Automatic vs. Manual: The Ultimate Showdown Thread

[TheCracker]

I believe the argument is that even in small cars, anything less than 100 BHP is "dangerous" in that it is not powerful enough to reach highway speed. Nothing that a proper CVT or Manual can't fix...

And we don't have 'highways' over here?

Actually on my way to work this morning i was following a old Peugeot 205 with an auto gearbox. I know this because for some reason most small cars (at least of that era) that had auto boxes were badged 'Automatic' - it was almost as if it was an apology to those stuck behind one for travelling so slowly, a bit like those 'baby on board' signs are seen as an excuse for driving badly.

 

[homeforsummer]

I believe the argument is that even in small cars, anything less than 100 BHP is "dangerous" in that it is not powerful enough to reach highway speed. Nothing that a proper CVT or Manual can't fix...

I do assume you mean dangerous with an auto. Like I mentioned, my car makes do with 60bhp and I can quite happily cruise at 80mph with the ton within reach for when Plod aren't about. Not that I go up there often as it's a bit noisy...

Still, I'd be pressed to call an auto with less than 100bhp "dangerous". Would an auto with 90bhp be dangerous? In a car the size and weight of mine 90bhp is a healthy little amount (I think the 1.4 16v engine has about that). With an auto it'd still probably be quicker than my car.

EDIT: And incidentally, in the roughly 5-6k miles me and a couple of friends did in the States last year, (across nine different states) I can say with reasonable confidence that average speeds on "highways" are higher in the UK than they are over there, and people still manage with small cars with small engines. There was a time, only five years ago, when my 80mph cruising speed would mean I would pass the majority of traffic. More recently, I find myself sitting at 80mph and literally 80% of the other traffic on the motorways are now passing me. It wouldn't surprise me if a large proportion of traffic now "cruise" at 90mph in the UK.

 

[Wolfe]

Or in Wolfe's case, lots and lots of room.

Hey. My BMW makes triple-digit power. I was thinking of cars like my Renault (<60hp) and the Peugeot 106 my host family owned in Germany, which we took on the Autobahn.

...in the roughly 5-6k miles me and a couple of friends did in the States last year, (across nine different states) I can say with reasonable confidence that average speeds on "highways" are higher in the UK than they are over there, and people still manage with small cars with small engines.

Oh, americans could most certainly manage with smaller engines. I've been saying that for a long time. However, not all areas are so "slow" here (try Michigan ) and I imagine not all areas of the UK are so fast. I would guess it varies in both locations.

When speaking of naturally-aspirated economy cars, one must mind elevation as well. My Renault did muster 100mph, but it also chugged up certain sections of the Appalachians at about 20mph, at the top of 2nd gear with the throttle to the floor and the RPMs slowly falling as we climbed. Fun stuff. I don't want to think of what that would have been like with an automatic, and that mountain range is why I'll never enter an auto into the BABE Rally.

With that in mind, I'm sure you could understand why someone who lives in, say, Colorado might not want a European subcompact.

 

[Tornado]

With that in mind, I'm sure you could understand why someone who lives in, say, Colorado might not want a European subcompact.

Which completely explains why everybody there own Bentley Continentals.

 

[homeforsummer]

Oh, americans could most certainly manage with smaller engines. I've been saying that for a long time. However, not all areas are so "slow" here (try Michigan ) and I imagine not all areas of the UK are so fast. I would guess it varies in both locations.

True, though my experience of motorway speeds in the UK is fairly similar wherever I've been, be it in the North or South, main motorways or ring-roads etc.

When speaking of naturally-aspirated economy cars, one must mind elevation as well. My Renault did muster 100mph, but it also chugged up certain sections of the Appalachians at about 20mph, at the top of 2nd gear with the throttle to the floor and the RPMs slowly falling as we climbed. Fun stuff. I don't want to think of what that would have been like with an automatic, and that mountain range is why I'll never enter an auto into the BABE Rally.

Good point again. I've been fortunate enough to have never needed to take my car up too high an altitude (probably not even much above 400m more than sea level) so I've not had to suffer much of a drop in power (that said, the difference between a cold night and a midsummer's day is noticeable) and I certainly wouldn't like to attempt it in anything with any less power! Or any less control over the gearbox.

With that in mind, I'm sure you could understand why someone who lives in, say, Colorado might not want a European subcompact.

Of course. Nor would I force them to! Apart from anything, I can see why a little more power is necessary in many areas just to power the A/C which in most USDM cars seems to have an extra cold setting. With only 60bhp that kind of aircon might only leave you with 20bhp at the wheels, and an auto probably less than that...

 

[Rotary Junkie]

Hey. My BMW makes triple-digit power. I was thinking of cars like my Renault (<60hp) and the Peugeot 106 my host family owned in Germany, which we took on the Autobahn.

I meant the old Renault.

 

[Jim Prower]

The 89HP Nova doesn't do that bad...and it's got a three-speed Auto. Granted...it won't keep up with people in a real rush, and high gear's so tall that 100MPH is the rev-limited top speed...well, if it had a rev limiter.

 

[YSSMAN]

RE: Highway Speeds ~ Dangerous?

It wouldn't be the arguement I'd care to make, but thats the excuse given by most of the automakers on whether or not they can offer certain cars here. Having owned a 91 BHP Volkswagen Fox, I have experience with getting on the highway with low power figures... It isn't a problem. If anything, its drivers who don't know what they're doing that cause the problems.

 

[Tornado]

I have experience with a car that has 99 horsepower but weighs a whole lot more than a VW Fox (and Jim's Nova), and freeway speeds weren't too much of a problem. Though that may be a torque thing.

 

[niky]

That's the other point of the argument.

Arguing about 100 hp +/- ignores how much torque a car makes, and the actual torque-band of the car. And the engine programming.

Old carburated engines were absoolute crap in terms of passing and mountain-pass power... unable to cope with thin air... choking at inopportune times, and with no get-up-and-go.

But with electronic fuel injection, electronic ignition and closed-loop fuel adaptation, even tiny 50-60 bhp 1 liter super-minis can muster enough pep to cruise at 80 mph and run up mountain passes. Better fuel mapping and very wide powerbands make them light-years away from old small motors.

In fact, the wider powerbands of modern engines is being cited as one reason that manufacturers are starting to shy away from CVTs. Who needs infinite ratios if you have a wide, elastic, powerband?

 

[BobElHat]

The thing I hate most about automatics, ones with a torque converter anyway, is the way they manage to make any car sound like a Vespa. They don't change the engine sound as such of course, just the way the engine note changes. It's as if the concept of lockup hasn't occurred to the people designing most auto boxes, so when you put your foot down the torque converter "slips" and the revs rise and then stay constant, just like a Vespa. One monotonous drone. The sound of an engine's power being used to warm up some oil. It's amazing how an auto box can make a 3-litre V6 sound like a pizza delivery bike. It makes me horrified and hungry at the same time.

 

[homeforsummer]

The thing I hate most about automatics, ones with a torque converter anyway, is the way they manage to make any car sound like a Vespa. They don't change the engine sound as such of course, just the way the engine note changes. It's as if the concept of lockup hasn't occurred to the people designing most auto boxes, so when you put your foot down the torque converter "slips" and the revs rise and then stay constant, just like a Vespa. One monotonous drone. The sound of an engine's power being used to warm up some oil. It's amazing how an auto box can make a 3-litre V6 sound like a pizza delivery bike. It makes me horrified and hungry at the same time.

You're probably unintentionally generalising with the Vespa comment. A classic Vespa, or a modern, automatic Vespa? Perhaps an auto car sounds like that, but then a scooter transmission is CVT and a torque converter automatic has actual gears so I wouldn't compare the sound regardless. To me a Vespa is still a single-cylinder two-stroke geared scooter, which sound very different from cars, especially auto ones.

And the 3 litre V6 auto Mitsubishi Outlander I drove sounded nothing like a pizza delivery bike. It sounded pretty nice to my ears.

 

[BobElHat]

You're probably unintentionally generalising with the Vespa comment. A classic Vespa, or a modern, automatic Vespa? Perhaps an auto car sounds like that, but then a scooter transmission is CVT and a torque converter automatic has actual gears so I wouldn't compare the sound regardless. To me a Vespa is still a single-cylinder two-stroke geared scooter, which sound very different from cars, especially auto ones.

I was intentionally generalising, though not in the way you think I did originally write "scooter", but wasn't sure how well that would translate to the global audience and "Vespa" was the best I could come up with for "motor scooter" that I though people would understand. It's that constant drone you get from modern CVT scooters that I hate, which you also get from a "slipping" slushbox. You only get it for a few seconds from an automatic car, but that's more than long enough to annoy me.

 

[homeforsummer]

To be fair to modern scooters, you can barely hear the average four-stroke water cooled single, so it's a less unpleasant noise than the average CVT or slushy auto car.

 

[EA11R]

Some of you manual-trans afficianados are badly overstating the case against automatic transmissions, and it's not helping your credibility any.

I've been driving automatic and manual transmission cars of all types for 30 years, and I have never ONCE met one that takes an ACTUAL "1-2 seconds" to kick down. Most that I've driven downshift at least 1 pop, if not 2, as soon as your foot hits the floorboard. And it's not like an automatic transmission will suddenly and arbitrarily shift somewhere delicate and hurl you off the side of the road.

Sometimes they'll downshift a little later than you want. Sometimes they'll upshift a little sooner than you want. But it's not like there is some random-number generator stuck in the bottom of the car that arbitrarily decides when and how to shift. The car actually does react to the driver's input.

Maybe that's the problem I'm having: The only car in which I've had this problem was my stepmom's Saturn Outlook, the engine of which she complains about.

She, however, is retarded. She acknowledges that the car is fast, but not immediately. It's actually a wonderful engine combined with a gearbox which maniachally seeks sixth gear.

It's a 280 hp engine and very quick, but on freeways I actually find myself apologizing/cursing "Come on, downshift, downshift, downshift, downshift. Okay, eventuall-- eek!" It's so much more coherent on cruise control, but that just takes even more control away from me. And of course, if I were to opt for the mode in which you use the +/- functions on the autostick thingy, they'd assume I was doing it to feel like a racer.

Which would be catastrophic combined with the foot-operated e-brake.

But yeah, I think my hatred comes from driving a car that is borderline broken. I would kill for that 1-2 seconds you described as unnatural.

EDIT: You know, I just considered: I'd only be driving that car with either my dad or stepmom, both perfectly stereotypical fat Americans who avoid as much work as possible. Basically, I can actually use cruise control for 100% of my highway driving in that thing. The +/- buttons on the steering wheel help that cause quite a lot. I wonder what the upper/lower bounds for that system is?

EDIT (again): Also, I have no issues with losing control of the car in the typical, panicky sense. I'm worried about slowly grinding to a halt. As Econolines pile into the groceries in back.

 

[kingcars]

Some of you manual-trans afficianados are badly overstating the case against automatic transmissions, and it's not helping your credibility any.

I've been driving automatic and manual transmission cars of all types for 30 years, and I have never ONCE met one that takes an ACTUAL "1-2 seconds" to kick down. Most that I've driven downshift at least 1 pop, if not 2, as soon as your foot hits the floorboard. And it's not like an automatic transmission will suddenly and arbitrarily shift somewhere delicate and hurl you off the side of the road.

Sometimes they'll downshift a little later than you want. Sometimes they'll upshift a little sooner than you want. But it's not like there is some random-number generator stuck in the bottom of the car that arbitrarily decides when and how to shift. The car actually does react to the driver's input.

Getting a stock ford AOD out of overdrive on the highway takes 2-3 seconds, no lie. The 3 normal gears weren't too bad, though, but not the same as dropping a gear with the T5.

As far as the "react to the driver's input" statement, the key word is REact. With a manual, you don't have to let the tranny REact. You get it ready for what's coming ahead so it's already prepared for whatever acceleration or deceleration is coming.