First Audi, and now BMW....(no more manuals)

"Buying new cars is stupid. I'll never buy new."

"Why don't they sell new cars with options and features I like?"

ad nauseam.

Hope you “modern fanboys” enjoy riding around in autonomous vehicles.  Since everything new is wonderful.

irish44j said:

Snrub said:

It's almost a surprise it took them this long. The manual take rate on camaros is down around 20%. I believe 86/BRZ, Miata and 370z are the only cars with significant manual sales volume.

WRX/STi....which (IIRC) only come in manual. I imagine a good chunk of GTIs are sold in manual as well.

Don't forget:

Boxster

Cayman

Mustang GT

911

Civic Si/TR

Golf R

E.g. your next track car in 5-10 years! 

I have no problem with commuter cars getting autos. I commuted in traffic with a manual and it was fine. Commuting with an auto and adaptive cc is better however, and I don't see manufacturers doing adaptive cc on manuals.

At the last autocross, there was a drag-style launch, then a long sweeping curve where I was on the limiter in 2nd well before a sharp left, and I was again on the limiter well before I crossed the finish line. The Fiesta ST has a good 6-speed manual, but not good enough that the time it takes to shift to third is worth it, especially when you have to go right back down.

A paddle-shift automatic with launch control would have shaved a bit off my start, allowed me to grab third (with overboost!)  for a second or two at two different places on the course, shaving even more time.  So one of the best little manual-shift cars out there would benefit from a DSG under the circumstances where a manual is often touted as superior. 

I was also in a parade in the car over the previous weekend, and crawling along at 5mph would have been easier in an automatic. 

That said, I had a 1.5 hour each way commute through Ohio farm country for a while and man did I enjoy that 6-speed! 

maj75 said:

Hope you “modern fanboys” enjoy riding around in autonomous vehicles.  Since everything new is wonderful.

If you're going to make lame, snide remarks, at least use the proper spelling when trying to make fun of someone.

"Fanbois" is the spelling you're looking for. 

Knurled. said:

Nobody is lamenting the demise of manual ignition timing control.  Why is everyone so up in arms about the ability to be at fault for having the car in the wrong gear?

We've had this debate a million times and you always drag this up.  Manual ignition timing control is indeed an analog way to interact with the car.  But unless you're a true contrarian, you have to admit that the poetic dance of driving a sports car with 3 pedals and a stick is much more joyfully engaging than sliding a quadrant a few degrees to quiet the spark knock.

It has nothing to do with speed or performance, and everything to do with leading a willing partner.

Duke said:

Knurled. said:

Nobody is lamenting the demise of manual ignition timing control.  Why is everyone so up in arms about the ability to be at fault for having the car in the wrong gear?

We've had this debate a million times and you always drag this up.  Manual ignition timing control is indeed an analog way to interact with the car.  But unless you're a true contrarian, you have to admit that the poetic dance of driving a sports car with 3 pedals and a stick is much more joyfully engaging than sliding a quadrant a few degress to quiet the spark knock.

It has nothing to do with speed or performance, and everything to do with leading a willing partner.

He doesn't have to admit anything. You are using a false premise:

"I find a manual more engaging, therefore, EVERYONE finds a manual more engaging."

OK, I'll change my premise:

"No one but a true contrarian or an engineer fascinated by historic technology would deny that the vast majority of sports car enthusiasts finds driving a 3-pedal manual more engaging than sliding an ignition quadrant."

Is that accurate enough for you?

maj75 said:

Hope you “modern fanboys” enjoy riding around in autonomous vehicles.  Since everything new is wonderful.

And I hope those of you who don't bother buying new cars are ok with what everyone else is buying, which is what car companies are selling.  Which seems to not exactly be what people really want.

In reply to alfadriver :

I just wish they would scale back on the electronic gizmos and doodads that are almost obsolete when the vehicles leave the factory and will become expensive reasons to scrap a vehicle long before they fall into my price range. Or at the very least, quit tying the stupid infotainment systems to important functions of the vehicle. 

I'm seriously concerned about buying vehicles in the next 10-15 years unless something magical happens and I can actually afford to buy new. I don't know what kind of life spans all the computer systems are expected to have, but it is worrying from the perspective of needing to repair it. I honestly could care less how many pedals it has if the sensors it wants to see are NLA or cost prohibitive. 

I would happily buy new, except I'm seeing car payments being higher than mortgage payments and BERK that noise. 

PMRacing said:

In reply to Stefan :

It's not about speed or fuel economy for me.  It is about simplicity.

Fixed.  Even the new DSGs/other fancy shift boxes that are faster and more efficient have way more parts/cost/weight/potential for failure.  A car is, first and foremost, and appliance.  It should be simple, efficient, and robust.

OK, I lied, speed is a factor as well.

In reply to RevRico :

Given how many of those gizmos give the price a premium that customers who buy new cars are happy to pay, that's never going to happen.

Moreso the tying of infotainment to vehicle systems, as that's the first step to better networked driving systems.  

Consumers rarely see the need to actually pay for a manual trans.  I know I don't anymore, given my use of my commuter car.  It's a whole lot cheaper to get whatever special is there for a cheap lease than custom get a manual that has low resale value.

Write as many on line campaigns or petitions all you want- the only people that get listened to are the ones handing dealers money for new cars.

It is really a surprise to anyone that in a world where no one can read a map, or cross the street without asking Siri for directions,  that the manual transmission would go away? 

We are living in an increasingly automated society, where human involvement is decreasing.   We order off Amazon instead of speaking to another human, order from Blue Apron instead of visiting our local grocery store, and order our music online, instead of buying "records or CDs".   Our cars now warn us if we are sleepy, if we are tailgating, or if someone is in our blind spot.   Our cars have almost as much control of the driving experience as we do these days, and  human involvement will decrease steadily until full automation takes over.   This is what most people want---- so the manufacturers will supply these products. 

There's hundreds of thousands of used cars with manual transmissions for those of us who prefer to shift our own.   For us troglodytes, we'll continue to enjoy the art of heel and toe, matching revs, and dancing with the pedals.   For others, this isn't important, and they'll be happy with their automated driving devices.

It will all be ok, until they tell us it's "too dangerous" for us to drive ourselves.   Hopefully that's so far in the future that I won't have to deal with it.   If it does happen in the U.S.....that's when I head to somewhere "less developed", so I can continue to drive myself until my days of being a crotchety old bastard are done.     

now get off my lawn!!!   

alfadriver said:

Write as many on line campaigns or petitions all you want- the only people that get listened to are the ones handing dealers money for new cars.

This is it in a nutshell, and I wholeheartedly agree with it.  I also agree that automatics are perfect for 95% of all typical drivers.  I also agree that when you are talking about competition cars, the transmission that gets the car to the finish line the fastest is the right transmission.

I totally understand why fully manual, 3-pedal transmissions are going away.  It just makes me sad, for many reasons.

Joe Gearin said:

There's hundreds of thousands of used cars with manual transmissions for those of us who prefer to shift our own.   For us troglodytes, we'll continue to enjoy the art of heel and toe, matching revs, and dancing with the pedals.   For others, this isn't important, and they'll be happy with their automated driving devices.

I guess I don't know what I expected from this thread or in reply to my comment.

When I was a kid, I would practice heel/toe shifting in my bedroom while dreaming of flying along a rally road or a road course.

Nearly every car I bought when I was a younger driver was a manual and I truly enjoyed them.

My first and only new car is my Focus RS which only came with a manual and with some work on the throw its not bad.  It would be faster and IMO more engaging with a sequential or semi-auto since I could keep the boost up and just bang through the gears.

So don't misunderstand me and think I've never used or enjoyed manuals.

The 6-speed automatic that I drove in a rental NC Miata to the Oregon coast and back was an eye-opening experience that automatics are not the death of fun or engagement.  Leave it in full auto for the traffic/long boring parts, put it in manual mode for the twisty mountain roads.  Focus on nailing the apexes, etc.

I had a Shelby CSX that I was building for autocross, while I was doing that, I had a Plymouth Sundance Turbo that I had already setup with an intercooler, konis/eibachs and 17" wheels/sticky rubber.  The CSX was a manual and the Sundance was an automatic.  The 3-speed auto SUCKED on the wide open freeway, great in traffic.  It was awesome for autocross.  I could brake stand the car to launch it out of the corners, manually shift it to hold revs to keep the boost up/stabilize the car, etc.  The manual car wasn't as fun to autocross as it was sometimes between gears or spinning the inside wheels, etc.  Both cars were setup the same with swaybars, springs/konis/sticky rubber.

In my experience, fun cars will be fun to drive and some are more fun than others depending on the situation they are being used in.  The fact that nearly every racing series uses some form of sequential gearbox is telling and while they are more complex, how many modern manuals or automatics have any of you needed to be inside for repairs?  The refresh kit for my wife's Toyota 4-speed auto is $300 from RA and from watching YouTube videos are pretty reasonable to rebuild since the solenoid pack comes off and there is less physically to deal with.  The later 5/6/7/8 speed autos are similar, just more clutch packs/gears.  Looking at DSG cutaways they look no more complex than a regular manual.

So this really boils down to personal preference and since so few of you actually buy new cars, I don't get what the problem is.  Go out and buy manuals if you want more of them to be produced/available.  As for the electronics, much of that is being driven by Asia as they want those doodads in their cars and its no longer a domestic only view point for manufacturers.

My current BMW is an auto; it's meh. I'd honestly prefer a manual as that's what I've had up until this point. SoCal rush hour traffic wasn't even that bad with a manual. I made do just fine.

I just find manuals more fun. Or entertaining? More engaging? Simpler? Cheaper, even? Pretty much all of that.

At this point in time, when I buy a commuter car with a manual, I do so knowing full well that the resale will take a hit and/or it'll take much longer to sell just because the majority of people don't want to shift on their 30 mile commute to work. Had a '08 Accord i4 that was a manual; took forever to sell and I had to lower the price a couple different times. That honestly was my learning moment that I'll gladly leverage against dealers.

I sure as E36 M3 don't blame people for not wanting manuals. Can't even blame manufacturers as that's what their consumers want. Can't run a profitable business when you focus on a small subset of customers who likely won't even buy the product when new, but instead a couple owners and a few years later. That goes for all businesses.

Nobody has mentioned that a major driver, so to speak, of manual sales was that they were (1) cheaper than automatics to buy and (2) got better gas mileage. Once those advantages went away, people stopped learning how to drive an auto, and once that happened, the writing was on the wall.

Enthusiast sports cars will always have manuals so long as they have ICE engines. It's just more fun to row your own, period. There are enough of us out there that someone will make us cars!

The cost part is the only real thing that bugs me about the DCT in my 135i. 

Getrag refuses to sell replacement parts, so a new gearbox is like $9500. 

But I understand the ZF 8HP can shift basically as quickly, drop multiple gears, handle as much as 800 lb-ft of torques, etc. I don't think the DCT will remain much longer outside of the German performance cars and supercars. 

All this transmission talk is fun, but soon anything with a transmission will be an 'old' car.  The electric car revolution is going to fundamentally change the car hobby.  I'm trying to get optimistic about that.

Nobody but us old farts is going to know or care about how to drive a manual transmission.  The death of the manual is inevitable and near.

There are a lot of people that don't know how to ride a horse, but I still see a lot of horses around. I'm sure there will always be an outlet for automotive luddites. 

Show of hands, how many folks here have purchased a new vehicle with a manual transmission? How many have done it in the last 5 years? 

Of those that you have purchased, how many of them were either a Miata, Corvette, STi, BRZ, or 350Z?

Not hard to see why they're going in this direction. And it won't matter for long, soon enough most vehicles will be PHEV's, and not too long after that (or at hte same time) we'll basically be dealing with self-driving cars only. 

mtn said:

Show of hands, how many folks here have purchased a new vehicle with a manual transmission? How many have done it in the last 5 years? 

Of those that you have purchased, how many of them were either a Miata, Corvette, STi, BRZ, or 350Z?

 

Not hard to see why they're going in this direction. And it won't matter for long, soon enough most vehicles will be PHEV's, and not too long after that (or at hte same time) we'll basically be dealing with self-driving cars only. 

Me.  A Focus RS.  I actually sometimes wish it had a DSG or similar, it would be faster and match the engine's power range and the rest of the tech used in the car.

Anxiously waiting the day the last ever manual is sold, then we can stop having this stupid discussion.

Adrian_Thompson said:

Anxiously waiting the day the last ever manual is sold, then we can stop having this stupid discussion.

Have you met people?  There are folks on my local neighborhood mailing list that still bemoan the loss of crappy businesses that closed 30 years ago and sucked when they were open.

In reply to Duke :

True, but laughing at them will be easier then.  And I'll also be able to ask them how many new manual cars they bought before it was too late.

Yeah, I'm feeling like an shiny happy person today :)