I’m on my first auto, I’d never go back to manual, my wife is on the petite side and we have always drove a manual, she has to sit quite close to the steering wheel to enable her to reach the clutch pedal which I imagine could be a problem if the airbag ever deployed, now, in an auto, she can sit a bit further back, apart from some early trepidation on her driving it when we first picked it up ( sorted by finding an empty car park so she could practice) we both manage it with ease, it has an auto hold button which just holds the car instead of applying the electronic handbrake, I especially like the adaptive intelligent cruise control which automatically stops the car in traffic and, with the press of a button, continues on its merry way, it was a bit of a Luke skywalker moment though relying on “ using the force” when I first tried it, but, auto for me from now on…

I've had a dual clutch gearbox, not actually auto, I suppose and it was poor to use at parking speeds and pulling away from a start (hesitancy).

Not sure it would be fair to write of DCT's completely based on one experience. I may not be completely sold on the DCT in our Hyundai Bayon, but it is absolutely fine in the situations you mention.

I've driven a couple of cvt cars on holidays. No thanks.

Difficult to comment without knowing specifics, but it would also be unfair to judge CVT's based on holiday hire cars, which will invariably have been mercilessly abused and possibly poorly maintained. Suffice to say that out of our current and three previous auto cars, the transmission which impressed me most re how well it responded and worked with the engine was the (stepped) CVT in our Jazz. Between the T/C (Hyundai i30 turbo diesel) and DCT (Hyundai Bayon 1.0 turbo petrol) it is close, but ultimately I preferred the T/C. Last, by a bigger margin was the AGS in our Ignis.

I'll grant you that a tc auto box is good but not always as economical as the manual version.

No T/C auto is going to be as economical as a manual equivalent (though the difference is now smaller than it once was)

Without changing gears, I wonder if concentration levels drop when driving too.

Do you find it easier to concentrate on the TV if you are petting the dog at the same time?.

(I jest, but am genuinely baffled at the comment?)

In some cases it can be very dangerous, as we see in news reports where an OAP depressed the accelerator rather than the brake

Anyone who has pressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal and then blamed it on changing from auto to manual is just making excuses for their incompetence and shouldn't be driving. Utter nonsense to suggest or believe otherwise.

When my 80yo dad was looking to change his old Fiesta, I recommended he not look at cars with auto boxes because he'd never driven one before and whose driving skills are not anywhere near as good as they were when he was my age.

Funny, because our (mine and SWMBO) reasons for persuading MIL to try auto is pretty much exactly the same reasons you advised your father not to!. She took to the auto like a duck to water and now enjoys driving more than she ever has before (and would never willingly go back to a manual). I also suggested to an elderly lady customer of mine (she would have been in her early 70's at the time) that she try an auto. The opinion of her (late) husband was that automatic cars were the devils work and should be avoided at all costs, and she never questioned this. She is now on her second automatic car since then, and would never have another manual.

Personally, I feel you should have at least let him try an auto before deciding.

I'm 56, past my test at 17.....never driven an auto.

My MIL (mentioned above) went auto at the age of 65 and has never looked back. I drove my first auto less than a year after passing my test (at 17) when I got a job at a Saab dealer and have enjoyed them ever since. I don't have a problem using a manual gearbox, but given the choice between a manual and a decent auto version of the same car, it would be auto all day long for me.

Can't get the hang of my parents electric handbrake on the couple of occasions I've driven their Corolla.

Can't fathom why an EPB would be difficult for anyone to get the hang of?. Even if you were to use it manually, it is just a switch, much like the one for the electric windows!.

Edited by badbusdriver on 13/06/2024 at 21:11

BBD, I mention concentration levels as there is one less thing to do obviously and with the plethora of gadgets both included (screens) as well as phones, etc, I just wonder if some people concentrate less on their driving (which is simpler in an automatic) and preoccupy themselves with other things.

There is no doubt some people don't concentrate as much on driving as they should but, (IMO) whether they are in an auto or manual has no bearing on that.

CVTs, nope. Driven several makes. I simply don't like the experience.

From my extensive looking into trying to find why CVT's are disliked so much by certain types, my conclusion is there are two problems.

One is the noise, what is usually described in the motoring press as a "mooing" because of the rising and falling of revs with no break. Nothing can be done about that in a "true" (stepless) CVT, but the stepped type (like our Jazz) get round this by having artificial ratios or gears making it sound and feel more like a DCT.

The other criticism is that of high revs when you accelerate hard but little actual acceleration. CVT's are usually fitted to cars with a small n/a engine not making that much power or torque, so performance expectations should really be adapted to take this into account. Also, with a small n/a petrol, peak torque torque will invariably arrive high in the rev range (in our Jazz, peak torque was 5k rpm, peak power at 6k rpm) so I'm baffled as to why anyone would expect anything other than high revs if looking to accelerate. But this problem (or negative experience?) is a result of the engine type, not because the car has a CVT. If wringing its neck, our Jazz was surprisingly (to me) quick, both from a standstill and overtaking. My own decidedly unscientific test involving a smartphone timer suggested that 50-70mph in the Jazz was only a little slower (about 10% if memory serves) than in the much more muscular i30 turbo diesel we had prior.

Edited by badbusdriver on 14/06/2024 at 07:03

I take your point, Terry, but my respect for it is rather diminished by references to such things as a rain-soaked leather ball. I can see little parallel with a manual gearbox.

For most of my 60 years car ownership I have always looked for fuel economy as a fairly high priority, but without resorting to stately progress at 40-45 mph. Like for like, energy losses are less in a manual box, almost by definition ?

Agree with John F.

My Peugeot 308 does 40-42 in general town and local driving rising to 50-54 on longer gentle motorway journeys.

Car manufacturers no doubt set gear change parameters to maximise fuel economy - any losses at low speeds as a TC box churns fluid is probably balanced by drivers with manual cars not optimising gear change points.