The dreaded Automatic Transmission Feel
 

Much like the title says, I purchased an auto FRS. Before I get bashed on this forum I just want to say he car has been a blast, it's my 2nd car coming from an 2001 audi a6 4.2 v8. That too was an auto, but the frs seems much more perkier and diligent. Since buying the frs, I've begun to ride/race motorcycles and instantly fell in love with the clutch/shifting aspect of motorsports. On top of that, when it comes time to tune the car, I can throw on a heavier clutch to support the added torque. My car is still new, 4k miles and most of aftermarket parts I've put I can just throw the stock ones on in less than a day.

My question to you is: Have you ever had any experience (with any car) trading in the same kind of car/year into a dealer for a different option. I know the auto was around a grand more, but I'm still preparing to lose money going in, hopefully under a thousand :sigh: I still owe money on the car as well

same boat as you... past 2 cars were both stick. Rx8 R3, Fiat 500 cabrio (don't ask why...) and now..

auto FRS

to be honest. Yes i wish i got the manual and had not impulsively jumped for the first FRS on the lot (only had auto) but at the time I needed a car and I was like.. hmmm, FRS, not bad, reminds me of my Rex. Alright I'll take it.

ever since then, damn I wish i had a manual. But you come to accept it, you'll never get over it, but you do come to love your car in the end. Happiness level probably a 90%. like me.

However if you can never get over it, just take the loss and be happy at 100% because that's all it comes down to. you being happy with what you have. :cheers:

The AT is supposed to be a wonderful car. I've only seen a few buyers express regret, and like you, they wanted to trade for a manual transmission model.

Go ahead and do it, if you can justify the expense. It was a useful learning experience, that's all. :thumbsup:

However, I think it exceedingly unlikely that you will be able to "escape" with a mere $1000 additional cost. My guess is that it will run $3000 and up. But hey, you never know. Give it a try at whatever dealership has what you want.

It might be worth contacting Clint at his Colorado store to see if that might be worth your while. You could enjoy a nice drive home to break in your new car. :)

I locally found a manual for $23,500 around 5k miles on it.. I'm going walk into the dealership and demand for an even trade, begging on my hands and knees :bow: The auto is a great system I must say, I'm just fortunate enough to even have a car like this at 19 years old.. but after riding bikes I feel all of a sudden disconnected with the car.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Scion-FR-S-2...US_Cars_Trucks

best of luck to you

Oh, okay, a trade for a used car. Now, that would bring the cost of trading down a good bit, I'd think. I thought you were looking to replace yours with a new car.

Well now, "demanding" and "begging" are mutually exclusive, but I wouldn't recommend either as a good strategy. ;)

I'd suggest that you look interested, but look as though you need some convincing. Get them to talk you into it. That might work better as a negotiating tactic, don't you think?

You haven't said how much your loan is for your FR-S, or how many payments you've made, but you'll discover that your loan balance is not much diminished by those first few payments. So, there's that to consider, too. Your new car has depreciated, but your loan principal will still be high this early in the repayment schedule.

Indeed you are! (I'm older than your dad.) :)

Oh my, heavens yes!

You'll need a Caterham or an Ariel Atom to even come close to the experience on a hot motorcycle.

You be careful on that bike (and the car, too, of course); your limbs are the fenders on that thing. Don't let your youthful fearlessness get you bent!

"There are old riders, and there are brave riders. There are no old, brave riders."

You follow? :)

Let us know how your trade experience worked out, won't you?

Good luck. :thumbsup:

Yes, I do have experience doing something like this after 8 months of ownership of a car, but it doesn't matter because it's just like any other transaction to the dealer. Your car lost about $2000-3000 in value as soon as you signed the paperwork and drove it off the lot, and continues to lose value with each passing month and mile.

Look up what KBB says your trade in value is for your car and that is about what you are going to get when you trade it in for something else, anything else. Chances are you are going to be $3k or greater in equity difference from new, then factor what the payoff value of your current loan. If you owe more that will get added to the purchase price of the car you want to buy, if it's less then it will be subtracted and act as a down payment.

Appreciate the response. It's definitely something I have to seriously think about. I'm worried if I go forced induction and the torque becomes too much for my auto tranny to handle, I'll lose more money overall if I break my transmission and have to repair it. I'm happy I found a pre-owned with a bit more miles than my current car, I still think I'll take a hit, just not $3k. Going this weekend to talk prices.

Currently my car on KBB is worth around 19.5-20k trade in value. This manual car I want is around 23k but hopefully I can talk the price down. Most hit I'll take is 2k, more than that I'll just walk

May the force be with you.

Lol. Do you think 2k is unreasonable?

No, but it's pushing it. Definitely worth a try though. You can always buy used too.

Well it isn't new, it's pre-certified with 1 previous owner so I'm hanging on that to decrease the gap to under 2 grand. But I know the dealer has to make money off me too. I've never been the religious kind, but keep me in your prayers.

Me neither, but I'm drinking a bottle of water right now. When I'm done, I will crush it before throwing it in the recycling bin, as an offering to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that he make look favorably on you through these hard times.

You might also convince yourself to keep it since you have a neat car that is still a hoot to drive and, I don't care what anyone says, does its job better and more efficiently than a manual can.

Do it.

get a manual, and your 86 adventure will have a new beginning, and you wont regret it.

this car was made to be manual.

Put some 4.88 final drive gears in it and forced induction and you will be good to go.

If you can find a used one, you may be able to lose a little bit of money.

If you end up going new...take some lube, because you are gonna get effed in the "a".

SELL! SELL! SELL!

That's too bad. I have color regrets every day myself. They were all good colors. But I really wanted Toyota's Black Forest Green.

Personally I think the automatic can handle it, I've seen it done, and I don't think Toyota would have made it an option, and left so much space ABOVE the motor unless it could handle it.

Had a few bikes myself, no car will ever feel like a bike.

Good luck with the trade. Hope it works out.

After watching a bone stock AT dyno a few weeks ago.... Definitely go for the manual if you can. Good luck.

I don't think AT vs MT acceleration capability is the issue.

Trading it in will cost you more than $1000 in losses.

The issue is that on the title there will now be a owner already. Therefore, whoever buys the car you traded in will be the second owner regardless of mileage. Not to mention that the dealership now must sell the car as a used car.

I think that's the main issue. But I could be wrong.

Taxes.

Sales tax?

In most places, one pays sales tax only on the "trade difference." That is, if he trades in a car that they give him $20,000 credit for, then buys a $23,000 car, he pays sales tax only on the $3,000 difference.

It's not inconsequential, but the tax is not on the full price of the car. Otherwise, the citizen would be effectively paying sales tax twice on the car, which would be unfair.

There may be some areas where this is not the case.

I did not know that. That is great news.

I know this is going to sound like a boring, "dad" thing to say, but think it about it this way: If you had $2000 sitting in your savings account and someone came up to you and offered to install a manual transmission in your car for that $2000, would you run to the ATM, take all $2000 out, and give it to him?

If you trade your Auto FR-S in for a $2000 hit, you'd actually be losing more than $2000 because of your loan interest. When you have a loan and the $2000 is spread out over the life of the loan, it doesn't seem like a big deal but I think it's important to imagine yourself handing over $2000 in cash as you consider this deal.

Yeah. Think of it like this: Consider a silly scenario, though possible, where a fickle customer (your next wife, maybe ;)) comes in and buys a new FR-S on Monday, decides to trade for a different color on Tuesday, and repeats this on Wednesday and Thursday. (YOU married her, I didn't!) Well, now she's purchased four new cars for around $100,000. In only four days! Just to own one new FR-S, at last, on Friday when she decides that she's finally satisfied. (Don't let her go shopping alone... ;) )

It would hardly be fair to pay 7-10% California sales tax on $100k, now would it?

So, anyway... :)

There's another important point to consider here: If you sell your current car privately, you do NOT get any sales tax benefit. So, if you're sensible, you must get that much more when selling privately (which can be anything from a major nuisance to downright dangerous these days). If you cannot clear sufficient profit from a private sale vs the trade-in value + tax benefit, then it's a great deal easier to just drop off your old car at the dealer and drive off in your new car, and get that sales tax credit against the new car purchase.

I'll leave you to work out the math on that to see how much more you need to sell your car privately.

This practice also encourages people to trade-in their cars.

Exactly.

I alluded to that in an earlier post. The interest on his loan is not spread out evenly over the term of the loan; the first payment is almost all interest, and slowly diminishes until the final payment which is hardly any interest. The point I made to him is that his loan balance would not be much diminished over these first few months payments.

So, you're correct that he needs to factor that cost into his decision. This is actually likely to be "lost" on most customers who won't appreciate the "true cost" to make this trade. Most people will just look at their current payment, and compare it to their new payment following the trade (which will be back to payment no. 1 again). They won't realize how much that actually cost them just for the finance difference. Call it a "hidden" cost.

This is an excellent point, Dad! :)

What the hell was I thinking?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y17...6club/okay.jpg

Yeah, but she likes FR-S's and lets you put carbon fiber racing seats in it and who knows what else. So, you're doing okay, I reckon. :)

People do this all the time re-financing houses shortly after buying them. "Oh, I can take off half a percent. That'll save me big money over 20 years." They don't think about the fact that they have been paying pretty much interest only for two or three years and they're throwing it all away. The friendly loan originator doesn't point that out to you.

Good luck on the even trading. I am so glad I've gone with manual transmission. There are people who appreciate AT and know how to fully have fun with those transmission. For me, manual had to be a must in this car.

pushing clutch, move gear, stomp on gas pedal at redline is just awesome.

I own an AT and most of the time I drive it in manual mode using the paddles anyway. The wife drives it in Auto mode.... anyway. There are AT's doing forced induction running 400WHP and doing fine. Look at P&L's shop car for example. I wouldn't worry about the torque so much unless you plan on going nuts with the HP and torque. It has been proven that the AT is beefy enough to handle more than what a stock MT clutch can handle.

Love my AT BRZ. Being in California, I think this guy needs to do a bit of driving in LA, San Diego, or San Francisco during rush hour in a manual. It might change his mind about pissing away a few grand or more. On a motorcycle you can split lanes. In a MT car, you're trapped. Honestly, the only reason to own a manual is for 400+whp, clutch kick drifting, or drag racing. Otherwise, 99.9% of the time you'll miss having the auto.

[ame]http://youtu.be/Rla3ivvg0Eo[/ame]

To the OP: If you plan on ever making huge power with this car, think about how difficult it might be controlling that power with a MT - There's a reason cars such as the R35 ONLY come in Auto.

FWIW, the engineers behind the twins did an enormous amount of research on every aspect of the car, and from what I understand, the AT transmission really is a beast of a transmission and something of a masterpiece as transmissions go.

http://i.imgur.com/yVwT0rw.jpg

/AT

@chiefshayan, you will be just fine in a MT car, no matter how much power you manage to eek out of that 2.0L engine. Whether you lose control of your car has nothing to do with whether you're driving a manual or an automatic transmission car. Only the most bizarre situation would be required where it might make a difference. I cannot even imagine what that might be.

The "auto" in a Nissan GTR or a Porsche GT3 or a Ferrari 458 is not at all like the traditional automatic in your FR-S. Those cars are not auto at all; they employ computer controlled automated manual gearboxes with double clutches. They work like a pair of manual gearboxes in one assembly. Do your homework if that interests you.

The "auto" gearboxes in those cars are NOT there for "control," they're employed because those cars are designed for maximum performance numbers on a racetrack. These auto-manuals shift faster than any human can and save enough time on each lap around a racetrack to justify their use. They're faster around a race track, all other things being equal. Who cares, except a racer?

Actually, I care. I don't want a computer driving my car. I want to do it myself. Because I LIKE it! I couldn't care less that it costs me a few seconds per lap. It's me and my machine, the closer the connection, the better. It's not me and my COMPUTER driving my machine. Your personal preferences may vary, and that's just fine. I like New York Vanilla ice cream.

Anyway, moving right along… :)

You need not fear getting a manual gearbox FR-S.

The control issues, such as they are, are the same for an auto as a manual: Develop your skills and don't be stupid. You can do that, right?

Your throttle is not a binary device, not a switch; it should not be ON/OFF, but more like the volume control on an amplifier in your home sound system. It's a rheostat with a smooth progression throughout its range. Employ SMOOTH, progressive, throttle inputs.

It's not hard. There's nothing difficult about learning to drive a manual gearbox. Anyone can do it easily. People are needlessly fearful and make a big deal of it. That's just silly. In European countries everyone must learn to drive a manual to pass their driver's license test. None of them are any more "fearful" than they are about riding a bicycle.

It is just new and different, not difficult.

Fear not. :)


So, did you visit the dealer, yet, to discuss the trade?




P.S. Can you imagine your Ducati with an automatic transmission? :(

I've driven the GTR around Laguna Seca and the shifts are blazing. Completely different animal. I've done a few open cockpit schools and those cars were some brutal old-school manuals. Around the track I'm fine with a manual, it's the steep hills with hours of traffic which I'm scared of. It was either a used 2008 m3 (first year they offered DCT) or the FRS. I chose the FRS because it was more tuner friendly and m3 would have been a hassle to maintain not to mention costly. Definitely made the correct choice in getting the FRS just a bit lost as to which what gearbox best suits me. I'm going to the dealer tomorrow morning, I'll report back. If it's under a grand or two difference, I'll be an owner of a manual FRS.. If not I'll wait for http://www.sspperformance.com/subaru-brz-frs-a960e.html to release their upgrades for the auto (final gear, torque converter). Either way it's a win-win!

did 40 mile each way rush hour commutes in LA/OC for years in a manual before selling my old car and getting an auto... definitely miss the manual transmission. never thought MT was a hassle sitting in stop and go traffic or going up hills through busy metropolitan areas. next car will definitely be a MT again.

like everybody has said, though, no car is going to give you the same exhilarating feeling that a bike does.

good luck @chiefshayan -- hope you find something close to an even trade :thumbup:

I wouldn't let people behind a computer screen who have nothing vested in you to be giving you any kind of financial advice. I've seen people do some really silly things to their car to try to appease or gain this imaginary respect from a scene or forum.

I'm not saying you shouldn't go through with it, I'm suggesting you shouldn't give a shit about who bashes you.

While you're on your machine crusade, you might want to rip out the ECU, install carbs, add a traditional steering rack, and remove the ABS/TC/ESC while you're at it. There are lots of electronic gadgets in the 86 getting in the way of you and your racing. /sarcasm

On a serious note, I've had fun with my auto BRZ doing autocross. It slides beautifully, and the only time I wish I had a manual is for take-off. Otherwise, the trans clicks through gears about as fast as I click through in my STI when it's set to manual+sport. (need to do a video to compare... oh hey it's nice out today...) Honestly, the automatic is the perfect 'lazy man's' driving car.

If you're not going for twin turbo Supra power, it looks like the auto trans can handle well over 300 whp from what people have been posting up. I'll probably go with the JR supercharger when it comes time to boost. Honestly though, being in California I'd get a motorcycle, a 1-piece suit, and get your thrills railing canyon roads like Mulholland. Going fast on a motorcycle is a lot cheaper, but obviously more dangerous if you don't train your ass off so you can predict sketchy situations and avoid them before they happen.