so much more "engaged" driving a manual. Too complicated for most.

I luv that sticker.............

wanna know how many years I drove a UPS truck with a stick.......?

Then my final truck when I retired was an auto with a Mercedes diesel......

A modern twin clutch automatic is ten times more capable than any manual transmission. The car will be faster, get better mileage, will always be in exactly the right gear and, if desired, it can be shifted manually with immediate effect. I replaced my speed manual Porsche for their PDK automatic. Night and day. Precisely why the C8 Corvette now comes with one. That said I still have one manual, a Tremec 5 speed in my 73 Mach 1.

I drove a manual for years and years, then, as I got older, the knees I put in the breeze in my Army paratrooper days decided they didn't like a clutch any more.

I have learned to appreciate the automatic transmission.

I loved driving a "clutch", but when the knees want to quit, it takes the fun out of it. Heavy traffic takes the fun out of it, too. There are a trainload of stop lights in my world, too, that also saps the fun out of it. Nope, I like my automatics now.

i used to only buy sticks for my commuters. but after changing jobs where i drive in bumper to bumper traffic, i bought my first auto car in 2016. doubt i'll buy another stick. hard to find in new cars anymore and i think dodge is the only one who offers it in trucks.

Say, you don’t happen to be an engineer, are you?

Rustyzipper
A doudle clutch is when you screw up the heel and toe and knock all the teeth off.
You realize I am on a phone? Fat fingers

If they decide to subsidize the piss out of manny trannys, Id bet a quick reversal (pun) would be in order.

Drove a work truck a couple hundred miles back into the shop with no air brakes.

Have fun trying that with a dead battery or an automatic.

I'm a guy who gets paid to climb on rocks, and is otherwise a carpenter who became a real estate developer who plays the stock market. But I drove a Porsche Taycan and can concur that the double clutch PDK transmission is far better than any manual out there.

But I also know that the best transmission is no transmission, and wheel motors will eventually win over all. Drive a Tesla and you'll know.

Nah, just an enthusiast. I quit engineering at year three of a thirty year career. Seemed odd at the time but here I sit...

Never had anything else.

My ‘09 Corolla however has an electric gas pedal and the computer between your foot and the motor seems to take the feel away, easy to stall out rolling out in first also.

Now that they’ve gone and put a computer in the gas pedal there’s no point in a manual transmission anymore 😕

Probably half the vehicles I've owned have been standards, but never thought there was anything special about it. As a young guy it was kinda fun sometimes, but really I don't care if I ever drive another. Automatic transmissions have come a long way, and most people are better off with one.

83 CJ7 this past fall Straight 6 / 4 speed Manuel

Some automatics must be better than others, or maybe one needs to learn how to drive with one.

Yeah, one needs to learn how to just sit back and let the computer do it all. Won't be long until all the controls will be superfluous. Hell, we even need the computer to run the damn headlights and wipers.
There is little question that some automatics do a much better job of mimicking a well-run manual than others but most they, like the electronic throttle controllers, simply distance the operator from the control of the vehicle. In learning how to best utilize the performance of the modern vehicle, part of the equation is learning to deal with the perceptible lagtime between input and response. As I get older, perhaps my declining response time will compensate and I will learn to love having things done for me, slowly. GD