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1. Is it realistic that I could learn to shift better in manual mode than the automatic transmission would do on its own? What does "better" mean? (Yes, I'm asking a question about my question.) What does the automatic get wrong? The only thing I can think of is that it can't look ahead. Like if you're at the point where you would normally be upshifting but you're about to begin slowing down for a stop sign, you could avoid two unneeded shifts in manual mode.
Yes the biggest advantage is that you always know what you're doing next. An automatic can't read your mind. It doesn't know you're slowing down for a stop sign so it won't downshift and give you engine braking. It doesn't know when you're about to accelerate for a lane change or power out of a tight turn.
2. What is the advantage of higher revs when you're not trying to accelerate? Like when tootling through town in sport mode vs normal, the revs seem too high in sport mode. Is that just so in case you suddenly need to accelerate, you don't need to downshift first? Seems a little wasteful if that's all it is. Should I keep the revs lower when tootling in manual mode, if I'm prepared to downshift when needed?
If you're accelerating slowly upshift at low RPMs to save gas. If you suddenly need to accelerate, downshift as many gears as necessary.
3. I hear people saying they love how when you're in D, the paddle shifters still work so you have downshifts at your fingertips. But even without paddle shifters, wouldn't you still have downshifts at your fingertips (well, at your foot) in D? I mean if you hit the gas, doesn't the automatic downshift? Seems like a pretty easy thing for it to figure out.
Yes this a true but there is still a delay from when you first floor the gas pedal to when the car actually shifts. If you are in manual mode and you know you are about to punch it, you can put the car into its powerband before you punch it. The throttle response is instant. This can pretty useful when you're making lane changes and the gap is a bit tighter.
4. Say I turn onto a 45 mph road, accelerate, and reach 50 mph in 3rd gear. I'm done accelerating, so what now? Do I upshift 3 times as quickly as possible, to 6th gear? Do I upshift 3 times but pause for a bit in each gear? What does the automatic do (why is there no gear indicator in D)? Would you skip 2 gears in a manual?
Yup when I'm done accelerating I put it back into 6th asap for fuel economy. No need to pause in each gear
5. If you want to accelerate faster than you did last time, you can give it more gas and/or hold lower gears longer. And those need to be coordinated somewhat, right? Like you wouldn't use super light throttle to slowly get to the redline in 1st gear. Nor would you get up to 6th gear at 35 mph and then floor it. But how do you find the precise balance, the perfect combination of throttle and revs? How would I know that I should have, say, given it 10% more throttle but upshifted 300 rpms sooner? Come to think of it, why is there no throttle indicator so you have some objective measure of how much gas you're giving it?
This more or less true. But there is no precise balance, it is whatever you need. For example sometimes I find full throttle in 3rd gear at around 4000 RPM is just enough for me to make a pass in city traffic. If you floor it in an auto it would give you 2nd gear and be too fast. If you do half throttle the auto will probably put you in 4th and be too slow. Maybe 75% throttle in 2nd gear would work too but at 75% throttle, the auto may only give you 3rd gear. Manual means you can choose exactly whatever combo you want. But there would really be no reason for the extremes cases, like 5% throttle in 1st gear up to redline or full throttle in 6th gear at 1500 rpm.
TLDR;
The main advantage as I said earlier is you can always plan ahead, where as the automatic can't read your mind. You can downshift aggressively to high RPMs and then shift back up to 6th for fuel economy whenever you want. You can also choose anything in between. Manual mode pretty much lets you pick anywhere you want to be in the powerband right away. An auto will kind of try to do the same depending on pedal precision, but it will not be as fast or precise as manual mode or a manual transmission.
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