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+--- Thread: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. (/showthread.php?tid=8972)
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Jake - 07-27-2010
Ken Wrote:Yeesh I can already picture Jake ad Joey standing on their front porch waving a broom and yelling at the young "whipper snappers" to get of their front lawn because, "back in their day..."
![[Image: gran-torino-clint-eastwood.jpg]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dOhmIagLNWk/SZBA4uoAt-I/AAAAAAAAAQw/ojLCugPHPe0/s320/gran-torino-clint-eastwood.jpg)
Ken Wrote:Anyway as an owner of a twin Clutch transmission I'm very happy. Granted I don't know manual but in my defense I wanted this car and it's the only transmission it came in.
I don't believe manuals will be replaced, they will always have a place on the track and are the ideal way to manage a vehicle. That being said a transmission like mine is a great compromise, I couldnot be more appreciative during long island/NYC rush hour.
As for tapping it twice to downshift two gears? You don't notice gear inbetween, change is too quick.
See, I think your twin-clutch OMG SST LMNOP WTF BBQ is pretty good. Your reasoning with rush hour does make sense considering you're in it often. It's the only dual-clutch trans I've driven and apparently Mitsu has received kudos for how good it is. I know other companies (as DJ said with VW & DSG) aren't doing as well in some eyes.
Now when you're talking on track versus street driving, I'd think the twin-clutch would be more suited to a track application. If I'm out on back roads, blasting around, a clutch and stick would be fun. On track for time trials or a race, where fast and accurate shifts count for something, the flappy paddles and quick gearchanges do matter, and thus twin-clutch "wins" from a speed argument.
I guess in my perfect world, I'd own one car of each. I'm OK with regular manual and twin-clutch paddle shift existing together, it's the regular automatic slushbox that is over-applied IMO.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - WRXtranceformed - 07-27-2010
I just flat out don't see the point of having a manual anymore other than for a weekend, tooling around in car. I will not purchase a daily driver unless it's an automatic, and honestly if I was looking at weekend cars that had an F1 style transmission or DSG, twin-clutch etc...it's not going to be a deal breaker. If you're driving a MT and you're at the strip or the road course (or a stoplight on a back country road) and someone in a modern automatic roasts you, the only consolation you're going to get is that "it feels like I'm more connected to the car."
Having owned a few quick cars and really just one fast one, I can say personally that the feeling of acceleration, in straight lines and out of corners, is what shizzle's my nizzle, not the feeling of rev-matching or downshifting. If a transmission allows for faster acceleration, better fuel economy, cheaper maintenance and better daily driveability, it makes it really hard to make a strong argument for the need for MTs.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Ken - 07-27-2010
Agreed withthe second weekend manual fun car. Personally I really want a 3000GT VR4.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - CaptainHenreh - 07-27-2010
Ken Wrote:Agreed withthe second weekend manual fun car. Personally I really want a 3000GT VR4.
You have a strange definition of fun. :-p
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Ken - 07-27-2010
Haha touch├®. Idk why it just appeals to me.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Apoc - 07-27-2010
WRXtranceformed Wrote:I just flat out don't see the point of having a manual anymore other than for a weekend, tooling around in car.
Some people's daily drivers have to do double duty. It's the reason why I have a manual DD...
Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Jake - 07-27-2010
Apoc Wrote:WRXtranceformed Wrote:I just flat out don't see the point of having a manual anymore other than for a weekend, tooling around in car.
Some people's daily drivers have to do double duty. It's the reason why I have a manual DD...
It's the reason why I DD what is effectively a street-legal go kart.
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Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - SlimKlim - 07-27-2010
You people are freaks. The cool clutchless shifts are on two wheels with a true sequential box/wet clutch. Fuck technology.
I could've bought a decent, plush e30 instead of a bike as my second vehicle. Why didn't i? Because true car people like the pain.
Candy asses.
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Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - SlimKlim - 07-27-2010
Granted I do think the technnology its place. A high high performance car, orif ken had 600hp and could flappy paddle it around, hell yeah. Open road rally car where the driver does math as he drives, sure. But if I had a dsg DD, what the hell would I do with my left foot?
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Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Goodspeed - 07-27-2010
Ken Wrote:Haha touch├®. Idk why it just appeals to me.
![[Image: white12.jpg]](http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/9333/white12.jpg)
Its OK...I understand.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Ryan T - 07-27-2010
SlimKlim Wrote:Fuck technology.
Because true car people like the pain.
Candy asses.
![[Image: 588px-Antique_bicycle1500.jpg]](http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID2725/images/588px-Antique_bicycle1500.jpg)
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Ken - 07-27-2010
How did you get a current picture of joey's project bike????
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Steve85 - 07-27-2010
I like the idea of having the option to be driving a full automatic and also switch to a mode where I can control RPM at will. I'm not picky about how that happens mechanically, but honestly I'd like a stick to control it over paddles. Not a + - stick, a gated shifter. But that's just because it's what I'm used to.
I get no glory or satisfaction in shifting 99% of the miles of drive.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - fiveoh2go - 07-27-2010
I'd rather have an auto in my DD (which I do). My weekend/fun car is a manual that in all honesty I would hate to live with every day (stiff racing clutch aside).
P.S. - Maybe it's just me but the cars that I actually care about and/or would consider purchasing myself have always had a good ol' fashioned shifter on the floor and clutch pedal so I'm not too worried.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - SlimKlim - 07-27-2010
Alright. This anecdote is somewhat in the same vein as this thread.
Today at work I finally got around to replacing the cylinder head temp sensor on my boss's old retired track-whore 1972 Porsche 914. They have rudimentary fuel injection and that sensor measures the temp of cylinder #3 and uses it to control fuel, but without it grounded it wont run at all. So it picked up this little "quirk" of dying without warning.
But anyway, I replaced it, washed it, then nutted up, threw a tag on it, gritted my teeth and went for a drive. No power steering, no brakes, no power, no synchronizer for 1st gear, certainly no ABS, no traction control, no airbag, no radio, and a 4th gear that 40% of the time, works 100% of the time. All 20 minutes I drove it I was completely fucking terrified and I had an enormous involuntary shit-eating grin on my face, at the same time.
I'd also like to report that driving this car was somewhere between 10 and 20 times more fun than the new body style 911s I get to take around the block every week or so.
"Joey!" you say, "such blasphemy, how could you say there is more joy in driving a 40 year old beater than a new high end sports car?" Well children, since I don't live next to a track, any opportunity I get to climb into a 997 911 and ride around, I climb into is fine german leather ass-holder, fire up some horizontally opposed goodness, and drive around in a 300-something horsepower ABS and power steering filled BORING loop around town, in traffic. Fucking fascinating. Coupled with the fact that a young gentleman of my age in an 80k car gets immediately written off as a tool, so new 911s suck, I'm sorry, they just do.
Now, back to the 914. I negotiate it down the back road behind our shop, stand up on the brakes and coast to the stop sign, turn right onto a busy road and give it some air cooled goodness. Each gear needs to be hit perfectly or you're going to mis-shift. You have to tape your eyes open and genuinely study traffic because you simply can't stop in a reasonable amount of time. Not because something is wrong with the car, that's just the way it comes. In short, the car has to be driven. Not, "I got in the seat and drove my car to the store." Driven. In an Ayrton Senna-esqe way. The kind of driving that is an art form equaling more than the sum of its parts. Everything you do correctly is immensely satisfying, everything you do wrong is completely fucking terrifying, because you stand a good chance of dying a slow and painful death trapped under the back of a Hummer if you let your attention lapse for a second. And the really incredible thing about this experience? You haven't broken the speed limit yet. Would I rather have an old porsche over a new one as my toy. In many ways yes I would, because the joy it gives you, and the reward of not dying when you get where you're going, just can't be matched by anything else.
I'm not saying that new cars and technology are the devil. Newer cars are more reliable, last for millions of miles, are ten times safer than anything out of the 70s and are more advanced in almost every way. What they are capable of is mind blowing, and they are completely awesome. But at their core they are still the 3000lbs hunk of metal and plastic they were in the 70s. Except now they have DSG, ABS, traction control, corner braking control and active stability control (often parts of a traction control system youd didn't know about, lane departure warning, accident avoidance, self parking, adaptive cruise control, headlights that turn with you, TPMS, and electronic dipsticks so the car can tell you when its thirsty.
But what about our generation, and those slightly younger than us? Those of us who are learning to drive on a car usually from the early to mid 2000s with at least half of all the stuff I just mentioned? They have the advantage of all this technology but they've never experienced what its like to control a car with none of it, so they can't really appreciate what a car is. I'm not saying every teenager should have to own an old car, but maybe it should be a legal requirement to take a weekend class in which you operate a 914 in traffic and then in a high performance situation to give everyone a little perspective on what they are really doing when they drive somewhere.
Why am I putting this in the manual thread? Because its all relevant to the driving experience, those of you that say having a traditional manual isn't part of the joy you get out of driving, I have a hard time imagining what sort of experience you do get out of driving. There is so much intrinsic value for me, an x factor I can't describe, in driving a car that I can fuck up if I do it wrong. A car, while more developed than a 914 (airbags are nice), still requires my concentration to operate, because that's what I love about driving. Sure a DSG is faster, but for the 99.9% of the time I'm not driving balls out, flipping a paddle will never bring the same level of satisfaction. I love my manual DD, because if I had to climb into some autotragic and commute to work with the rest of the econboxes, I'm not sure I'd go at all.
TL
R: Go back and read it jackass.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Apoc - 07-27-2010
SlimKlim Wrote:No power steering, no brakes, no power, no synchronizer for 1st gear, certainly no ABS, no traction control, no airbag, no radio, and a 4th gear that 40% of the time, works 100% of the time.
Sounds like my 944, except the braking because mine aren't stock.
I can't even imagine what it would be like to race with ABS or power steering. I'm sure "technology makes it better" but I like it the way it is. Does that make me old fashioned or a troglodyte? Maybe... but I'm okay with that.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - G.Irish - 07-27-2010
Eh, I'm sure people who rode horses to work said the same things about cars. 'What about the connection to your steed?' 'What about the horsemanship skills you had to master over a lifetime?' 'Anybody can drive a car, not everyone can ride a horse.'
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Ryan T - 07-27-2010
SlimKlim Wrote:Now, back to the 914. I negotiate it down the back road behind our shop, stand up on the brakes and coast to the stop sign, turn right onto a busy road and give it some air cooled goodness. Each gear needs to be hit perfectly or you're going to mis-shift. You have to tape your eyes open and genuinely study traffic because you simply can't stop in a reasonable amount of time. Not because something is wrong with the car, that's just the way it comes. In short, the car has to be driven. Not, "I got in the seat and drove my car to the store." Driven. In an Ayrton Senna-esqe way. The kind of driving that is an art form equaling more than the sum of its parts. Everything you do correctly is immensely satisfying, everything you do wrong is completely fucking terrifying, because you stand a good chance of dying a slow and painful death trapped under the back of a Hummer if you let your attention lapse for a second. And the really incredible thing about this experience? You haven't broken the speed limit yet. Would I rather have an old porsche over a new one as my toy. In many ways yes I would, because the joey it gives you, and the reward of not dying when you get where you're going, just can't be matched by anything else.
If you reread that everything you said can be applied to tons of newer vehicles too. Take my jeep for instance. I have to plan ahead to slow down, and changing lanes at speed can almost always be an adventure. Or hell, drive a Prius for 60 or 70 miles and you can get the same feeling. Not having enough power to merge at speed can be a very eventful way to drive. Am I missing the "essence" of what you are saying? Yeah, intentionally, but exciting "i might die" driving is certaintly confined to old 1970s manual transmission cars. Hell my vette with no abs or traction in the rain gives me that feeling.
SlimKlim Wrote:but maybe it should be a legal requirement to take a weekend class in which you operate a 914 in traffic and then in a high performance situation to give everyone a little perspective on what they are really doing when they drive somewhere.That's a bit absurd; why make kids drive something that they will likely never have to drive again? Hell, make them all get CDLs too so they know what it's like to drive a 60,000lb truck with a 60' trailer...just so they know.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - Apoc - 07-27-2010
Ryan T Wrote:Hell, make them all get CDLs too so they know what it's like to drive a 60,000lb truck with a 60' trailer...just so they know.
Great idea. Maybe they'd think twice before cutting off that tractor trailer if they knew the flip side of the coin.
Re: Please, do your part. Save the Manuals. - SlimKlim - 07-27-2010
G.Irish Wrote:Eh, I'm sure people who rode horses to work said the same things about cars. 'What about the connection to your steed?' 'What about the horsemanship skills you had to master over a lifetime?' 'Anybody can drive a car, not everyone can ride a horse.'
Apples to Oranges, and not really my point. People aren't careening around our highways on 4000lbs horses at 75mph on the phone. But if you want to talk about horses, think if there was some equestrian equipment that allowed such exacting control of the horse that it would be impossible to spook them unless taken to the very extreme? It would be much much safer for riders, but old fogey's like me would surely bang on for ages, advocating learning to use the old equipment and feel out the edge so you can respect what you're in control of.
Having to work harder at something makes you respect it more. In an environment with so many people in huge automatic SUVs, I'm proud to be a hold out.
Ryan T Wrote:If you reread that everything you said can be applied to tons of newer vehicles too. Take my jeep for instance. I have to plan ahead to slow down, and changing lanes at speed can almost always be an adventure. Or hell, drive a Prius for 60 or 70 miles and you can get the same feeling. Not having enough power to merge at speed can be a very eventful way to drive. Am I missing the "essence" of what you are saying? Yeah, intentionally, but exciting "i might die" driving is certaintly confined to old 1970s manual transmission cars. Hell my vette with no abs or traction in the rain gives me that feeling.
Its hard for me to really vocalize what I'm thinking here. I drive my parent's enormous F-250 Diesel with a worn out steering rack all the time. It falls into the same catagory, slow, heavy, hard to slow down, hard to control, takes a lot more concentration and planning. But there is something about an old German sports car, we're talking like, when Porsches were sold in America as cheap imports, that you can't put your finger on that's wholly terrifying and awe inspiring and erotic all at the same time.
The M3 has no traction control and has been freaky at times, but it doesn't compare to the 100% all the time work it takes to drive one of those old things. Maybe I can get my boss to let me arrange a 914 gangbang to see if people have the same experience.
For the record, a 914, especially one in this condition is not an expensive car in the slightest. One in this condition might be worth 5k? Maybe? A mint, virgin one goes for like 13k.
Ryan T Wrote:That's a bit absurd; why make kids drive something that they will likely never have to drive again? Hell, make them all get CDLs too so they know what it's like to drive a 60,000lb truck with a 60' trailer...just so they know.
Well yeah, that's my point really. I'd like to see what driving a truck is like. Although something like I said would give them something comparable to a normal passenger car without any assists, so they can appreciate what they are really pushing around out there.