Am I the only one who struggles to get over the "great car, but it's an auto" hump?

I know true three pedal cars are a dying breed, modern automatics are wonderful, unicorns piss rainbows, blah, blah, blah but I'm just having a hard time bringing myself to want/desire an automatic. Anyone else feel that way?

I'm casually shopping for a toy. Tops on my list are 'verts, though sports/luxury cars such as the G37 coupe are contenders too. I've bought and shipped many times, so I'm not afraid to shop anywhere. That opens up so many possibilities. I go on Autotrader and search across the entire US. When I enter a search criteria, it'll pull up 500 cars that match...then when I click on "manual trans", the list goes from 500 to 13. And of course those 13 are either privately owned or at a buy here/pay here place...I greatly prefer to buy from a major brand dealership.

This is the perfect time of year to buy, especially convertibles. It's winter, it's the end of the year so dealers are pushing hard to move cars. I've seen so many smoking deals out there for cars that are wonderful and I'd buy in a heartbeat...but they're automatics. Saw a great deal on a BMW 128i 'vert...auto. Solstice GXP...auto.

There's no logical reason I couldn't or shouldn't want an automatic. In fact, my driving habits are much more suited to auto. 90% of my miles are on the highway, either cruising at 80mph, or snarled in Atlanta rush hour. Autos are perfect for those tasks. I'm just having a hard time convincing myself that I'd be happy with it. When I think auto, I think of our Kia Sedona.

Guess this is more of a rant than anything, it's just frustrating. Even searching nationwide, my choices are limited by the fact that I like to row my own gears. Just like everything else in my life, I guess I'm "old school". Now get the hell off my lawn.

For me it's car specific. Some autos are downright miserable, and some are actually pretty awesome. The VW DSG trans is a great one for example. The big deal breaker for me is sluggish or delayed gear changes in manual mode.

There's a guy that gets coffee at the local White Castle in the summer. Red Porsche 944, gold BBS era wheels - looks to be all original - mint. Automatic.

I like the car but wouldn't want that tranny. Small detail?

But it's so hard to text, update my FB status, and order from Amazon while driving a manual.

It's not a matter of how good the auto can shift. I know modern ones are fantastic, they rip off shifts faster and smoother than anyone can with a manual. It's just a sense of involvement in driving, I guess. The only thing I haven't really tried out yet are paddle shifters on the steering wheel. Don't know if that would substitute for the fun of pressing a clutch pedal, rowing the shifter, etc...

Was the G37 convertible ever offered with a manual?

Yes it was. Rare but out there. G37 S Convertible with a stick

JohnRW1621 wrote: Was the G37 convertible ever offered with a manual?

I don't think so, but it would be out of my budget. I'm looking to stay under $11k-$12k, preferably far under if I can. The G37 coupes are just starting to fall into my budget, the 'verts are still way up there in price. I love the G37, it's such a sweet ride, it's the only non-vert that's on my shopping list.

EDIT - I stand corrected. They were available. But not cheap.

I feel like flappy paddles might be kind of worse than both. To me pushing the clutch is the more important part. To me the flappy paddles would be like putting a Chrysler 300 in manual mode. Fun for about a hundred feet, then never to be used again.

Klayfish wrote:

It's not a matter of how good the auto can shift. I know modern ones are fantastic, they rip off shifts faster and smoother than anyone can with a manual. It's just a sense of involvement in driving, I guess. The only thing I haven't really tried out yet are paddle shifters on the steering wheel. Don't know if that would substitute for the fun of pressing a clutch pedal, rowing the shifter, etc...

I'm a lot better at this very thing than I wish I was.

octavious wrote:

But it so hard to text, update my FB status, and order from Amazon while driving a manual.

I admit I was hesitant to buy my current E46 330 coupe with the steptronic. It was a compromise since my wife also has to drive it.

I have had it on track and it performs really well in sport mode (manual shift). To be honest it is easier to focus on braking points and car stability under hard conditions when you can just quickly reach and shift. Even makes left foot braking to balance the car easier when you don't have to move back and forth to the clutch.

For a daily driver that sees double duty I would not question a good manu-matic. BTW, I spend way more time in traffic than at the track.

I do have an old 911 that fulfills all my manual shifting tendencies. That (now) 46 YO car stirs the soul.

For a toy, I would insist on a manual if that's what makes you happiest. For a daily, I'm OK either way, though I prefer a 3-pedal manual. I don't see the point of a manumatic unless it's a true dual clutch setup.

/edit/ I mostly meant "shiftable automatic" by that.

I really don't get the stereotypical gearhead hate of automatics. I've had fun driving both types of transmissions.

I'm the same way, simply cannot stomach the thought of buying an auto in the vast majority of circumstances. I've had exactly one automatic car ever, my 850 Turbo, and even that was only because the price was right (free.)

For me, it's not about how good or bad the auto is at shifting gears or knowing what I want it to do in comparison to its manual counterpart. It's about the act of shifting gears and the engagement and enjoyment it provides - rifling off a perfectly executed, lightning quick upshift leaving a traffic light or a perfectly rev matched downshift is an immensely satisfying experience. And unlike opening it up in a powerful car on an unoccupied piece of asphalt, or hammering through a corner at 9/10, shifting gears is an every time, everywhere activity.

I'd make exceptions for either a truck or some kind of big, lazy cruiser.

A friend offered me a test of his 2016 Miata ,equipped with the flappy paddle transmission. A two hour drive ensued . Nice car, but after 10 minutes is was less annoying to just leave it in drive and ignore the paddles, yet I drive standard shift cars all the time without having to think about it. I reserve automatics for whatever "appliance" car we own, currently my wife's Scion xB. I've gone looking for small cars twice in the past year, once a Kia Rio and once a Fiesta. In both cases the salesman had no manual cars available to test. I politely thanked both of them and drove away. A fun car must have a stick for me, otherwise it's just an appliance.

I feel the same way. I was fortunate to find my 2013 Focus with a manual. Even harder to find, it has the appearance package (leather sets, power drivers seat, 17" alloys, rear disc brakes, fog lights, spoiler, etc.).

I really enjoy driving it.

I love automatics. Daily driving a granny gear dually for 6 years made me realize that. Now as long as i have one toy with a manual that i can go bang gears in when i need, i'm set.

The 4l65e in the Datsun shifts quicker than I ever could, and autocrossing it just has to shift 1-2 once and i leave it there much like a comparably geared manual.

Spoolpigeon wrote: For me it's car specific. Some autos are downright miserable, and some are actually pretty awesome. The VW DSG trans is a great one for example. The big deal breaker for me is sluggish or delayed gear changes in manual mode.

Mostly agree with you there. Aside from the shear tactile pleasure of perfectly coordinating both feet and the right arm, my main issues with MOST automatics are: the slight delay between shift request input and actual gear change in most automatics (whether dual clutch or tv type) results in a loss of some precision control over the power output to the drive wheels and; the lack of ability in OEM tuned form to command the tranny to stay locked in the gear I want no matter what, results in a lack of precision control over the power output to the drive wheels and finally; the speed of the gear changes with most OEM tuning is too damned slow for sporting driving. To be sure some high-end DCTs tick all the right boxes when sport/track mode is selected, but there is no good reason that Ford (for example) can't program a sport/track mode for a DCT Focus or Fiesta that performs just like the Lambo/Ferrari/Mclaren trannys I have driven.

It took me 20-years to get past it, though only in some ways. For a long road-trip or dreadful daily commute, give me an automatic 100%. For autox it's been pretty well proven that anything with a strong V8 can be at least as fast with an automatic, and having an auto offers other advantages too. As others have said the DSG & PDK really do kick ass - if the car is faster than one with a manual, I'd definitely choose the automatic version.

But for a "fun" car rowing your own gears definitely adds to the experience.

If the auto provides instant response and shifts, I don't see what the problem is.

The whole thing with the floppy paddle transmissions is that there are some that are awesome and there are some that are worthless. And there doesn't seem to be a comprehensive list of which ones aren't complete garbage. So I'm inclined to stick with a clutch.

For track work I would love a proper floppy paddle car. Or a sequential box.

I have an indefensible preference for operating a manual transmission. A true sequential manual counts. Motorcycles are fine.

When I have applied logic to the situation or accepted something less due to availability I have never been satisfied with the result.

I don't think I need to justify myself further. I want what I want.

My rover is my first automatic in over 30 years of driving. It's ok, but I wish it were a manual. I came from driving commercial box trucks, all of them were manual shifting and my favourite was an peterbilt cabover straight truck with a 9 speed trans. You did a LOT of shifting getting up to highway speeds and you could hear the stacks "blat" with each quick shift, but even over half a million miles of driving, it was still a lot of fun to run it up and down the gears

I was thinking about this when driving my in-laws Malibu last night. Would a manual make this car better? I'm not sure it would.
A big part of my love for manuals comes from 80's cars. Omnis and civics at the top end, the full range of K-Cars and midsize Pontiacs at the bottom. Genuinely horrible horrible cars, the lot of them, but if they had a manual they really were better. You could sort of tailor power delivery to suit the car by winding out the engines. You had a little control over horrible understeer by managing weight transfer. If you were a semi-competent diver the cars really were better with a manual. All of them. And they got better mileage to boot.
Cars have gotten better though. Cars with a manual are more fun, but laps times show us the they're not faster. They also don't get better mileage any more. They're more "involving" but I'm not sure that's always desirable. I don't know that I want to be any more involved than I am while driving the Malibu.
When given the choice between an auto and a manual in a given car I still choose the manual every time, but if there is a really good car and it was only ever built with an auto, I'm OK with that.

find me an automatic that has a real life expectancy of beyond 200k miles and maybe I'll start to respect them.

Huckleberry wrote: I have an indefensible preference for operating a manual transmission. When I have applied logic to the situation or accepted something less due to availability I have never been satisfied with the result. I don't think I need to justify myself further. I want what I want.

I think this is what it comes down to for me too. As I said, when I look at it logically, an automatic would make so much more sense. Lots of 80-85mph highway cruising (which little roadsters aren't great at), very few curvy roads, lots of rush hour gridlock to deal with. No track/autox duty at all. My daily driver is a stick, so I've got that. Modern automatics are slick, I have nothing against them. It's really just a "I want what I want" thing. When I think about how many cars I've had in the past 10 years (and there have been a TON of them), there have only been a few automatics that I "liked". My Volvo 850 wagon (though I'd have prefered stick), my Nissan Leaf and my wife's Bonnie SSEi.

I can't say I would 100% rule out an automatic, but it would take a hell of a sweet deal to talk me into it.