The Future Of The Manual Transmission

wale_bate1

interesting:


Recongnize that? It's the R32, and it's coming here as a MY08, for about $33K. Now, according to VWoA, the only options will be NAV and summer rubber (all-season rubber being a far worse sin than a slushbox in my book ), and so the standard train will be a 3.2L and AWD, processed by, and I want to quote precisely: "a twin-clutch, six-speed manual transmission that can be shifted electronically." Umm, that'd be DSG, to you an' me.

Evidence that VAG is moving from laying the foundations to market DSG as its manual to actually actively doing it?

Something slightly sinister in that, even to me, and I'm DSG USA fan #1 big time.

It's also a somewhat taller and (IMO) somewhat less attractive version of the A3 3.2S for a grand less. I wonder what the US interior will look like. Dub interiors have been, to my eye, pretty darn good over the years. A3 me likey muchly, but I think this might be a wee bit to the cannibal side.

I'm going to postulate that given the intended demographic of the car, they believe the (youthful) target audience will be willing to accept DSG as the sport/performance tranny. Personally, I think that will fly with the group intended by and large, with the detractors likely to be older members of the automotive press.

Just my hunch; YMMV.

boaz47

The last two post have just the right amount of seasoning.

It seems to me way back when my son was an infant that there were at least two car seats for children and a booster seat. When my son was born we took him by a Chevy dealership where I had once worked when I was still in college. The counter men and some of the office women gave us a infant car seat that GM stocked at the time. The thing look like a space shuttle ejection seat. It was rather high backed, with plenty of padding and a optional shield looking thing that enclosed the infant in from the front. When properly set up the kid looked like astronaut without the face shield. The whole thing felt like crash helmet material. He was only able to stay in that seat till he was about two and then we had to get a regular car seat. The car seats I see today look like a cross between the two seats just described.

I will admit to folding into wimpishness after the child was born. We got a van because of the extras that went along with having a child. The car seat, diaper bag, folding playpen, power swing set, and food for a week just to go to a friends house for dinner. However the first time he ever shifted my car was when he was twelve. Out at El Marage dry lake bed in a Dodge D-50. Today he is driving a Bradley in Iraq. I have no clue what kind of transmission it has.

wale_bate1

Why would I waste my time to go rustle up car seats and appropriately-sized moppets just to prove your point that they don't fit perfectly? Of course your money's safe, H1. Your kid is another story.

"I figured you'd put two and two together on that. The maximum speed on the side streets in our neighborhood is 15 mph, but we were generally below double digits. Just enough in the S2000 to go from 1st to 2nd and back."

Most accidents happen within a few miles of a driver's home, and most commonly far below freeway speeds.

You go, guy...

boaz47

Oh double dang. I have had absolutely no luck with VW in three different decades. VW us has got to have the "worst" reputation since the French were here. The cars weren't bad but parts and service was horrid. I almost folded at the new Pasant but the face of Borman working the parts counter caused me to pass. However that picture and a DSG in a price range a mear mortal can afford? Maybe the parts and service guys can be bribed with a trophy Luger and a few old farfennugen posters? Might be worth it.

wale_bate1

VWoA "service" history (quotes for obvious reasons) would be the only thing that might influence me to sidestep any of their product.

dsaltzman

Thanks to all who have replied. I think we'll try to test out a Mazda 5 this weekend. I consider myself a lucky man who has a wife who enjoys shifting the gears. Once the kids are old enough and we no longer need to be their chauffeurs, I only hope that there are still genuine manual transmissions left to drive in fun, small cars because I know I will have support from my wife in purchasing one. Of course I'll have to fight her for the keys!

boaz47

I am not typically a hatchback fan. For a DSG that can be over looked. However I might hold out for a Sedan. But I see this more and more. If VW is only offering the vehicle in DSG they must be moving away from the TC automatic as well. Should make some people happy. Nissan already offers the CVT only in at least two of its vehicles and I have seen it as a option in the Altima and Sentra. I don't know what will happen with the Versa but think how much more cost effective moves like this are for the manufacturer. If you find a transmission that is acceptable to almost all of the drivers why produce more than one transmission? Lets set aside our own personal preferences for just a minute and look at it as if we were stock holders. The expense of producing one car with two or three transmissions isn't very efficient nor is it very productive. If the objection of the less than 10 percent of the market is the TC automatic then the DSG or the CVT would counter that objection. At least on paper that sounds good.

kyfdx

I bet they don't bring the 4-door to the US.. I saw a TopGear video comparing the R32 to the 130i.. They picked the R32.

The 130i was seriously lacking in rear seat and luggage room, but the R32 was comparatively roomy.. Typically better RWD handling for the 130i, but they liked the build quality of the VW... and, the VW had better times on the track, though it didn't look like as much fun to drive..

wale_bate1

Well, I'd prefer 5-doors, but the rear hatch is something I look for in a car. To me, it allows what is basically almost a sports car enough utility to be almost a family car. Other thing I like is that in almost all cases, even though it's extra weight, the distribution is evened up somewhat by the tush. Wagons/hatches are generally better handlers than their sedan/coupe counterparts. Generally.

Of course, it's what lights yer pipe that matters.

Just as some people have their emotional ties to the stick and pedal, I have my emotional reservations about the CVT. Torque and HP considertions aside, I just never could get used to the consistency and total lack of the visceral...

I think the push to standardize platforms, and minimize costs across the board drives a fair deal of equipment decisions, yes. Back to that G8, there may be some reason to delay the manual for the V8, like timing for certification or something.

Then again, they may just be introducing it late to put it in an early grave; keep the press off their backs because it is coming, but delay it long enough that many will go ahead and get it with the auto anyway, and then when manual arrives demand will be so low they can kill it based on sales numbers? Am I reaching here? Real far?

kyfdx

By 4-door.. .I meant 4-door hatch.. I'm thinking we'll only get the 3-door, not the 5-door... Just like last time..

wale_bate1

Like a book thou talkest, Kentucky, like a book.

I think it's three doors only. It will help to differentiate from the A3. It also speaks to a younger crowd.

Only 1-series I'm interested in would have five doors, so according to BMW I'm pretty much POL (poop outta luck) until sometime after I give the SportCross to my eldest anyway...

[edit] Oh, I was responding to boaz before; I knew where you were drivin'... :shades:

boaz47

"I just never could get used to the consistency and total lack of the visceral..."

Not sure how to take that. But then when I was a kid I was totally into slot cars so maybe I am tainted. If a single speed Rusket 22,000 RPM wouldn't win a race we re-wound the motor to try and get 33,000 RPM out of it. I have no clue if the re-winding got that much additional RPM but the car was faster. I have always been interested in how you could have an unlimited number of gear ratios in a CVT and now with a computer assisting you could have a 15 speed with programed shift points. You would never be between gears, never. I know that isn't exactly how it works but if makes life easier on the engine management system?

A bit off topic but that is one reason I have a problem with the hybrids we are now offered. They are tied to the motor in such a way that the electric part is not necessarily the strongest link. Think of the marine hybrids. A gas or diesel motor running at optimum efficiency for fuel useage turning a turbine producing the electricity needed to power the vehicle. I can almost hear the wine of a 22,000 rpm motor in my head. We sure wouldn't need gears. Ok, back to reality not likely during my lifetime.

wale_bate1

Nothing like electric for torque application, that's for certain...

nippononly

If the next R32 comes only as a DSG, then I hope personally it kills sales completely. There's no excuse for it, even if VW's manuals have never been the most inspiring. And geez, it is so EASY to find manuals in VW's popular models currently! And they are fairly popular among buyers, it would seem, especially the Audi versions. I am sure VW's manual take rate must be higher than the industry 10%.

And this sort of thinking:
"Lets set aside our own personal preferences for just a minute and look at it as if we were stock holders"
is exactly the sort that is ruining the market and killing all the really interesting choices buyers used to have. IMHO. :mad:

boaz47

how else should a stock holder think? How can this be the manufacturers or even the stock holders fault?

I can't see this as much more than letting the market dictate the offerings of the manufacturer. I know how you feel, I remember you once said it would be better to Kill Saab rather than let GM make them mainstream. If the case to keep them alive couldn't be made to the Stockholders you would be correct. So at some point Saab would have to fall below a specified market point to have GM pull the plug. I gather you would have said, better dead domesticated? respecting your opinion shouldn't they launch the new R32 to see how they fly before offering two or three transmissions? Isn't that just what they did with the G-35 for at least a year before they offered the manual?

Maybe you remember what someone told me when we were bemoaning the dropping of the MR2 by Toyota? "If we were all that interested we or at least more people would have bought one." Doesn't that hold true for any car and any option? But I respect your opinion.

wale_bate1

RWD compact sport wagon, RWD compact sport wagon, RWD compact sport wagon...

I'm feelin' your pain, brother Nippon. Not going with you per se, but sympathetic am I.

This will be a very interesting experiment for them...

boaz47

Just how many RWD Compact sport wagons are there? And can there be a sport and a wagon? :confuse:

And I believe you are supposed to click your heels together three times when you wish things like that.

seminole_kev

Um, yeah there can be a sport and wagon.



...and I'd gnaw off my own arm to have one.

lilengineerboy

BMW is a very small company with very small production, has a high vehicle mix, makes a lot of manual transmissions, and is making money hand over fist. The shareholders like making money hand over fist. I asked them

qbrozen

and another "sport wagon."

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boaz47

I was simply teasing wale. He knows I feel they use the word sport a bit freely. I have always felt that a sports car should be a race car they domesticated for the street but I would accept a street car designed to race now and then. Anything with more than two doors I have felt should be relegated to sporty at best. If the vehicle can not only carry the kids and mother in law, but has room for groceries, sport seems a bit ambitious. But they make sport SUVs and sport Pickups so the word has lost something over the years, and I have to accept the term sport wagon. It does make a marketing tool. I can think of the advantages however. You can enter LeMans and not only have the backup driver in the front but the pit crew can ride with you and keep their tools in the back. Does the dodge Magnum qualify as a sport wagon?

qbrozen

well, sportscar has a WHOLE different meaning to me than when you add "sport," which is, by definition, pretty mundane, to any other vehicle type. Sport-wagon, sport-sedan, sport-coupe, whatever.

I don't know about the magnum. In my opinion, no manual = no sport. But it blows the doors off of so many other vehicles that could be called "sport." But, then again, speed alone does not a "sport" vehicle make.

Now, the term "sporty" I feel, for some strange reason, can be used even more freely. I really have no clue why. But, taking the example above, there is nothing wrong with calling the Magnum sporty. Because now with the "y" on there, it is merely an adjective. But without the "y" it is part of the noun. (ok, i guess i do know why after all)

cdnpinhead

One -- count all the way to one. BMW 3, and even it wasn't available as RWD until this year. Comes with a manual, too.

The photos that have been posted are all AWD or FWD.

seminole_kev

well the question I think some of us were responding to were Boaz's "no sports wagon" comment, rather than the other question regarding RWD wagons.

andys120

to current owners of the AM Vanquish.

Interesting and a bit ironic, since I recall AM being one of the first to offer a TC A/T in a high performance GT.

habitat1

"If the vehicle can not only carry the kids and mother in law, but has room for groceries, sport seems a bit ambitious."

So this doesn't qualify for the "sport" label?

2 kids, MIL(or wife), 3 bags of groceries, 2 cup holders

boaz47

If you had all that in it while at the track the tears in the pit crews eyes would say it all. But let me picture that as a 4 door wagon. Oh yes Porsche does make a wagon they call a SUV. Must be a sports SUV? I agree, we can affix the label sport on whatever we like. It doesn't matter if it is a SUV, Sedan, Coupe, wagon, or even a truck.

jeffyscott

You do know what the "S" in SUV stands for, right?

(What a ridiculous term for what were originally trucks converted into wagons)

wale_bate1

last production RWD compact wagon sold here in the States until this year, and true to BMWUSA style, they didn't bring the real heat...

Put it this way: I've got the last decent looking RWD compact sport wagon sold here in the States...

It's got sport.

Boaz, I think you could safely call the Magnum a "sport truck".

[sigh]

As I said, I know the pain, all y'all...

explorerx4

if you gnawed off your arm, you'd have to get the automatic. better pick something else.

boaz47

I am not a wagon-o-phobe. In fact I like the Mazda3 5 door. The only wagon I would have ever tied sport to was the old 1800es Volvo. But like I have said the term is so diluted it has no meaning anymore. The advertising people know if they say it long enough sooner or later we buy into it.

Take the term station wagon. Once a common term in the US but now it is death to any long bed hatchback to be called a station wagon. We still have the term standard transmission used to describe the manual when the manual hasn't been the standard transmission in most cars for years.

Like the other poster said, I know what the S in SUV stands for. It is silly to think of a utility vehicle as a sport. But put the sticker on a vehicle and sport it is. There is a lot of things that could qualify something as a sport vehicle. In my way of thinking 4 doors is far more detrimental to the term than the transmission. Anymore you have to see the vehicle because the description doesn't tell you much.

redsoxgirl

Just returned from a trip to visit my aunt in Hawaii. My uncle passed away a month ago. My aunt is 66 (looks 46), came to the US from Japan to get a PhD in 1970, married my uncle in 1972 and never learned to drive, as she and my uncle always worked from home offices and she had a housekeeper/chauffer for when he traveled.

I expected to get a taxi from the airport to their home in Maui. But she met me at the airport and drove me back in my uncle's Jeep Wrangler, with a 5 speed manual! Not only had she learned how to drive and got her license at 66, she did so on a manual transmission. She explained that he used to take her for picnics to a private beach that is only accessible by 4WD, and she wanted to be able to go there and "spend time with him alone", without having to be driven.

When I told her that I was very impressed, she was almost offended. "What, you thought I was handicapped?" was her response. "Come back and I'll teach you how to wind surf."

cdnpinhead

We all need such relatives.

I certainly don't have any of her calibre.

boaz47

90 percent of the drivers in the US do not have such relatives. If her Uncle had left her aunt a Nissan Murano she wouldn't either.

boaz47

from the perspective of corporate outsiders. But what do the experts from the major manual transmission manufacturers say? Do they show signs of tossing in the towel on the North American market? And how about my friend Nippons favorite manufacturers in Japan. what direction do the transmission manufacturer see them taking? well how about asking someone from ZF? They should know a thing or two about the subject.

"Dr. Harald Naunheimer, director of product development, car driveline technology at ZF, says that transmissions are highly individualized based on region and vehicle segment."

“North America and Japan are typically automatic transmission markets, with Japan using CVTs in the sub-compact market,” Naunheimer says. “Europeans still prefer manuals—but even that has dropped slightly.”

I wonder where he might think the future of the manual is heading?

habitat1

"If her Uncle had left her aunt a Nissan Murano"

A Nissan Murano is about as off-road capable as a Nissan Sentra. It's a waek minivan posing as a wannabe SUV. You couldn't have come up with a worse example if you tried.

On the other hand, of the half dozen people I know that have or had Jeep Wranglers, they could transverse just about any terrain and every one of them was a stick. I'm sure they must make it with an auto, but I've never seen one.

andys120

use TC A/Ts because the slip provided by the A/T is very helpful during rock-climbing.

Think about it.

lilengineerboy

use TC A/Ts because the slip provided by the A/T is very helpful during rock-climbing.

Think about it.

It moves the weak link. When I was learning to 4x it was very hard for me to keep my foot off the clutch. Then the clutch would start to burn...
Automatics slip too, which creates heat, which makes them start to burn. A clutch is $200, a trans is $1200+

wale_bate1

Takes an awful lot of spin to actually burn an otherwise normally maintained TC. Nature of the beast. A soft interface is advantageous in a number of situations for that very reason.

andys120

Again I'm talking about hard-core, most of 'em run really BIG transmission coolers.

boaz47

I was simply pointing out that her aunt made do with what she had. If it would have been a Liberty or an older Cherokee it could just as easily have been a Automatic. The example given about the Aunt was simply the luck of the draw.

I agree for real off road driving like the Hammers in Johnson Valley, or some of the harder trails in Moab I have never seen a Murano, but then I don't see many of the Porsche, VW, BMW or MB SUVs there either. In fact going to the Hammers for more than 15 years now I have never seen any of them. So as you see I could have picked a worse example if I tried. I also agree for a bone stock 4x4 it is hard to beat a Jeep, even if I would have picked the Rubicon.

habitat1

"I don't see many of the Porsche, VW, BMW or MB SUVs there either....So as you see I could have picked a worse example if I tried."

Maybe in the owner's propensity to use them off road, but not in capability. All of those other high end SUV's you named are actually quite competent off road, with sophisticated RWD based AWD systems and substantial chassis and suspension capabilities. As I recall, the Porsche and the VW came in 1st and 2nd in a off road comparison test I read some time ago in a magazine in my Dr's. office (beating the pre-test favorite Land Rover). But the Murano really is a mini-minivan with a chassis and suspension that would probably fall apart before completing any real test. Maybe the RX330 is a similar example, but those two would be neck and neck.

wale_bate1

the RX was Camry-based. Certainly both appear to be good examples of what the vast majority of people really, really want in SUV; a tall station wagon that looks off-road-truckish!

kyfdx

I think that is correct.. The RX is basically a tall Camry, while the Murano is a tall Altima (Maxima?)..

I think that is what most people desire in an SUV.. The look of a truck, with the utility of an AWD mini-van/wagon.

lilengineerboy

One of my buddies has a CR-V (manual) and everytime I ride in it it just makes me miss the Civic Wago-van thing with "Real Time AWD" and the creeper 1st gear. It was pokey but got good mileage and had no issues with ski trips.
I'm glad my family doesn't have a hang-up on glorified station wagons and can just get the vehicle that meets their needs without it looking "tough."
I do kind of want to check out that Suzuki SX4 AMC Pacer looking thing just to see what its all about.

explorerx4

anoher way of looking at it is, a wagon that has awd. usually, they are styled to look like a truck.
i also like the step in height most suv's have.
a rear window that can be opened seperately from the tailgate says 'suv' to me, otherwise, minivan.

boaz47

If it doesn't have a transfer case it is street vehicle. If it isn't capable of the one of the Hammers, Moab or the Rubicon it isn't off road capable. The is an extream point of view I know and exceptions can be made but that is from the point of view of one in the sport.

The whole point of the SUV market is image. Maybe it is marketing? We happen to live in a world or society that buys by image as much as anything else. Look at some of the comercials we see. I got a kick out of the Hamburger commercial, Burger King I believe, where the guy is singing about being a man and needing mans food and towards the end they toss the mini van off of the bridge into a trash barge. The commercial may have nothing to do with practicality but it does express image.

By the way, how long has it been since Honda stopped making the wagon? Did the Honda wagon ever come in a stick, I don't remember ever seeing one. Doesn't mean they weren't offered in a manual, I just never saw one.

wale_bate1

Been a while since I checked the JA website, but I think they still sell the wagon in Japan.

boaz47

One of the men that used to work for me had a Honda Wagon. He loved the little thing. But it was an automatic. I believe he ended up with a Honda Mini Van, it is an automatic as well. Does honda offer a manual in any of their Mini Vans? Can you still get a manual in a CR-V? I heard they were thinking of dropping that option.

kyfdx

No manual in the new CR-V.. and evidently no plans for one... I was just at the car show.. The emergency brake is on the floor..