Is there such a thing as a bad manual transmission?

buzzboy said:

Leyland/Austin Mini "pudding stick" is the worst ever. Mein gott is that thing garbage. The shift pattern is a box, not an H. I could never figure it out.

I'll also echo Pete about the Terminator. I've driven a GTO and that T56 was fine, but the one in the Cobra was super stiff with no indication of what gear it's in, or if it's in gear.

Not a 'Terminator'.  It was a MAF era 5.0 ('89, 91, something) with a built engine and a centrifugal supercharger and an appetite for head gaskets.  And a T56 swap.  I absolutely hated driving it.  I think the clutch quadrant and cable flexed and stretched more than the clutch fork actually moved, and you practically needed two hands to shift once you got both feet on the clutch pedal.

The shift action was very precise, the lever just needed to be about a foot longer   And the clutch linkage/quadrant needed to be thrown very far away and a hydraulic system installed.

In reply to jharry3 :

That would be the ever popular Powerglide, my Mom had one in her '64 Nova Supersport, ruined what should have been a fun car.

P.S., hers did have Park

I've driven several modern cars where poor throttle mapping and bad engine mounts can really ruin the manual driving experience.  My Kia Soul is not ruined, but its definitely a lot worse than it could be if the manufacturer gave a E36 M3.

If my Veloster didn't have the 'sport' setting, it probably would have been the same way.  Its was borderline undriveable in 'normal' mode.

I recall an article a few years back (10+?) where Car and Driver or Motortrend or whatever had a Manual Camry, which on paper was comparable to an Accord & Mazda 3, but the throttle mapping was so horrible that they basically said "do not consider the manual transmission version of this car".

I've driven some vehicles with some pretty crappy manuals but I don't think the auto variants were any better.

I had a mid-80s Mustang 5.0, and a mid-90s Camaro Z28. They were a contrast in character, but limiting this to shifter feel alone, the Mustang sucked, and the Camaro was great.

In reply to ProDarwin :

Omg... I have a customer with a manual trans Veloster (naturally aspirated 1.6) and I despise driving it.  You think GM and Nissans are bad for throttle mapping...  when upshifting, I can lift off the throttle, count to two, depress the clutch, and the engine STILL revs up.  Makes smooth city driving impossible unless you want to shift so slowly you spend more time shifting than in gear.

The trans is okay, but the E throttle actively fights you.

In reply to madmrak351 :

I have a 3-on-the-tree manual without a 1st gear synchro, and I still wouldn't trade it for an automatic, even when -- or especially when -- towing.  Painful as it may be in traffic, at least I know there's power being transmitted (or not), rather than wondering whether I'm just stirring transmission fluid into hot soup.

aircooled said:

jharry3 said:

Appleseed said:

What's worse, an awful manual  or an awful automatic?

I remember GM having 2 speed automatics on some of their cars in the 60's/70's.  Low and High.   

That would be the Powerglide.  If two gears wasn't bad enough (shifts around 15 mph under low throttle), there is no park!  Better make sure you have a good e-brake!  (I had a bad experience with one, had a not-so- great e-brake... and I was in San Francisco!!)

They are pretty bulletproof though, variations are still used for high horsepower drag racing I believe.

Buddy of mine just built a Firebird drag car with a 780HP, 8400RPM naturally-aspirated LS and put a Powerglide behind it.

kb58 said:

I had a mid-80s Mustang 5.0, and a mid-90s Camaro Z28. They were a contrast in character, but limiting this to shifter feel alone, the Mustang sucked, and the Camaro was great.

I wonder if these complaints with T5s and T56s in Mustangs are due to the much further forward shifter locations in relation to the transmission vs. the Camaros and Firebirds. Few complaints from the Camaro and Firebird crowd but it seems like a lot from Mustang users. On the Mustangs the shifter goes smack dab in the middle of the transmission but on the F-bodies it's all the way out back.

In reply to GCrites80s :

Interesting point.  I've driven a couple T56 Camaros and they were okay, once you got around the trashed 2nd and 3rd gear synchros, which is a specific-vehicle issue.

Also got to drive a T56 based trans in a 565ci Torino, and it was really nice.  It also had a moderately long shifter compared to a modern car, and I engineered the clutch hydraulics so of course I'm proud of how well that functioned  

Also, the sound of that thing wailing at 7k through the dual 3" exhaust made me think I was at Talladega   It did something like 650 ot 700hp at the wheels, through the mufflers.

I am still not keen on big block engine braking combined with a close ratio trans, but it is what it is.  The Torino was easier to drive than the 604ci Chevelle with a genuine M22.  That one would chirp the tires from engine braking if you didn't upshift fast enough in city driving.  I have too much mechanical sympathy to do that.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

The shift action was very precise, the lever just needed to be about a foot longer   And the clutch linkage/quadrant needed to be thrown very far away and a hydraulic system installed.

I want to try an SRT10 Ram for that reason. I like long and precise shifters.

The Volvo m40/41 experience may have a lot to do with bushings. The stock long shifter in my 122 was wallowed out and felt like it, the nearly new remote shifter on the same trans isn't a miata but is quite nice.

Alfa spider veloce. Syncros were not smooth on a low mile gearbox and the ergonomics were terrrrrrible. On a 4-5 hour drive my arm was so tired. Just not comfortable and not as enjoyable to row the gears. 
 

My list is long and storied. One of the worst manuals I ever had was the 3 speed manual in a 68 corvair....sucky linkage, vague and sloppy but it worked. The worst automatic of that era was definitely the power glide in the ex's Chevy bel air boat paired to a 283. Still, it was decent on the highway but there was no passing gear above 60 mph. Low gear would wind up to 60 before the up shift took place if you were at full throttle, and while slow off the line it was reasonably peppy once the revs built up.   Fast forward a few years, the next most hated automatic was my ex's automatic Saturn which could never pick a gear for hilly terrain as the 1.9 liter engine had so little grunt that it had no power in any gear at any time which puts it in the same category as my 07 legacy wagon automatic....love the car hate the transmission. If only there was a way to lock the torque converter manually it would be much better. Best manual I have had is a tie between my 69 opel gt i had in college and the 05 legacy wagon i use as a track car....

The manual transmission in my Baja was not great. The gearing just felt all wrong. It always felt like you were trying to take off in second gear, resulting in lots of stalls because no matter how fast you jammed the clutch in the engine would just shut off, and then going down the highway it felt like it needed another gear. I found myself looking down frequently to make sure I actually was in fifth gear. The shifter action wasn't bad, but it was a rare instance of wishing I had bought an automatic-equipped version instead.

I've also driven some of the early Vues and Equinoxes with the stick shift and they were just absolutely wretched. The shifter feel was absolutely wretched, like trying to steer concrete with a plastic spoon, and it was a trick just to find first. 

GCrites80s said:

kb58 said:

I had a mid-80s Mustang 5.0, and a mid-90s Camaro Z28. They were a contrast in character, but limiting this to shifter feel alone, the Mustang sucked, and the Camaro was great.

I wonder if these complaints with T5s and T56s in Mustangs are due to the much further forward shifter locations in relation to the transmission vs. the Camaros and Firebirds. Few complaints from the Camaro and Firebird crowd but it seems like a lot from Mustang users. On the Mustangs the shifter goes smack dab in the middle of the transmission but on the F-bodies it's all the way out back.

No it wasn't that, as the shifter seemed reasonably well-placed. It was just really notchy, and the shift gates never seemed to be exactly where you intuitively expected them to be. The Z28 was totally different - that shifter was a real treat to use, with each gear always easily at-hand and dropping in as expected. Now, as for the reliability of the two cars, that's a rant for another thread...

Hmmm.  The stock 4-speed on my first car, '65 Mustang 289 was fantastic.  Never bothered with a Hurst conversion.  Was selling VW's when Golfs first sold in the mid-80's.  The 5-speed was designed such that, if you tried shifting into reverse without coming to an absolute complete stop - sometimes to the point of actually waiting a couple seconds after stopping, you could chip a synchronizer tooth and VW would resist the warranty claim - bad gearbox.  I think VW eventually redesigned it.  The 4-speed in my Datsun 1600 was excellent, and the shift feel in my 2010 Camaro SS with a Hurst short shift kit is by-god-outstanding.  That Tremec 6060 seems like it needs to warm up a tad before giving smooth 1-2 shifts but otherwise is an asset on canyon and mountain runs.  I prefer auto's in big trucks, but my retired DC-10 pilot wife ordered her 7.3 L F250 with a manual and it shifts great once you get past the 3-foot long stick.  

It won't be a popular response, but to me so many of these stories sound more like inexperienced drivers or just down to operator error.

Ergonomics is a factor no doubt, and some cars just seem to fight the driver by making the controls so awkward to reach or operate, I'm sure that contributes. I don't fit an Alfa Spyder at all, for example, so that makes it uncomfortable to drive far.....but that's down to me, not the car.

The 64 Mustang my dad bought (shoulda had a V8!) with the 6 cyl 3 speed had a very weird throttle, seems like either it had nothing or revved to the moon, which made learning to drive on it ....well, an experience. But since I was 16 I didn't give it a second thought and before long I had it down and it wasn't an issue. My mom on the other hand, frequently tried to go up our hill by starting out in 3rd gear and hip hopping as the engine wound up the drive line and released.

Fiats in the 70's also felt like they had a giant rubber band between the engine and the rear axle, but once you got used to it, no biggy.....

But to me manual transmissions just are.....you just use them and they do the job.

My classic Mini has a rod change gearbox, the last version they built and it works brilliantly although you can beat the synchros if you try hard enough. The earlier remotes were pretty good till the myriad bushings wore and the "magic wand" or "puddin stirrers" were - well - fun! But if you had any mechanical sympathy at all it worked fine once you figured it out.....

I'm not sure if I have enough personal experience, but I will say that I'll always applaud an OEM for offering a manual–whether its in a sports car or a humble appliance.

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

Alfa spider veloce. Syncros were not smooth on a low mile gearbox and the ergonomics were terrrrrrible. On a 4-5 hour drive my arm was so tired. Just not comfortable and not as enjoyable to row the gears. 

oh. my. gawd. 

one of the best gearboxes. Ever. 

Appleseed said:

What's worse, an awful manual  or an awful automatic?

A bad manual is still better than a good automatic. :-)

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

Omg... I have a customer with a manual trans Veloster (naturally aspirated 1.6) and I despise driving it.  You think GM and Nissans are bad for throttle mapping...  when upshifting, I can lift off the throttle, count to two, depress the clutch, and the engine STILL revs up.  Makes smooth city driving impossible unless you want to shift so slowly you spend more time shifting than in gear.

 

The trans is okay, but the E throttle actively fights you.

Would that be the first gen or second gen Veloster?  I had a second generation R-Spec and the throttle pedal seemed kind of high. There would often be times that I would let off the throttle to shift but I had to really TAKE MY FOOT OFF or it the pedal would still be depressed a little with predictable results. At the same time, the release for the clutch was way down in the travel so getting a fore/aft seating position that accommodated both was damn near impossible.   

I had a 2nd gen, but didn't notice either of those issues.  The main issue I had was I had to hit 'sport' or whatever mode whenever I got in the car or I would stall it.  One time I tried to pull out into traffic and immediately stalled several times in a row before realizing it was in 'normal' driving mode.  

Hyundai does some weird programming E36 M3.  Remember this is also the car that you can't fully defeat stability control on.  And a car that rather than make peak torque consistently, climbs until it hits a number, gets kicked in the face by the ECU, then climbs back up again repeatedly.

Appleseed said:

What's worse, an awful manual  or an awful automatic?

Sometimes an automatic is bad because of *how* it shifts, but usually it is bad because of *when*  or *if* it shifts. With even the worst manual I've driven (nothing like some of the dinosaurs mentioned in this thread), I could at least control the *when* and even the *how*. Sure, the clutch and lever might as well been drive-by-wire for how vague they were, I could still make it do what I wanted.