Still can't decide on AT or MT for your first FRS/BRZ? This may help...

[JDM4E]

My first car was a MT. Then AT. Then MT. Now I have AT. So I guess my BRZ have to be MT lol.
When I had MT, there was times, no doubt, when I wished to have a AT. When I had AT, there was times, no doubt, when I wished to have MT.
Both have con's and pros. for me, the connection with the car is much greater with MT. However, if you have bad MT tranny, it is pain in the ass! When I drive my friend's Peugeot or Alfa MT, all I want is to stop. On the other side, I driving a luxury car without AT has no sense for me. It really depends on what you want, what car do you have and how good/bad the tranny is. Simply saying MT>AT or AT>MT is just showing ignorance. What makes me sad is that with new generation of ultra-high performance supercars MT is mostly dead.

[shiumai]

Originally Posted by Submarinesonce

All I hear are AT owners trying to convince the rest of the world that ATs are fun..."one of us". Whatever makes you smile I suppose.

All I hear are MT owners trying to convince AT owners that AT's aren't as fun. There's no point - it's subjective.

I've always seen MT owners claim that 'there's no point buying this car unless it's MT'. I don't see AT owners making elitist, narrow-minded statements like that.

If anyone can't understand that AT owners can have as much pleasure out of driving their cars as MT owners do, then they can't see the forest for the trees. What defines driving enjoyment isn't the same for everyone.

For me, AT/MT is much, much lower on my list of what defines driving enjoyment than having an open, twisty road.

[Silver Supra]

Whatever your choice, if you attack the other "side", you have already lost.

[re-animator]

Originally Posted by shiumai

All I hear are MT owners trying to convince AT owners that AT's aren't as fun. There's no point - it's subjective.

I've always seen MT owners claim that 'there's no point buying this car unless it's MT'. I don't see AT owners making elitist, narrow-minded statements like that.

If anyone can't understand that AT owners can have as much pleasure out of driving their cars as MT owners do, then they can't see the forest for the trees. What defines driving enjoyment isn't the same for everyone.

For me, AT/MT is much, much lower on my list of what defines driving enjoyment than having an open, twisty road.

its not a 1:1 comparison because i venture that most people who buy the AT have never driven/owned an MT car.

people stan hard for MTs because they know auto drivers don't have experience with them so in a sense yes, they need to be told what they are missing otherwise they will never learn and can't make the comparison for themselves.

my advice for anyone interested in these cars is that you should at least drive the manual before deciding. it would certainly appear that the engineers designed this car with the standard transmission in mind. if you don't know how to drive manual, then you should take a lesson and then test drive it. i think overall the twins have a 50% take rate on manuals,
vs a 5% industry-wide take rate. it was recently reported that only 18% of americans know how to drive manual. what would the take rate be if theoretically everyone knew how to drive stick?

[shiumai]

Originally Posted by re-animator

its not a 1:1 comparison because i venture that most people who buy the AT have never driven/owned an MT car.

That's probably true for most 'non-enthusiast' cars. However, when a new driver on the forum who's considering buying a twin as their first or second car, and doesn't know how to drive an MT, I usually steer them towards the MT; simply because I agree that learning to drive an MT is a good skill to have.

But for those drivers who have owned or driven both MT and AT, I'll share my own experience/opinion and let them make up their own minds.

I bought the AT BRZ after daily driving stick shift cars since 1984/5. The car that I had before the BRZ was a 1978 Datsun 5-spd manual which I drove for 28 years.

[davesrave]

Originally Posted by re-animator

what would the take rate be if theoretically everyone knew how to drive stick?

My guess is 50/50 assuming ALL drivers test drove both the MT and AT before deciding.

[Submarinesonce]

Originally Posted by davesrave

My guess is 50/50 assuming ALL drivers test drove both the MT and AT before deciding.

pretty sure they already sell nearly 50% MT cars, if everyone knew how, id bet it was 80% or more.

[davesrave]

Originally Posted by Submarinesonce

pretty sure they already sell nearly 50% MT cars, if everyone knew how, id bet it was 80% or more.

Sounds like you haven't driven the AT.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Submarinesonce

pretty sure they already sell nearly 50% MT cars, if everyone knew how, id bet it was 80% or more.

If people want the MT they will learn to drive the MT not the other way around. If you read closely you will see that almost every single AT owner that posts in these threads has driven MT extensively in the past. They do not need an excuse to prefer the AT.


I repeat: Have you read the first two posts in this thread?

[re-animator]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

If people want the MT they will learn to drive the MT not the other way around. If you read closely you will see that almost every single AT owner that posts in these threads has driven MT extensively in the past. They do not need an excuse to prefer the AT.


I repeat: Have you read the first two posts in this thread?

are you sure about that? its not easy to learn manual these days since there are fewer manual cars on the road and fewer people willing to teach you because they don't want to burn up their clutch or wreck their synchros, etc. nobody in my close friends or family had an available manual car so I had to pay a driving school to learn manual. sure on an enthusiast board like this one there are probably a few other people who have a similar story, but its still a big obstacle for people trying to decide if they want the manual. these cars are still pretty new, i don't know if many people are willing to spend $15-30k on a new car to potentially find out they hate driving stick or end up immediately burning their clutch/killing the transmission (realistically i don't think beginners do that much damage as long as they drive responsibly, but that's the perception)

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by re-animator

are you sure about that? its not easy to learn manual these days since there are fewer manual cars on the road and fewer people willing to teach you because they don't want to burn up their clutch or wreck their synchros, etc. nobody in my close friends or family had an available manual car so I had to pay a driving school to learn manual. sure on an enthusiast board like this one there are probably a few other people who have a similar story, but its still a big obstacle for people trying to decide if they want the manual. these cars are still pretty new, i don't know if many people are willing to spend $15-30k on a new car to potentially find out they hate driving stick or end up immediately burning their clutch/killing the transmission (realistically i don't think beginners do that much damage as long as they drive responsibly, but that's the perception)

There are hundred if not thousands on this forum that did exactly that. If they truly WANT MT they will learn it.
MT is not a mystical device that is hard to learn. My great grandmother, grandmother and mother all pretty much drove them exclusively and they were far more difficult ones to drive than now. I taught my 13 year old grandson to drive it in about 20 minutes. He had zero issues learning. To say that people bought ATs because they don't know how to drive MT is probably the last reason not the main. They bought them because they like them or they just don't care.

[Sportsguy83]

MT is life

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

... I taught my 13 year old grandson to drive it in about 20 minutes. He had zero issues learning.

Yep. Taught my wife and 3 sons to drive manual in under 30 minutes each. Were they race car drivers after 30 minutes, no, but they could drive in traffic. It just isn't that hard.

My grandmother taught me to drive a stick. By taught, I mean she threw me the keys to her Corvair pointed to a dirt road and said, "Go try until you get it right, and remember pushing in will keep the car from stalling". I was good in the standard 30 minutes.

[churchx]

Actually having no experience/reflexes with other type of transmission can make learning faster. For me it's other way around, most of experience is MT only. And when finally after several years had to drive once AT, hardest thing was not to learn how to operate, but to not apply MT reflexes subconsciously. To not seek for clutch, to not hit brake pedal with left foot too hard due clutch use habbits, to not engine-brake, to not be thrown off due unexpected downshift due speed of accel press. Most probably with zero experience it might be easier.