What an utterly un-useful statement without any detail. Why was it a bad driving experience? What vehicles are ranked first and third?

Very low cost automatic transmissions are terrible - the gap between gear shifts goes on for ages. The Vauxhall Corsa is an example of this; for the American market check out a Smart Car.

Is this really a good argument against automatics though? The worst example of anything is usually going to be pretty bad.

As a matter of current economics, yes, if you have a very tight budget and want a good driving experience, manual is going to be better. But automatics are as fast and as efficient as manuals a little higher up the market. And it will trickle down soon enough.

Also worth noting that most of the modern super-cars don't even have a true manual (that is, a stick-shift and a user-operated clutch). They're mostly electronically controlled dual-clutch setups since a computer can shift faster than any human can. The 2015 BMW M3 was even rumored to not have a manual option at all, and it's known for being a driver's car. I believe they're keeping it around for now, but there's some worry that the clutch/stick-shift arrangement is going away in the future because the electronically controlled transmissions are that much faster.

Well, I find the Vauxhall Corsa with manual transmission is lovely to drive so I am comparing the experience between the two. So sure, I might not have been looking at the best-of-the-best when it came to automatic gears but I was comparing like-for-like.

Maybe in another 10 years the automatic experience at my price range will be better but at that point we're 25 years on from coldtea's period where European cargo-cult bullshit started.

Apparently.

How much of it was placebo? How much of it was "feeling out of control"?

"second worst driving experience" has nothing quantifiable.

I had absolutely no preconceptions going into using the automatic - I would even go so far as to say I was looking forward to it as I'd never driven an automatic before.

I would think my number 1 complaint about the driving experience was the occasional (but not predictable) incredible lag between pressing the accelerator and the car going faster and the ridiculous over-revving when I presume the car got confused about what gear it thought I should be in.

>I would think my number 1 complaint about the driving experience was the occasional (but not predictable) incredible lag between pressing the accelerator and the car going faster and the ridiculous over-revving when I presume the car got confused about what gear it thought I should be in.

I've never seen the lag (much less "incredible") in any model I've known.

I've indeed seen the over-revving sometimes. That said, how is the over-revving any issue compared to the whole not having to even worry about manual gear shifting benefit?

It's like going to the US on a boat, because airplane food is bad. Yes, it might be, but it misses the whole point of getting there faster, easier, safer and with less concerns.

> I've never seen the lag (much less "incredible") in any model I've known.

Check out a Smart fortwo on car2go sometime and be amazed :)

Driving a car with a cheap or slow automatic transmission is a bit of an art - after a while you start knowing when and how to floor the accelerator just to tell the car that you'll need it to shift up in a couple of seconds.

It feels somewhat counter-intuitive as normally you press the pedal to speed up, but when going uphill you sometimes have to really step on it just to maintain speed.