I had an ’86 three-door LXi that I put over a quarter of a million miles on, all over the west. It still had its original clutch when I sold it, and never needed any major engine work (only problem that caused a roadside breakdown other than timing belts was a sheared distributor shaft once down in Orange County on the 405).
I thought they went downhill in the nineties — they got too big and too soft, and you couldn’t get a stick shift with a six cylinder–what was up with that? As far as I can tell, as far as Honda goes, the Civic is the new Accord.
Stick is stupid. Drivers used to adjust mixture and spark advance, too. Hopefuly electrics will drive the final nail into stick’s coffin.
Pseudonymous morons who don’t like to drive cars are stupid.
I went through this stick phase when I drove a cheap car. Then I saw what a good transmission does to performance. It’s basically a difference between masturbation and sex: do you want to yank the stick or go fast? Not that I have anything against masturbation. It’s just not as productive or fun.
If you think an automatic outperforms a stick, I have some cheap beachfront property in Nebraska I will sell you.
The purpose of a stick is built on the premise the driver is smarter than the torque converter.
Plus a stick is far cheaper to repair. I ran an automatic for two decades plus and now I drive a stick by choice.
My point remains that the pseudonymous moron doesn’t like to drive a car. He just likes it to get him there. And he obviously never learned how to drive a stick if he thinks that he gets better performance from an automatic.
But not knowing how to drive a car kind of goes with not liking to drive a car. Who would like things that they don’t know how to do?
I used to only drive automatics and sneered at manual cars too. Then I went four years without a car, and finally was able to get one with a stick real cheap. I hadn’t driven anything with a manual transmission since I was in high school, so I went online, read up on technique, and then got in the car. I basically taught myself to drive all over again. Now I love my car. When I have to buy a new one (far, far in the future I hope) I will try to get another one with a stick shift. I can’t say it’s always fun to drive (traffic sucks, hills are scary — but both things were true when I drove an automatic) but I like driving that way now, and the mileage I get is great.
Good for you, Andrea. I just hope that in the future, when you buy a new car, you can find one that really allows you to control the transmission and really drive your car.
Of course, in Florida, you would have said, “Hills? What hills?” 😉
The trick for hills is to set the parking brake and release it as you apply gas.
Trust me, where I am(as Rand can verify by my IP) there are beaucoup hills.
I agree that the Civic is the new Accord… I have an 08 Civic and love it. I like to have a smaller, fun to drive car for my work vehicle and leave the bigger car for the wife and kid. The current Accord is way more car than I need for my purposes. In fact my father has an older Accord (’95 I think) with 250K+ miles on it, and my Civic seems like it’s the same size as the older Accord. Well, interior space feels comparable, the exterior is still a bit larger on the Accord, but not by much.
Yes, Honda’s entire product line took one step to the right. The Fit is the new Civic. The Civic is the new Accord. The Accord is the new Acura Legend. And the Acura RL (replacement for the Legend) is trying to be the new Mercedes.
Yeah, I’m doing the parking brake thing. And today I managed to parallel park on a hill in only two tries. See you can teach an old dog new tricks…
Volkswagen with their auto-manual DSG system snaps out some wicked fast shifts. Mitsubishi just started offering a similar dual clutch system on the Lancer Evolution X. Generally though, one needs to get into Nissan GTR, BMW M3, or Lexus ISF territory to find a auto-manual system that can truly outperform a human. The Nissan GTR can crank out 0-60 times of 3.3 seconds with its computer aided launch control system.
The problem with computers is they are reactive to your right foot. With a stick you know your going to need to pass or chug up a hill and can anticipate the downshifts. Auto-manuals let you override the programming to some degree to obtain this level of proactive shifting. Yet, most people don’t drive around their Auto-manuals in manual mode everywhere they go. So, when actually getting into a situation that could benefit from manual mode you have to go over to fiddle the shifter to get it over into the manual shift gate. By the time you click and clunk the shifter around the opportunity to utilize it effectively is often gone.
As far as getting up a hill with a manual I find this where heel to toe shifting works well. Keep your toe pressed on the brake, pivot your foot to the side, blip the gas with your heel, and let out the clutch. When you feel the clutch plate take up the pressure ease off the brake with your toe and straighten your foot back out over the gas as you accelerate up the hill. This also works great for downshifting the transmissions when coming into a tight turn off a high speed straight. Your toe slows the car with the brake and the heel rev matches the engine speed to the driveline speed as you let the clutch out. This gets you into the lower gear faster and the clutch engagement smooths out to keep the car from getting unsettled through the turn. Now your already in the proper gear range for a speedy exit from the apex of the corner on the other side of the turn.
Heel-toe is a standard racing technique, but a lot of street cars don’t have a good pedal layout for it.
Having a size 12 shoe doesn’t help much either. My 350z had a great heel-toe layout. My ’95 Mustang was pitiful with a gas peddle over an inch below the brake pedal. People often put spacers in the gas peddle cable to lift the gas pedal up level with the brake. The Impreza I’m driving around right now is situated fairly well but the foot well is to tight for me to do it well. I can only assume that Asian people generally have smaller feet than Europeans, oddly enough.
I have a ’95 Accord that is approaching 200,000. It replaced my ’85 Accord in 1996. In both instances, I opted for standard transmission.
We just bought a Sienna for the family car, but I’m likely to get another Accord, unless something else impresses me more when the time comes. I like knowing that my car isn’t going to die on the side of the road.