Quote:
Originally Posted by heavyD^2
Nope. Personally I care more about the quality of the transmission over the actual type. I would rather have a good Auto or DCT over a mediocre manual transmission or vice versa. I seem to alternate from manual to DCT to manual to now ZF8. Automatics have come a long way in the last decade while manual transmissions largely haven't improved as you get some great ones from Porsche, good ones from BMW, Honda, and mediocre ones from VW, Subaru, Nissan and terrible ones from Hyundai and Ford (as a former owner I can say the MT82 is trash). The whole manual vs automatic debate is kind of childish IMO like Apple vs Google, etc as people get what they like and there's no wrong answer. For me I don't mind rowing my own gears but it gets tiresome at times in the city and I really don't miss it but transmission type to me has no bearing on a vehicle purchase as long as it's a good transmission and I'm smitten with the car.
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Agree with this. My current car is best as a manual. If they made a really good DCT for it, then that might be the ticket, but they don't. The car is a driver's car in every way, built for a specific purpose. If I got a 911 or Cayman, I'd get it with a PDK, because IMO, and from what I've observed watching them race in person, that is the transmission that fits the car. Going fast and having fun is so much more than switching gears, although that can be part of it. Using your cars torque curve, limits of traction, weight biases, etc., there's so much more that goes into it than just the transmission.
For some cars, they don't make a good enough auto or the car just isn't intended to be weighed down with a heavier auto trans. For others, the purpose of the car is max performance and the variation of auto is orientated towards that. I'm not talking about an insulating GT car that most people drive, but a hard-edged driver's car. That hard edge is a hell of a lot more than just the transmission, it's the entire car, not predicated on the type of transmission.
The "connection with the car" is important, but just as I said above, it's more than the transmission. Everyone buying an auto for their wife or kid is just as guilty of making the manual go away, not to mention the ones buying SUVs and killing off cars in general.