If and when we ever sell our (silver) 2000 BMW, I suspect we’ll be happy that it’s got a clutch in it.
Which is another peeve. Almost every car now (including our new RAV-4) comes with a “manual” option for the transmission, but there’s no shift pattern. It’s like a motorcycle — you have to go through the gears sequentially. And the lack of clutch really defeats most of the purpose.
One other related gripe:
Since dealers are ninety-nine percent of the customer base at an auction, dealer preferences dictate what sells for good money. Fast-turning automobiles in high demand sell for good money, period point blank. No dealer wants to take a risk on an odd color or an unusual equipment group (think: Sebring convertibles with the expensive folding hardtop, stripped-out Explorer XL trims from the Nineties, loaded short-wheelbase S-Classes) or manual transmissions. They’d rather buy what sells easily and go home. Therefore, auction prices reflect dealer desires, not customer desires.
This disconnect between dealer and customer desires punishes the customer at every turn. It’s why Honda and Acura make you take a non-color with a stick-shift Accord or TSX: the dealers don’t want to stock a brown Accord V6 six-speed even if there’s a guy (YO!) willing to buy it. It’s why you see interesting combinations of colors and options in the order brochure but never at the dealers. It’s why the flotilla of individual options that marked the Detroit era of new cars has become a maze of packages and mandatory tie-ins, even when the car in question is manufactured in the same state as the selling dealers.
The dealers want the stuff that turns quickly. That means silver Camrys and red Ferraris and automatic convertible Corvettes and all-wheel-drive S-Classes. Your desires have nothing to do with it. They aren’t listening to you. They don’t care. While you’re busy displaying your autism spectrum disorder by lecturing the salesman about the actual cam lobe profile on a car you’re thinking about buying two jobs from now and for which you expect to pay invoice minus holdback, three families in used SUVs have come in and bought new SUVs and the store has grossed them front, back, used, and F&I. You mean nothing to a dealer. Period.
It drives me nuts that I can’t get a clutch in a car with horsepower, at least with the Japanese. For example, Honda won’t give you a manual transmission unless it’s mated to a four cylinder engine. If you want it on the six you’re out of luck. The only reason I can think of for them to do this is that they don’t want to have to have a beefy enough gearbox to handle the extra power, but I’m not sure that’s the reason.
As our distribution system shifts (pun intended) away from middle-men, is there a chance that you will be able to buy directly from a car manufacturer? I think this would be a great opportunity for a car maker.
As our distribution system shifts (pun intended) away from middle-men, is there a chance that you will be able to buy directly from a car manufacturer?
See also: Tesla Motors. Elon really pissed off a bunch of people by selling without a dealership model.
As far as the whole complaint in the quote from the linked article, “The dealers want the stuff that turns quickly. That means silver Camrys and red Ferraris and automatic convertible Corvettes and all-wheel-drive S-Classes. Your desires have nothing to do with it. They aren’t listening to you.”
No, they’re not listening to the individual one-off consumer, but that’s hardly the dealership’s fault. The dealership is listening to their customer base, 99% of whom want “appliances with wheels”.
And, let’s face it, other than serial-leasers, most people hang on to a car for 8 years, so an individual consumer has VERY little voice at a dealership turning 100’s of cars per month.
If a person wants a one-off vehicle, there are ways to get it, and that usually involves finding a smaller specialty dealer or going to a larger city where specialty orders are de rigeuer.
And, of course, it also involves following up with that dealer and actually buying from them.
I see the same thing at motorcycle dealerships. Guys come in wanting the dealer to option out a 75%custom bike, but then take that order to another dealership in a different county or state because they’ll cut $100 off the price.
My local specialty used car dealer always gets lots of nice toys in stock, and it’s fun to window shop there, but I no longer take test drives because I know I’m years and years away from actually buying anything. They’re one of the few places in town where you can always find a manual transmission, and at one point over half of their inventory was stick-shifted. They even had a brilliant red manual-transmission BMW X3 SUV there a few months ago, and currently have a manual-transmissioned Porsche Cayenne SUV. But why should I tease them with my preferences or rake them over the coals if there isn’t anything in it for them?
There’s the Hyundai Genesis Coupe with a V6. Sure, it’s Korean, not Japanese, but it’s pretty cool. RWD too. Other than that, you’d have to order a Lexus or BMW, but you’ll never get a test drive. There’s the Suburu/Scion (FRS?). However, it’s a turbo 4 cylinder. Good price, but drinks premium fuel only.
I remember reading that some people at GM were really bummed that Pontiac was terminated as they were going to switch to all RWD performance cars. A shame they are no more.
The BRZ/FRS has a turboless version of the WRX engine. But, yeah, does look like it needs premium fuel.
I suspect CAFE is one reason manufacturers are moving away from manual transmissions, now CVTs are significantly more economical than manuals.
Not always. I have a Pontiac Vibe (same as the Toyota Matrix) with the optional 180 HP engine and manual trans. As I recall, the 6-speed manuals were about as common as automatics for this engine option on the used market. Granted, this is an ’04 model, and very few Vibes came with this engine; not nearly so many as had the 4-wheel drive option.
And it depends on the car. I bought 2 Mazda Miatas late last year (driving one and cannibalized the other to build my Westfield) and did a lot of research (we’re still on the used market here). It seemed that for the same car with an automatic, asking price was about $500 less than for the manual. Corvette owners may buy more automatics, but Miata owners prefer the manuals.
But in general, I have to agree. Manuals are getting harder to find.
Male car customers tend to follow the auto sports equipment – which is the reason most high end autosports exists in the first place. Right now sequential automatic dual clutch gear boxes are the thing as they shift faster than manual and apparently overcome the weight issues. See
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuDN2bCIyus
note the stick -but sequential automatic- gear lever. After watching the video, I’d like to see some derivative of that car – high HP and AWD – offered by Ford BTW. Something in the y chromo I expect.
The hot hatch market still wants sticks. Go check out a VW Golf GTI. Apparently a substantial fraction of them – maybe over 50% – are sold with manual shift. The Ford Focus ST and Fiesta ST only come with sticks.
But, yah, four door sport sedans (or non-sport sedans) are very tough to find with sticks. That said, the automatic shift manuals (the dual clutch trannys) can be a good compromise, although they take some getting used to. And if you drive rush hour in LA, your left foot can take quite a pounding with a full manual. But there’s nothing quite like nailing that perfect 4th-to-2nd double clutch downshift…
OTOH, I’d have test-driven a Fiesta ST if there was an automatic version; manual means my girlfriend can’t drive it. Subaru have significantly increased WRX sales by offering a CVT version, which is outselling the manual in some markets.
BTW, you can shift two gears at a time in our Subaru by double-tapping the paddle shifters. I would assume other manufacturers let you do something similar.
Of course, in our case the ‘gears’ are fake anyway, since it’s just locking the CVT into a set of fixed ratios when we select manual mode.
“For example, Honda won’t give you a manual transmission unless it’s mated to a four cylinder engine. If you want it on the six you’re out of luck. The only reason I can think of for them to do this is that they don’t want to have to have a beefy enough gearbox to handle the extra power, but I’m not sure that’s the reason.”
I am. Honda clutches are notoriously weak on their Civic Si’s.
I’ll start complaining when I can’t get a manual steering wheel.
It’s about factory production lines. Manual vs. automatic cars are built very differently and typically require separate production lines. The highest volume CamCord is a four cylinder auto; it gets its own line. The next highest volume is the V6/auto with its own line; next is four cylinder/stick with its own line. The very lowest volume would be a V6/stick. Consider that mostly rich, older people buy V6 CamCords and they want autos. Very, very few people want V6/sticks. Not enough to dedicate an entire production line to.
Honda is switching from CVTs to DCTs on the 2015 TLX. That may be really good news. Honda, though, seems to have forgotten how to build reliable automatics since 1997 so I’d give their DCT a few years to see if they don’t take a dump en masse, class action lawsuits, etc., which is what we’ve come to expect from Honda automatics, especially when paired with a six cylinder engine.
I’m holding on to my 2003 Honda S. At 190,000 miles, it is still so much fun to drive.