Originally Posted by Dadhawk
OK before I respond all the hATers, can ignore this post. I know, real men and Helga drive MTs. Having driven everything from ATVs, to ecoboxes, to motorcycles, to sports cars, to dump trucks and harvesting machines with manuals, I get it. It was just time for something different for me.
I would defer to Moto-P's discussion of the AT transmission. Basically, anything I write here would echo his opinion. I think he was spot on and he has experience with it in a track situation which I cannot compete with.
The only thing I would add is that even in full manual mode, the AT does kick in in two situations:
1. It won't let you underrev/stall the engine. It will downshift once you get below about 1800RPM if you continue to slow down.
2. It won't let you overrev the engine. It will hold any gear right up to cut-off, but if you try to down-shift into what would be an over-rev, it won't let you do it. It won't up-shift into a higher gear, you just bump off the rev limiter. (Caveat: I have not tried that myself on mine, but I did experience that in Long Beach)
I don't consider either of these a bad thing, just thought we should add that to the mix.
Everyone that has seen my car thought it was a manual until they sat down and saw the gear selector panel. It looks just like the manual except for a small 1 inch cover just at the e-brake handle that shows the gear selection. I think it is the best looking one I've seen.
Actually no, because I haven't used the gear selector, only the paddles. I like not having to take my hands off the wheel when driving "agressively" on the streets, so I doubt I would ever use the lever. I would imagine the response is the same though.
Those are the exact two reasons I went with the paddles, combined with me liking the whole F1/Supercar aspect of them. I would have been happy with either, but so far I'm glad I got the AT. No regrets.
Only a couple of things I need to get used to (true confessions time)
On more than one occasion, I've tried to use the "clutch" when using the paddles. Haven't done it recently but I did do it more than once in the first couple hundred miles. Muscle memory is a bitch.
When in manual mode, I sometimes "forget" I have to change gears once I get to 4th. Since I'm staying under 4K by then I'm at highway speed and think, "why is the engine racing, oh yea <forehead/paddle slap>".
For some reason I have on more than one occasion pulled it all the way down to Drive meaning to put it in reverse. I think its because pulling it to drive the lever "moves" into different positions, and my mind thinks "yep, shifting it down, over and up into reverse". See issue one above concerning muscle memory. Fortunately I haven't pulled forward yet before correcting.
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