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Captain, We've intercepted a transmission

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M

maynard

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Captain-we've interce
 
Scotty - which button hyperdrive or overdrive?
 
Careful it's a slushbox.
 
I remember when an automatic cost more than a stick shift! :driving: :thumbsup2:
 
PAUL161 said:
I remember when an automatic cost more than a stick shift! :driving: :thumbsup2:
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Kind of still does, our last two cars have been standard not because we were looking for standard but because they were about $1000 less because so few people could drive them. :D
 
JPSmit said:
Kind of still does, our last two cars have been standard not because we were looking for standard but because they were about $1000 less because so few people could drive them.
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On the flip side, when I bought my Corvette, I had to pay about $500 more to get a 6-speed manual in place of the "standard" automatic.
 
A neighbor has a 2008 Altima with a six speed manual, told him if/when he wants to sell it I want it. Any of the manual shift cars after the mid-eighties must have been "special order" build sheets. Can't imagine any car maker doing it on speculation other than what passes for a "sports car."

Back-when, working at the Porsche-Audi dealership, we got (ordered) an Audi 4000, black and designated as "5+5". Had the five cylinder and five speed manual. That was a "hen's tooth" then, never seen another one in person since.
 
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mikephillips said:
On the plus side my youngest niece wants to learn how a manual works and how to drive with it. Talk about a skill most of her peers won't have...
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I know I have mentioned this before but we had friends who insisted their daughters all drive stick so that they would never be stranded because they couldn't drive the car. The added bonus of the car at college was that no one could borrow it. :smile:
 
Her 3 other cousins show little interest in it, and just shake their heads over the fact that everything I have is a stick. But Langley is one of those young folk who want to know how to do everything and gets annoyed when someone can do something she can't.
 
I got my Mazda2 from a private seller at a really good price because it had a 5 speed and they told me they had close to a dozen people interested in the car because it was very good condition inside and out, but the potential buyers walked away when they realized they couldn't drive it. It wasn't indicated on the original window sticker (which the sellers had) that it was a custom order, but finding a 5 speed Mazda2 from 2011 is unusual enough that I had to have the shop special-order motor mounts from Canada when they needed replacing.

Years ago in Virginia my sister had her truck broken into when she worked at an in-city office. She came out to find her truck sitting in the parking lot with the window broken out, the ignition/steering lock slide-hammered and the engine running. The officer who came to take the report indicated that the likely reason it was still there was the 5 speed - the vandals/thiefs couldn't drive it.
 
YakkoWarner said:
It wasn't indicated on the original window sticker (which the sellers had) that it was a custom order, but finding a 5 speed Mazda2 from 2011 is unusual enough that I had to have the shop special-order motor mounts from Canada when they needed replacing.
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Maybe for that model. I have a 2013 Mazdaspeed3 that only comes with a manual 6 speed. I'd guess one could special order one with an automatic, but why?
 
My daughter is learning to drive a standard. The 94 Jeep I bought back in Feburary will be her car when she's sixteen. She's still a bit shy about driving but by the time she's old enough to get a driver's license, in four more years, it will be second nature for her. She's also learning to change the oil, change a tire, and do a tune up. Nothing difficult but enough that she will hopefully not wind up stranded and helpless too often.
 
I've driven a stick almost exclusively for close to 50 years now starting with British, imagine that in an early 70s Ohio farm community...
Feels weird now to drive an automatic, one hand and foot are wondering what they should be doing....
 
We didn't have an automatic transmission car until we got Diesela about fifteen years ago. Grew up with learning to stop on a grade and leave without drifting backwards, handling skids by practicing on iced-over parking lots. Starting as a fourteen year old with a three-speed '61 Falcon, later in MG's. The heel-and-toe double clutch downshift maneuvers learned first in the MGB, aided by a Paddy Hopkirk gas pedal extension. A standard shift vehicle has to be driven, paid attention to. Not so much with an automatic, giving opportunity to play with cell phones, check the console nav display, any manner of distraction while seemingly sitting on a couch, watching a wide-screen TV...

I'd gleefully celebrate a law banning automagic transmissions. NHTSA would see a dramatic drop in crash fatalities, methinks. :devilish:
 
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