How America lost its love for the stick shift

Re:How America lost its love for the stick shift by GordonS on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @06:16PM (#17963885)

I used to think the same way. But, Mercedes have auto boxes absolutely nailed - and I say this as a car enthusiast from the UK, where most cars are still manual, and almost every car I've owned has been manual. My last car was an E350, and the transmission was amazingly good - every time I would have shifted, the car did it for me. I've a BMW now, and the gearbox is good... but it doesn't quite have the 6th sense that Mercedes have figured out.

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Re:How America lost its love for the stick shift by lttlrck on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @08:26PM (#17964623)

I have an E350 and the transmission is very good. I do think you need to make the effort to learn how your transmission responds, no different to a manual really.

And for extra whizz while overtaking use the paddles to preempt the move by changing down a gear or two - exactly as I would in a manual.

I say this having owned numerous manual cars, including BMWs, gen 1 and gen 2 Minis and a ‘74 TR6.

Mind you it didn’t like driving over the Sierra Nevada last week. 9000 ft. saps a lot of power on a normally aspirated engine and it unbalanced the engine and transmission.

Edit: some words

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Re:How America lost its love for the stick shift by crunchlibrarian on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @09:43PM (#17964978)

I have not driven any Mercedes in a looong time, I'll have to try that. I also live at 8000 feet and regularly drive up to 10000 feet so that might be part of why every transmission seems horribly confused. Some car makers don't seem to test for thin air at all.

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Re:How America lost its love for the stick shift by fingerlocks on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @03:04AM (#17966152)

Can you elaborate on this? I understand that engine combustion is affected, but how does that impact the transmission? Is the torque curve skewed? Are ambient air changes not compsensated by the O2 sensor? Or does the transmission oil change in viscosity or something?

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Re:How America lost its love for the stick shift by crunchlibrarian on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @04:36PM (#17973021)

I don't know the details about how different engines detect air flow and oxygen (and I doubt anyone outside of a few dozen engineers who work at the companies do) but some of the auto transmissions seem to randomly upshift and downshift for no discernable reason, even when not applying throttle at all.

Some brands are just known to throw sensor and airflow codes by mechanics up here, like Kia & GM, while others compensate fine, like VW & Subaru. I don't know how the engine software talks to the transmission software so it's hard to say how related they are.

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