If I was driving 8-10 hours per day I’d want an auto… I know manuals used to be cheaper and are still a little cheaper, but I’d have thought the reduced effort would be appealing.
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A good manual (VAG is really good at calibrating these) is less fatiguing to drive than an automatic transmission. Now before you disagree, hear me out.
Automatic creep in traffic is annoying and the brake pressure required to keep the car in place is almost silly when you think about it. Try it in Neutral vs in D. It’s way more sustained effort over time than just using the clutch to move the car in stop and go traffic.
Modern manuals will add enough throttle to get the car moving on its own without stalling and you can let the car idle in 1st gear for slow creep. When you’re at a stop, the weight of your foot resting on the brake pedal more than enough to stop the car from moving. This isn’t the case in an automatic that is constantly trying to move forward. Some cars require huge amounts of brake effort to stay still in D, some less than others. You can test this on your car between N and D to see the difference.
Along with hill hold and hill start assist, a modern (good) manual is way easier, less fatiguing, and more engaging to drive. Not to mention way less maintenance. On 3 different cars I’ve been able to have the original clutch last over 250k miles including time on the race track.
My best guess for the “I drive in traffic so I can’t buy a car with MT” is that there is zero MT training in North America. It’s sort of a figure it out on your own situation over here.
That combined with poor technique that gets passed down from driver to driver – you get a bad perception of the transmission because of it.
All things factored in the Manual trans is:
Less expensive to purchase (usually)
More fuel efficient (usually)
Significantly less expensive to maintain
Less fatiguing on the driver
Significantly more inspiring to drive.
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