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VW itsself....??
Why would VW go to the effort of designing such a system and putting it to wide use, if they didn't feel there were enough less than half-way competent drivers that needed, REQUIRED, the additional safety aspect...??
Does anyone know how many other marques have adopted the VW up-rev technique, or are in the process of doing so, with their FWD stick shift vehicles?
I can turn off the PSM system, a "like" safety aspect, in my C4 but I certainly do not do that as a rule. I suspect the last time I did that was back in '05 on the track at Daytona.
My '05 Porsche C4...??
No doubt.
But not with ANY FWD...!!
But there are an even larger numbers, dramatically so, of FWD pilots that haven't a clue as to what an autoX is.
There is a reason, a STRONG reason why FWD vehicles now dominate the market and stick shifts are on the wane.
The general public automotive buyers are totally unaware of the poor safety record of FWD vehicles in comparison to RWD. Insofar as stick shifts are concerned I refer you to the overall opinion of the posts on this thread.
Let's toss this dead horse back in the gutter please and get back to manual transmissions and whether they have a future in the US.
It's true that if an unexperienced driver were to pull a high rpm downshift on an icy road they would skid but the first thing you tell people about driving in bad conditions is take it easy and be smooth. The same downshift in a rwd or awd or fwd could produce an unhappy result.
I've been to a couple of dozen autocrosses and gymkhanas and I've seen what first gen Minis can do; not many cars can beat a well-driven Mini.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I do remember though how crappy most manual transmissions were for easy-shifting in the 70s and 80s. The Japanese shifters were pretty good though, much better than German or America as I recall. The first GREAT shifting car I remember was the Miata, followed closely by, of all things, my MGB.
Sweet shifting manual, as well...
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The 4 speeds in 4.2 E-types was pretty sweet too.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Must have been a good year, kept my '82 Tercel to 114k, 17 years, and only sold it because we downsized and moved south. Fun rowing those gears too.
Why have RWD/4WD/4X4 systems if driving one set of wheels with yet a different set dedicated solely to directional control will suffice...? Because there are conditions that REQUIRE that both sets of tire treads be used to "drive". So why are you stuck on only one set of tire treads being used for both drive and lateral control.
Know anyone who leaves a 4WD/4X4 system engaged once up and going at a reasonable roadway speed, say above 20 MPH...? Then the next time you encounter that person shake hands with an IDIOT.
Makes NO sense.
That's why we now have the additional safety factor of ABS, keeping traction available for lateral, directional control, while at the same time slowing or bringing the vehicle to a stop on a slippery surface ASAP.
The VW engine "up-rev" technique is simply a different, inverse(?) form of ABS.
"..get back to manual transmissions..."
This IS about manual transmissions, the decline of....
Manufacturers have moved away from stick shifts in FWD vehicles due to the unsafe nature of same for 98-99% of the driving population.
Seen any FWD/4X4/4WD systems lately...? No..? Wonder why that is...?
Sure, those of us who like FWD don't want a tunnel going down the floorboards. The one in my Outback takes up a lot of room.
That old Tercel of mine? I quit running studs on it the last ten years I had it because it did just fine with all-seasons on it. It lived its whole life in Anchorage. I'm not that great a driver either (got my Outback stuck on the shoulder here last winter).
Every first snow, the Anchorage paper has a story about idiot drivers. Note this photo in this year's edition - a 4WD Bronco that tried to climb a tree. Real safe, uh huh.
This topic is about the future of MTs. Any further off-topic posts will be summarily removed.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
There you go again, completely sidestepping the question. Remember; I asked YOU which sanctioning body certified YOU to judge how qualified the driving public is or is not. Clearly you have no such certification, and as such, your comments of today are just as irrelevant as the bilge you’ve been polluting this thread with off and on for the last six months or more.
Please, for your own sake, find somewhere else to post your silly factoids.
The C4, of course, remains nice and cosy in the garage throughout the winter.
But the RX does have a set of tire chains on board year 'round, and a second set to be used on the front (so far never used) is added during the winter. Here in the Seattle area the majority of the time I find that the greater CSA, contact area, of summer tires serve me better than tires with less tread contact surface area.
We also have a MT '93 Ford Ranger RWD that is often called to duty, tirechains ALWAYS on board.
Transmissions, right? My co-worker had to replace the trans on her Fiesta. Ford will hopefully sort that out.
Subaru had some issues with the EJ257 turbo engines (a bad batch of crank bearings) which put the Forester XT below average, but now it's well above average. It's not uncommon to see a turnaround after they get the v1.0 issues addressed.
Hopefully same for Cruze and Focus.
Saw the Ody's low score, just got that issue last night. Another v1.0. Also, every minivan save the Sienna rates below average. So get a Sienna or skip vans altogether, for now.
WRX had clutch issues in 2002, and the same bearing issues that Forester had for 2009 models, I believe. So you're right, it does help you narrow it down.
For all the criticism CR gets, I'm a Subaru guy, and I can tell you, they *DO* figure out the weak spots.
Anyone who buys a vehicle that is jam-packed with unneeded "convenience" features that are bound to fail, and then gets annoyed when they do, needs to stop buying vehicles. :P
But yeah, the loaded up Siennas have AWD, laser cruiser control, power folding 3rd row seats, power hatch, navi, DVD entertainment, etc.
Something's bound to break.
But for auto/product reliability, CU uses results from the annual questionnaire it mails out to members. If the Cruze has a poor reliability rating, it's because that's what it's members reported.
Only repairs to our Sienna were the sound system after the boys jammed all the loose change in the CD slot (Not Toyo's fault) and a recurrently finicky, prone to jamming electric power door.
But probably not in our, anyone currently living, lifetime.
GM and Ford build decent enough cars currently.
I mean, American car reliability got so bad it became the topic for comedians on TV. It really was a problem and a terrible blow to Detroit's prestige.
American car design in the late 70s and to the mid 80s lost all its vitality. It was tired, tired, tired, and you see very little, if any, styling influence today, whereas they are STILL making the 3 series BMW and the Mercedes sedan in its basic form.
Given that European cars were 'drivers' cars', you'd expect, and you got, a car that was fun to drive, from the way it shifted to the way it steered and the way the suspension reacted.
Which is probably also why European automatic transmissions pretty much sucked. They were new at it back then.
The Japanese on the other hand, just copied and improved upon whatever Americans liked. Their transmissions worked, their AC worked, and they got great gas mileage and they didn't break down very much.
The styling...well...in that respect the Europeans were better than anyone.
I believe Detroit finally gets it, but needs to prove it can execute. The Japanese have demonstrated that while they remain very tough competitors, they're not immune to mistakes. The easy days are over for them, as Detroit has awakened and the Koreans are steadily gaining market share. The Europeans, including Ferrrari and Maserati, have demonstrated that they can fend off the Japanese luxury brands, but know they must go full tilt to stay ahead.
The future is likely to play out differently from the past. If I had to pick one group that is likely to be the most (positively) surprising or disappointing between now and 2020, it's Fiat-Chrysler. Now that most cars are quite reliable and durable, and many have become generic, I predict that design will be a more important differentiator in the years ahead. This spells opportunity for Fiat-Chrysler. The same could be said for the Koreans, since Korea is generally acknowledged to be the fashion center of Asia.
China and India will become increasingly important, but it's too early to predict how competitive their brands will be.
But the point is that today, the old adage of "Japanese are better, just buy a Japanese car" just doesn't hold true. It's once again gray and murky and every make and model has to be evaluated separately. Well, Chrysler aside. They still can't make a reliable automatic. Though, the same could be said for GM about manuals. Chrysler does great manuals. GM only knows automatics. Ford is somewhere in the middle, as is Hyundai. Toyota also is so-so with automatics and great with its manuals. Honda is similar, though trying to find a manual from either maker now is exceedingly hard. Mercedes and BMW are fine cars with manual but don't get the automatic if you're buying instead of leasing. They stopped offering manual in the C class this year, what gives? I suppose we'll be losing manual for the 3 series in a year or two as well? (though the rest of the world will still get it)
In the 1980s, with the advent of fuel injection and improved heating and cooling, the German cars were pretty rock-solid, at least Benz and BMW. Audi hadn't worked out its problems yet (and maybe not still :P ).
I think of the Japanese as flying at high altitude, far above most other car makers problems.
It wasn't that they were so vastly superior, but they were really REALLY lucky. They had the right product line, in the right place on the globe, at the right time.
They had sturdy, small and by the 80s, medium size sedans that got 2X the gas mileage of domestics, lots of dealers, good media coverage, a nice line of mini-pickups and mini-vans (a market the USA ignored), and a nice variety of 4-speed and 5-speed manual transmissions. They started in winter, they were cool in summer, and they were perfectly adapted to US driving conditions by that time. Some were even moderately fun to drive if you tried hard enough.
The domestics continued to make whales. You're right, Detroit "didn't get it" back then.
But yeah, now they do.
I also agree that Chrysler has the most vitality in their styling.
What's next, pickups?
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
they do seem to have a grip on the youth market, though, and you can sell manual transmissions to that crowd, no doubt about that.
My 1979 Scirocco needed front struts at about 70,000 miles, exhaust at about 90,000 miles; the rest of the car was untouched when I traded it in at over 100,000 miles.
I didn't own either Audi as long, I traded the 1981 4000 in on a 1982 GT Coupe when it had a bit over 50,000 miles on it, and the GT Coupe was totaled with only 43,000 miles on the clock when the driver of a 1974 Caprice Classic ran a stop sign and took out both cars (the driver of the Chevy was in pretty bad shape, I didn't even have a bruise). When I said goodbye to both Audis they were all factory original.
From what I know the Audi 5000 was more problematic than the 4000. Rabbits, in the first several years, Dashers and early Passats also fared poorly on reliability.
The key from here on is going to be to carve out a niche and cater to it. Competing with other manufacturers and trying to grow beyond a certain size could be more destructive than anything else: you spread yourself too thin, and it's just impossible to be everything to everyone.
Then there was the fuel pump wire that was run outside of a wire tray such that every time someone sat in the rear seat, the wire would short to chassis and blow the fuel pump fuse.
Now rust was a common problem in almost all early 70s cars but urban legend has it that Fiat bartered crappy steel from the Soviets in exchange for building the Togliatti Auto Factory where they built copies of the 124 sedan and sold them as Ladas.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Was starting to have a few electrical gremlins when I sold it though.
Loved that car. If anybody made something like it today I would be all over it. 2,000 lbs, manual steering, stick shift (golf ball), hatchback, peppy, good mpg, nice looking. Original miata came pretty close - may pick up one of those.
Edit: The silly golf-ball shift knob didn't last even 40,000 miles before I removed it and put a nice leather wrapped knob in its place.
Depends on the country a car runs in. For instance, in the UK they cut out rotted rocker panels like we change wiper blades. It's nothing to them, they are so used to it.
Americans were like fussy little babies in the 60s and 70s when it came to tolerating repair and maintenance mishaps on new cars. They were used to the simple ruggedness of a '70 Chevy Nova...and floorshifts were like...EXOTIC....LOL!
Of course, by the 1980s, many domestic cars were behaving like Fiats anyway.
We drive and test three new Accents so you can pick just one.
November 2011
BY DAVID GLUCKMAN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PATRICK M. HOEY
We’re nothing if not thorough. In assessing the 2012 Hyundai Accent, we chose to test not one, not two, but three different variants: a hatchback with the manual transmission, a sedan with the automatic, and to get the full picture, a hatch with the auto. Yes, we could have tested that fourth body-and-transmission permutation, but that would’ve been silly.
Before the results are laid out, here’s a rundown of the players. For 2012, the Accent hatchback goes from three to five doors. The sedan is now the lineup’s value leader, with a base price of $13,205 for a manual. That base car wears the GLS badge (as do all sedans) and goes without air conditioning, power windows or mirrors, or even a radio—it has four speakers, but nothing to feed them music. No one’s buying that showroom-traffic model. Adding in those missing pieces runs $1750 (it’s called the Comfort package; we’d call it the “Bare Minimum” package), but the car still rides on 14-inch steel wheels. For $2750, you get that equipment plus an automatic transmission. Our automatic test vehicle was fully loaded, including the $1300 Premium package: keyless entry, body-color door handles on the outside and chrome pulls on the inside, piano-black interior trim, nicer cloth seats, steering-wheel-mounted audio controls, Bluetooth, cruise control, fog lights, and 16-inch aluminum wheels. See? Thorough.
Hatchback models come in two grades: GS and SE. The GS—$15,355 for a manual and $16,555 for the automatic—is equipped to a level similar to the GLS sedan with the Comfort package. We tested a pair of SE models, which include everything from the sedan with the Premium package, plus a rear spoiler, leather for the steering wheel and shift knob, and “sport tuned” steering. The SE starts at $16,555, and a grand more gets you the automatic. All three test Accents were decadently optioned with an iPod cable ($35) and carpeted floor mats ($95).
The Strongest Accent
The 2012 Accent is powered by a direct-injected 1.6-liter four-cylinder that makes 138 hp and 123 lb-ft of torque. The manual and automatic transmissions both have six speeds. The stick has longish throws and is accompanied by a lifeless, long-travel clutch pedal; it’ll be easy for anyone to move but doesn’t so much as hint at the location of its friction point. Despite those demerits, the manual is much more fun to interact with, allowing the driver to get the most out of the little engine. The automatic car feels as if it were missing a few of its 138 horses.
That feeling was backed up at the test track, where the manual hatch hit 60 mph in 8.0 seconds, 1.9 quicker than the auto-equipped hatch and 1.6 better than the automatic sedan. The manual dominated in every acceleration test but top-gear, since our procedure leaves a manual in its highest gear whereas automatics are allowed to downshift as they see fit. And to seal the deal, the manual got drastically better observed fuel mileage: 33 mpg versus 26 for both automatic cars. All 2012 Accents have EPA ratings of 30 mpg city and 40 mpg highway.
It can easily be extrapolated that a sedan with the manual would be about as quick and efficient. But it wouldn’t look anywhere as nice or be able to fit as much cargo. Anyway, that covers our vote for transmission.
Go stick shifts!
To be fair she lives across the street from the beach, but the salt air simple EATS those things. Less than 1 year!