Marco talked on this week's Build and Analyze After Dark about his preference for stick shift and how he was impressed by an automatic transmission with a manual mode and paddle shifters. He also told us that he's "generally OK but not amazing" at driving stick and that he only stalls once in a while. He asserted that his wife would be happier with an automatic because his driving would be less jerky. Marco, I'm sorry to say that you might be a bit worse at all of this than you think. Here's why:
- A car properly driven with a manual transmission should be no more jerky than one with an automatic transmission. Unless you're equating fast acceleration to jerkiness, in which case the experiences would be the same, jerky manual transmission driving sounds like a symptom of giving too much gas while letting out the clutch, not easing off the gas before pushing it in, or both.
- I live in San Francisco, land of many hills, and I can count on one hand the number of times I have stalled in the past 5 years. If you're stalling in any way other than in weird cases where you were in gear and didn't realize it, you need some more help with starts.
- The value of a manual transmission is partially being able to shift when you'd like, and paddle-shift automatics do provide that service, but the real value of a manual transmission is being able to control exactly how much power goes down to the wheels. It's the clutch. You have very fine control of the connection between the engine and the wheels when you drive stick, and that's especially useful at times when you have poor traction (like, perhaps, driving on snowy hills in Westchester).
I'm also no expert on driving stick, but I know as much as I've learned driving stick since I first learned to drive. Please, someone help Marco fix what he's doing wrong. We can't afford to lose too many more enthusiasts in the US before they start forcing us all to drive those giant Go Karts that everyone else drives.
