I'm looking for a car, XC60 2.0 D4 if anyone has any opinions on those.
I've never owned an automatic and never wanted one but I test drove one yesterday and while i'm not going to be buying that particular one having driven it i'm wondering if i'd actually prefer an auto. It certainly wasn't like autos of old that i've driven.
But if I come back to the idea i'd prefer a manual I can save a couple of grand.
Looking for opinions from anyone who's changed sides.
Automatic, I have had autos since 1969. Previous Zodiacs, Rovers and Jaguars were all manual.
Electric cars are all the rage; they don't need gears. Also steam cars. The Stanley Steamer was very good. Curse Benz and his "gas" engine!
Seriously, the only automatic car I've driven was a (grossly underpowered) Metro, many years ago. What was different about the one you tried?
My wife only has an auto driving licence so I have been forced to buy autos.
We've had two Volvo V70s and the auto boxes are fine - the current one has geartronic which allows you to shift gears manually so that keeps me reasonably happy. Plus the 2.5 litre turbo engine...
I would get a petrol not diesel - I've never had a diesel.
But our current Volvo is a 2005 model - no idea about recent ones except they are costly. I've never paid more than £3500 for a car.
I had a 2nd hand auto in the '80s. When I could afford it, I went back to manual. However, since SWMBO has an auto. I got an auto 8 years ago so that she could share long distance driving. She never has, but I'm very happy with my current (Mazda) auto - no think required.
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I prefer autos, definitely. They've improved immensely. There are of course different types now but the principle is the same. 90% of the time in a manual your responses are dictated to you by engine road speed and desire to accelerate or otherwise. I've had auto 1100, Daf 44, metro, Polo, Renault 5, Volvo 740, 940, VW Transporter, Jeep Cherokee and Grand Cherokee, Defender V8, Suzuki Alto.
When you drive one regularly you realise just how automatic driving a manual actually is and you get rid of all that pointless left foot down up work and gear changing actually is. Favourite was probably the DAF with its CVR system. I was reading up on Suburus recently and couldn't believe that they have actually gone to the trouble of building in step functions into their CVR system to make it feel like a "normal" automatic. The customer reviews slated it.
But it is down to personal choice in the end. Don't think the question arises with EVs
Autos are good if you spend a lot of time in slow moving city traffic. Almost pointless if motorways are all you do.
It was smooth and responsive and went like stink.
All ours have been under 7k and we tend to keeo them for 4-5 years before changing.
This one is 15k (missus wants something 'nice') so it has to be right. How people shell out much more than that is beyond me.
Indeed.
See if you can find a geartronic model - I think some also have steering wheel paddles to shift gear so you can pretend to be Lewis Hamilton.
It makes no difference on motorways, not having to change gear.
the last three cars I have bought - freelanders and jaguar xf, have had very easily avaiable manual mode. On the freelandar simply move the lever over to sport mode, and then shifty up and down by pushing forwards and backwards. Exit by going out of sport mode. The XF has flappy paddles that override the auto box in normal mode. If not used for a while it reverts to full auto. But other gearbox modes are available - winter' 'performance;' and 'sport' which behave differently. I like that - those wanting to tailor the way the auto behaves or overriide it, can, otherwise its ok in standard mode]
There is little comparison between autos of old and the best modern ones.
Up until about 40 years ago, they were commonly three speed with a torque convertor. This slowed the same car down over a manual, and increased the fuel consumption. Only really reasonably satisfactory in a large engined car.
There are basically two types today. The same idea epicyclic box with torque converter but many more ratios. 8 not being uncommon. With the power lossy TC locked out for much of the time - really just used for moving off from rest. All computer controlled.
The second one is a robotised manual synchromesh box with a conventional but automatic clutch. The most efficient in terms of MPG and performance. The better versions of this idea use effectively two gearboxes and clutches. One gearbox has the odd gears, the other the even. And changing between say 1st to 2nd is done by swapping the clutches. When the car is in 2nd gear, the other box has selected 3rd, and the process repeated. This arrangement can give a virtually seamless power flow under pretty well all conditions.
Not so sure about that. With an auto, you can use a very tall top gear to get the very best MPG. So tall that it may have to change down on a motorway incline. Very few manuals are that high geared.
My Golf R does that.
A friend of mine remarked how dangerous these were.
Lets suppose you want instant power, with a manual you can anticipate how long it takes to go from say 3rd to 2nd gear.
On one of these the gearboxes the parallel box will be sitting in 4th gear, and so has to make the relevant movements to go into second before operating the clutch. Thus maybe sitting on the wrong side of the road whilst wanting to pass a slow vehicle for much longer than expected.
This was his take and I confess not to ever having driven one.
It's interesting when you try the same auto with engine options.
Best contrast I can think of was the P6 Rover, made between about the mid
60s to mid 70s. Both versions pretty well the same auto gearbox.The four cylinder 2000 auto one of the slowest accelerating cars on the road. A real dog. The 2000 manual not too bad, but needed to be revved for decent performance.
The V8 3500 auto, very lively.
I've been driving autos on and off for something like 50 years. I passed the test on a manual but my dad had a Triumph 2000 auto which he let me drive (!).
Those early one were Borg Warner 3-speed jobs. Easy to drive but very little control over the box which meant it took a while sometimes to work out what gear it needed.
Then I started visiting family in the USA; no choice there and the Borg Warner type boxes combined with lazy US cars required a different driving style. There was one in the late 1990s that I took from Denver into Yellowstone Park and coming out of the park over the "Beartooth Highway" there was a long, long descent and I realised that the only low gear I had access to was the lowest so I had to stop on the way down to allow brakes to cool!
For a long time I had manuals but then my wife got a Subaru Justy (I think that was it) with an auto box and 4WD. All she really wanted was the auto. Her work as a Health Visitor meant quite a lot of short distance driving between clients to which the auto was well suited.
These days I have a Yeti auto on a diesel engine. 6 gears, two auto selections - Drive and Sport plus the ability to select individual gears (but only 1 up/down, no changing through 2 gears in one move). My wife drives a Jazz with a CVT box with paddle changers that (nominally) provide access to 7 gears. I much prefer the VW/Yeti box which allows me the freedom not to HAVE to think about gears and to concentrate on the road. It's not perfect in auto mode but it's pretty clever changing down, for instance, as you slow.
I will/can dive an auto but I've come to recognise the benefits in recent years.
In the sixties the Met Police in London changed over to automatic gearboxes to save on clutch replacement costs and driver fatigue. I heard that over 600 gear changes was common for a shift.
There's also the CVT type as found in small Hondas. Very nice indeed, especially in town or heavy motorway traffic.
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