November 13, 2012 • 26 mins
In this episode, Scott and Ben examine manual and automatic transmissions. But this isn't just the normal nuts-and-bolts look at the mechanics of transmissions -- the guys also explore the benefits of driving stick. Tune in and learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how stuff works dot com. Welcome to
the podcast time. Scott Benjamin the auto editor here at
how stuff work dot com, and my name is Ben Bowling.
This week I've been teaching everyone to break dance at
(00:24):
how stuff works dot com. That was so unexpected. Thanks man,
very good, very good. Are you gonna work on me,
because it's gonna if we're gonna require overtime, I think
I'm gonna have to take it one step at a time,
No offense, man, It'll be kind of a project easier
to herd cats. Yeah you said heard. I thought you
said hurt. Well, it might be easier to do that
(00:46):
at the Dark Side of Scott Heard Cats. Hey man,
we we have an interesting situation today, Hunt. What's that. Well,
you know, we're one of a number of fleets if
you will, a podcast, and uh, you know we have
we have a great job situation here. We get on
so well with all of our all of our other podcasters,
(01:08):
and um, we're actually pretty good buddies with Chris and Jonathan.
Correct right. And some people may recognize from the show
tech Stuff or just recognize from the awesome articles and
blogs or just around town or just around town. There
there are men of of uh what what, men of
renown that's good. And they actually have a letter that
(01:31):
and a listener had written into uh asking them to help.
And you know, Chris and Jonathan thought this is a
little bit this a little bit cary for us, a
little bit automotive cary. You like that. I think Carrie
is actually worried about I don't know what it means, um,
So I'm just gonna read real quick this this letter
(01:52):
um from West and let's see West from the internet,
and West says, hello, I am thirteen, uh, and I
was wondering about cars because my dad bought a new
Ferrari and he has a link to at the bottom,
and it has a manual transmission. So my dad had
to press this pedal um. I think it's called the
clutch to remove some plates and change some gears. I
(02:15):
thought it would be a good podcast idea if you
talked about transmissions and automatic emmanual cars. Dad bought a Ferrari.
I know, congratulations West, and uh, West's dad pretty awesome.
That is pretty awesome. I UM, I gotta say, man
little jealous. Well, he's only got about three more years
and he'll be behind the wheel, So that's pretty good
(02:35):
purchase for him. I think that's true, man, And I
don't want to call you out, but I don't want
to ask how long it's been since you're worth thirteen.
But if you will, recall, those three years are like
twenty regular people years, three really long years. You're right,
because you're just staring at the keys to the car,
(02:55):
oh Man, wishing that they were yours. I stole my
dad's car one time. Bad. I just drove it around
the street and I drove it back. I thought it
was cool. Man, I was like Indiana Jones, that's a
bad idea. Don't do it, don't know, and yes, do
not do that. I'm sorry I forgot. Yeah, don't you know.
I think at some point or another, you know, most
(03:16):
parents take the kids out a little early and teach
them in a parking lot so they don't get behind
the wheel for the first time ever when they go
to driver's head with them. It's not not most, but
a lot of times that happens. Yeah, that's what when
I say I still a car, I'm kind of joking
because my I mean, my dad knew and everything, and
it's not it's not a good idea otherwise pedaling. I'm
(03:39):
in reverse. Yeah, I'm in reverse. It's a car reverse, Hannah.
But no, people do go out in the parking lot
and stuff. Um, you know, that's that's what my dad did.
That's actually where I learned to drive a stick shift.
Same here. Oh yeah, silver dome parking lot, Silver Dome,
that's the silver Yeah. My I was in, um, the
(04:00):
parking lot of the school that my mother teaches at
on the weekend, because we knew everybody who could possibly
be there. Um. But you know, I think it's sort of,
at least in the States, it's sort of a tradition
where you have mom or dad take you out to
like parking lot and say, okay, sit behind the wheel.
I'm gonna sit in the shotgun. See incredibly nervous. Don't
(04:21):
get in there. And and you know, like my first
experience beyond the wheel, I was in a in a
a stadium parking lot that had a capacity. I thing
had a capacity of like a hundred thousand people or something.
So I was in this wide open area. There were
no cars around, even even the in the light poles
were spaced out far enough that you know, there's very
little little danger of hitting anything, you know, being able
(04:41):
to you know, parents would be able to intervene and
stop if anything was going on unusual. But you know
you're in control the whole time. It's not terribly difficult.
We're not going to condone doing that on the air.
Of course, it's kind of going down the wrong road here, Yeah, Scott,
maybe right. Maybe we got wrapped up in our in
our checkered paths a little bit. But but the point
is the only reason that I'm bringing up this idea
(05:04):
of the parking lot of stuff, and um, the the
whole idea here that that Chris and Jonathan West were
getting at with us, UM goes back to UH transmissions.
Automatic transmissions happen a lot more in the States, um
than they do in some other countries, some other places. UM.
And I'm surprised all the time. I'm surprised by how
(05:28):
many people don't know how to drive a manual transmission. Yeah,
I've run across across many people that have no idea
how to drive a manual transmission. Not that it's not
anything terribly wrong with that, but I'm saying that you're
you're better off if you do know how to drive
a manual transmission. And there's a lot of reasons for that,
and we've got and rather than us teaching you how
(05:48):
to drive a stick which is impossible over you know,
over the podcast waves, it would be really weird. Yeah,
it really would be. It sounds so awkward to go
through the mechanics of it and you're pushing the clutch
off in the gas you you know, it's just it
doesn't work. So what we're what we're saying here in
this podcast is here's here's some of the benefits. Here
are the reasons why it might be a good idea
(06:09):
to to learn how to drive a stick because he
may think, well, I don't own a manual transmission car,
I don't drive a stick shift, so why would I
ever need to learn? Um, there's a lot of reasons
why you may want to consider it anyways, And you're
never too old. Yeah, even if it's not for you,
and you may never use that ability, you may use
it all the time. You never know. You may you
(06:30):
may all of a sudden realize what you've been missing.
Because let me tell you, if you like, I'm I'm sorry,
I'm a little bit militant about this. If you like
high performance vehicles and you ever see yourself driving one,
you need to drive manual transmission. I agree, And they
have they have ways around that now. I mean they've
got you know, the trip or Tiptronic or whatever it was,
(06:53):
you know from Audie and um all the all the
automatic cars that have shifting abilities, you know where you
don't really use a clutch, You just you just pull
the pull the gear shift or the paddles on the wheel. Um. Sure,
they still require a fair amount of skill to drive,
but nothing like when you're you're manually shifting the gears
and you're using the clutch and you're using the gas
(07:13):
and you're I mean you're you're doing a little dance
on the three pedals on the on the ground there.
It's it's it's totally different. And really, I'm like you, Ben,
I feel you get the most out of a performance
vehicle for sure, out of any vehicle really when they
have a manual transmission. I totally jumped ahead and listed
one of the reasons I did accidentally, which is just
(07:34):
my my hobby horse is driving the high performancetance. But
one thing that we should explain to people who would say,
you know what, what's the difference between an automatic and
the manual, Like if we if we gave them, what's
the quick answer, what's the difference between them? Yeah, Well,
one automatic, I guess this one where you just select
(07:54):
drive and that's it. You put your hands on the
wheel and you've got to break and gas and that's all.
And the car automatic, the transmission automatically shifts, automatically determines
what gear you're in first, second, third, fourth, or even
fifth in some cases are more um and then as
you come to a stoplight or you know, you slow
down on the highway or whatever it is, the transmission
automatically shifts itself back down to the appropriate gear. So
(08:17):
no matter when you hit the gas, when you hit
the break, you're in the appropriate gear for that speed.
And uh, you know it's it's mindless. I mean, you
just you don't have to think about it one bit
until you put the car in park. When you when
you finish wherever you're going, Um, that's it. And a
manual transmission, on the other hand, you know you're you're
determining everything about you know, how that vehicle moves. It's
(08:38):
you know, you determine how long you're in first gear,
how long you're in second gear. Um, if you want
to shift for performance, if you want to, you know,
you want to hang onto that gear a little bit longer.
You can get up into the power band of the engine.
And that's that's one thing. See I'm going through a
couple of the benefits here already, but you're you're far
more in control of the vehicle when you've got a
manual transmission. And UM, I don't know, some people just
(09:00):
can't seem to get by without it. Now because I'm
one who I think I h I don't know if
I could ever have a card, it's not Are you
one of those? Are you one of those guys? When
you're driving automatic? Do you find your left foot hitting
for that ghost tedtal? I find myself reaching for the
center area of the car to shift. I do, but
I don't. I don't, you know, it's weird. I I
do that more often than lift up by left foot
(09:21):
to have the clutch. But I've heard of people doing
that too, like putting their foot through the floor. I
you know, the Monte carlo Is, and I feel it's
okay for me to mention it in this podcast. The
Monte Carlo isn't automatic. And a lot of times you
see the bigger cars, you know, those road boats, a
lot of times those tend to be automatics nowadays tend
(09:44):
to be tend to be. But there are, of course,
uh there there are, of course a lot of larger
uh manual transmission vehicles. Yeah, there's some ex sensions. They
may have a need to trow a heavy load like
another vehicle behind it, or a boat or camp or
something like that. And you know, if you're traveling through
the mountains, are you're traveling, you know, up boat ramps
or whatever, you want to be able to select the
gear that's appropriate for whatever the load is that you're telling. Um,
(10:09):
So it makes sense. And I know they're automatics that
that are more than capable of doing that, but some
people prefer the just to control, prefer controlling everything about it.
And I agree, Yeah, there's you know what we're let's
go into the benefits, can we because we've just got
a few here, and if you want, I mean, you've
got you've got a couple or you're just listening, we
(10:29):
can just talk about okay, because I'll just go through
real quick. But there are a few. Um you can
find these all over the place. I mean you look
it up online. You can find several of them here
and there. And people have their own opinions about these two.
Because someone may disagree with what I'm gonna say here.
Others may say, like it's it's definitely more fun for
me to drive an automatic because then I can I
(10:51):
don't know, balance my drink or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
the radio exactly. Yeah, yeah, Okay, ready's real quick here.
So I think I think maybe one of the biggest
advantages is fun. We talked about that already. Um. You know,
just for me, if you're driving a car, you can
you can ring every little bit of performance out of
that car if you have a manual transmission versus an
(11:13):
automatic where you're kind of stuck with the programming that
uh you know the factory has set up for you.
Um and you know what that kind of what might
allow to say this one now too, because um, so
you can hold the gears longer, you get you get
more power versus an automatic vehicle if you hold it
into the power band, you know, which is usually a
higher rev In my car, it is anyways, Um, and
(11:34):
when you get that, when you get automatic transmission, a
lot of times you'll find that they are, um, they're
programmed for shift points with efficiency in mind, fuel efficiency
and not performance. And that's the that's the downfall of them.
For a lot of people. They say, well, yeah, it's
more efficient to drive this way. But a lot of
people will say also that if you choose your shift points,
(11:55):
manuals more efficient. And I think you'll see that in
some of the e p A numbers that Um, if
you go to fuel economy, I go if you'll find
that manual transmissions are actually more fuel efficient than automatics.
But absolutely, which is really strange because it makes sense.
It's just driving style stuff. So you know, at best,
if you get a manual transmission in a performed arms
rather an automatic transmission in a performance oriented vehicle, which
(12:18):
I don't know why you do that, but um, you
may get a compromise between fuel economy and performance. And
they may even have a you know button that switches
switches over to performance mode or something like that, but
you're still accepting the factory program shift points for that vehicle.
Whereas if you have a manual transmission you've got complete
control over that. So I don't know. I just I'm
(12:41):
extremely biased towards it as well. Yeah, I think that's
the point that we definitely should spend some time on
and people should really think about. If you I mean,
one of the reasons that learning a manual transmission is
so worth it, uh is because it's it's not that
hard and it really he does allow you scout. When
(13:02):
you're seeing more control over the vehicle. You're not just
talking about being able to pop the clutch at a
crazy power banded time and then go into you know,
a super accelerated mode. No, no, no, I'm talking about
control that you can. You can decide that I want
to dramatically slow the car down without slamming on my
brakes before I get to this next turn, you can downshift.
(13:25):
If you don't, I guess you have to understand the
way the engine and transmission work together in your own vehicle.
You have to understand what's going on before you know
what it's capable of, and or so you know what
it's capable of before you get yourself into that position.
But um, it seems like you just have more ability
to control the vehicle on slippery surfaces, you know, like
if you're in the rain or snow or mud, or
(13:45):
if you're on that boat ramp you know that has
moss growing on it. You may not want to to
take off in first gear. You may want to start
in third gear. Um. You know, so a little less
torque to the wheels and you know you're able to
be able to pull yourself out easily. We should tell people, um,
the gears, what in the order, not going through naming
each one, but what changes as the gears go to
(14:07):
like the sixth gear, the fifth gear. Oh, your your
gear ratio changes so that it's working not quite as hard.
It lowers the revolutions permitted on your engine. UM. So
you know, first gear you can take it all the
way up to six thousand revs whatever. You shift into
second gear, it's back down to you know two and
a half, and then and then it slowly climbs back
up and you hear the engine it peaks and then lowers,
(14:30):
and then it peaks and lowers, and you're shifting through
the gears and it's really a lot of feeling and
listening to what your car is doing. That's exactly what
I don't want to stap my fingers because I'm sure
it sounds weird in the microphones. But that's exactly why
I wanted to get a driving stick. Makes you brings
you closer to your car. Everyone who drives, everyone I know,
drives a manual transmission vehicle. Uh, they are more on
(14:54):
top of anything that's irregular about their car. Yeah yeah,
because you know what sounds to listen for. You can yeah,
you can feel it is right. Yeah. Yeah, so we're
we're getting closer to my own personal number one reason.
So I'll just go through these kinds quickly here because
we're getting off a little bit. But um, let so
you can you can start a car with a dead
battery just by push starting it, which is another great benefit.
(15:19):
Automatic you can't do that, but in a manual transmission
you can. So's say you've got a dead battery, come back,
your headlights are on, car won't start. You can bump
start the car. Um, you just put it in gear,
popping the clutch after you get rolling, and uh and
you're on your way. So that's another quick benefit. Um.
Hopefully that one hasn't happened too often. Um. Yeah. Cheaper
to fix and maintain is often one of the things
(15:41):
that people mentioned, um because just inherent the costs are
I guess a little bit steeper for an automatic transmission
because you don't want electronics and fluid flow and there's
just it's it's a different, completely different set up inside there,
and we're not gonna get into the mechanics of both
of them. But a manual transmission, relatively speaking, is and
(16:03):
see someone's going to complain about this or say that
I'm not right, but it's easier, easier to work on
than an automatic transmissioner at least troubleshoot and figure out
what's going on at it and don't you know, gloss
over that and say like that's that's the way it
isn't every case, it's not, no, But um, as a
general rule of thumb, manual transmission they cost a little
(16:23):
bit less than than an automatic transmission. That even goes
for the purchase of a new vehicle, you'll pay less
for a manual version of the car. Most definitely automatic
version of a car, maybe as much as a thousand
dollars or more. And you know, get to up to
luxury vehicles, I suppose, which is money you can use
for aftermarket modifications exactly. Yeah, so there's a you know
(16:45):
again advantage disadvantages as far as maintenance and costs go. Um,
we talked about control already. UM. One thing about the
We mentioned this earlier about downshifting and brakes and all that.
You can use the engine to engine break. You can
downshift and select what gear you're into the car slows
itself down versus you, you know, hitting the brakes. Um,
(17:07):
so you know what's more expensive, breaks or a clutch?
Probably the clutch, but um, a lot of people use
the gears to slow the car down. And I do
that all the time. That I do that all the time,
but my brakes last an exceptionally long time, I hope,
So I really do ye saving for that clutch, you know,
that's kind of what I'm doing. Yeah, Um, I don't know.
(17:28):
I guess. I guess we're down to maybe my last one.
Really is this your favorite? This is my favorite advantage?
And then I've got one Let's tell you what before
I get to my favorite advantage because that one kind
of let's just leave that to cap everything. That's the
big one, I think, because there's one disadvantage and the
only disadvantage I can think of is really like city driving,
stop and go driving if you're in because especially if
(17:48):
you're in place with a lot of hills and you're
at an intersection. That's my least favorite is the uphill
intersection where you've got a kind of ride that ride
the gears just just to make sure you don't roll back,
you allow the clutch to slip just a bit more
than you normally would. It's, um, it's a bad situation
when you're in stop and go traffic. It's not it's
(18:09):
not terrible. I mean, I live with it. It's not ideal,
but it's Yeah, it can get tiring after a while.
Let's say you're in an hour long backup or two
hour long backup in a big city. Yeah, that can
get tiring. Or just in Atlanta during the afternoon, you're
just trying to get home ten miles or whatever it is.
But um, don't don't go to the big advantage, because
(18:30):
I've got some advantages that we should do. Great. Yeah, okay.
One is, um, when you know how to drive a
manual transmission, your life as an owner and a driver
becomes dramatically easier. Your dreams of being a valet that
you had thrown to the ash. Can they're back, You're
(18:51):
back in business the UM. Yeah, rental cars, it is
usually UM depending on where you go, Uh, you can
you can work something out if you're able to drive
any vehicle they have. And in some places, and you
were telling me this, Scott, remember like in UM, Western Europe,
(19:12):
in Europe in general, anywhere in Europe in general, a
lot of a lot of the rental cars are rental
car companies offer manual transmission cars, which you don't find
here in the United States unless you specifically ask for
that or or search for that. You may be surprised
when you go to Europe by you know, well that
was what we gave you, because that's the standard transmission. UM.
(19:33):
You have to ask specifically for an automatic transmission versus
having to ask for a manual transmission like you would
here in the States. So you're able to and first
if you need to imagine if you need to UM
drive someone else's car for some reason, Uh, you don't
want to be in a situation where there's an emergency
(19:53):
or something and you go, uh, God, let me look
at my cell phone. Who do I know that drives manual?
You know? And UM also there is something to me
said about about the way it works. See, I think
a lot of people forget that automatic transmissions are prevalent
in the US, but they're not the normal, the normal
(20:15):
thing everywhere else. I mean, automatic transmissions are like free refills.
It seems normal because it's everywhere here like that. It's true. Man,
if you go outside, if you go to a lot
of other places, they're not gonna let you just you know,
mosey back up there with your cup and it's weird.
And know'd I get a I get a great satisfaction.
(20:39):
I mean, I honestly think about this a few times
a week that I'm completely in charge of making that
car move forward at the rate it moves forward and reverse.
I mean, I like the different sound that reverse makes
versus the forward gears. I like everything about driving a
manual transmission. I just really really enjoyed a lot, and
I think I would miss it if I had an automatic. Um,
(21:01):
you already hear my top one and you've kind of
skirted this already. This is the one. Yeah, I just
wanted to put put on that point and you've already
kind of said this, Yeah, but that's okay. But when
I put it out this way. I'm gonna I'm gonna
just plainly state it so that you understand that when
you can drive a manual transmission car, you can drive
anything in the world. You could drive, you could drive
(21:23):
any car on the road, any truck on the road.
Maybe that's a better way to say it, that you
can drive any car on the road, any truck on
the road because you're able to drive an automatic. Of course,
able to drive a manual transmission. There's nothing else. There's
nothing else out there, I mean not. I can't think
of anything else other than maybe like a jet powered
car something like that. You know that, but that's not
(21:43):
legal on the road unless you have a Chriser turbine
or something. And again that was set up as a
as an automatic transmission, I believe. So there you go.
You're all set. You gotta drive a manual. You're able
to drive every single car on the road. Enjoy it.
There's no disadvantage to learning it, no none at all.
And I just encourage everybody that I know to try.
(22:04):
I've had some resistance, uh, you know, from people that
say I don't really need to Why why would I
want to do that? I was buying automatic, Well, that
doesn't cover every situation. So I think it's just a
great skill to learn. And if you know, the earlier
you learn the better because you won't forget. You won't
forget how to how to drive the car. Muscle memory exactly.
Muscle memory just just repetitive motion. And like myself, I
(22:25):
don't think about every shift I make anymore. When I
first started driving, you better believe I thought about every shift.
I couldn't have anybody talking to me while I was driving,
because you know, you're thinking, like, Okay, it's ok we're
going I'm going seventeen, I should be in second gear,
you know, whatever it was. You know, it's like a
It's a very formulaic thing for me at that at
that time, and and then once you get the feel
for it, in the in the rhythm for it, I
(22:47):
don't think twice about it. Now I don't. I don't
consciously think about what I'm doing. It just happens. And
I gotta say, man, I I completely I completely agree.
I wasn't. I wasn't converted to stick um full on
after until a few years after I learned to drive it.
(23:07):
But historically, for me, at least and please everybody listening,
I'm not saying this is the case with your your vehicles,
but for me, historically, UM, I have had more problems
with automatic transmissions and vehicles that I've I've driven or owned.
You know, I'm in the same boat for real. Yeah,
(23:27):
maybe that's why we're so hardcore. But the clutch, you know,
the clutch is just normal wearing the clutch. You can
look at the clutch like it's, uh, it's a it's
a wear material because it slowly wears a way. It's
like you look at it like breaks or tires or
something like that. Of course you're going to wear through that.
It's it's something that you consumable. You expect that. So
when you when you say like, oh, I've got to
go in with you know, my clutches out, that's not
(23:49):
really saying you have a transmission problem. That's that's simply
you've got your your clutches. Weren't that happens? And then
you know with an automatic transmission, if you're going for
an automatic transmission repair, that means something usually is is
up inside there. It's gonna cost you more than you
know a clutch repair would. Don't even tell me you
know how you're you know, you're saving up for a clutch,
saving up for transmission, and I'm hoping it doesn't turn
(24:12):
out into being, uh me saving up for a different vehicle. Yeah,
I couldn't see you on something other than the amount
of carla I I can't either. I guess I'll just
custom van, a custom van. Finally talking about man, I
don't know, an airbrush shark on the side or something
like dude, that would be that would be cool. What
(24:33):
was our producer think? Yeah, he's not that gave us
the nod. Awesome. I think if we've got Matt giving
us the nod, then we can't we can't end on
a better point than that, right, Yeah, I think he's
tell us to wrap up, and he's tall us to
wrap up. All right, So, um, let's see the things
that we always say at the end of the podcast. Now,
Facebook yes, yes, car stuff yes. Twitter yes, also car
(24:55):
stuff yes. And then wow, this is like the fastest
interview ever. Uh, there's some guy on the website who's
been writing this blog. Yeah, it's been he's been writing
the car stuff blog recently high speed stuff at first.
Now it's car stuff and um, also We've got a
bunch of you know, articles on our site on how
stuff works dot com and you can find just all
(25:18):
kinds of different information about anything you want to really,
I mean, of course car related, we're talking about that,
but really there's everything there. And if you are looking
for something that you have not found, uh, never fear,
We're always hanging out here on the internet for you.
Uh send us an email with suggestions for future episodes. Um,
(25:39):
maybe photos of cool breakdancing moves, throut of that very good,
and um, any anything else that catches your interest. Ay.
One thing, you will not find any photos of me
break cancer on the site, so you know, go ahead
and come on to the site. I'm not gonna Scott.
Scott did make us take take those clips down? I
mean I thought you were finding your stride. Sorry, and
(26:01):
the King of the Worm, what's okay? We gotta go.
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(26:21):
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Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how stuff works dot com. Welcome to
the podcast time. Scott Benjamin the auto editor here at
how stuff work dot com, and my name is Ben Bowling.
This week I've been teaching everyone to break dance at
(00:24):
how stuff works dot com. That was so unexpected. Thanks man,
very good, very good. Are you gonna work on me,
because it's gonna if we're gonna require overtime, I think
I'm gonna have to take it one step at a time,
No offense, man, It'll be kind of a project easier
to herd cats. Yeah you said heard. I thought you
said hurt. Well, it might be easier to do that
(00:46):
at the Dark Side of Scott Heard Cats. Hey man,
we we have an interesting situation today, Hunt. What's that. Well,
you know, we're one of a number of fleets if
you will, a podcast, and uh, you know we have
we have a great job situation here. We get on
so well with all of our all of our other podcasters,
(01:08):
and um, we're actually pretty good buddies with Chris and Jonathan.
Correct right. And some people may recognize from the show
tech Stuff or just recognize from the awesome articles and
blogs or just around town or just around town. There
there are men of of uh what what, men of
renown that's good. And they actually have a letter that
(01:31):
and a listener had written into uh asking them to help.
And you know, Chris and Jonathan thought this is a
little bit this a little bit cary for us, a
little bit automotive cary. You like that. I think Carrie
is actually worried about I don't know what it means, um,
So I'm just gonna read real quick this this letter
(01:52):
um from West and let's see West from the internet,
and West says, hello, I am thirteen, uh, and I
was wondering about cars because my dad bought a new
Ferrari and he has a link to at the bottom,
and it has a manual transmission. So my dad had
to press this pedal um. I think it's called the
clutch to remove some plates and change some gears. I
(02:15):
thought it would be a good podcast idea if you
talked about transmissions and automatic emmanual cars. Dad bought a Ferrari.
I know, congratulations West, and uh, West's dad pretty awesome.
That is pretty awesome. I UM, I gotta say, man
little jealous. Well, he's only got about three more years
and he'll be behind the wheel, So that's pretty good
(02:35):
purchase for him. I think that's true, man, And I
don't want to call you out, but I don't want
to ask how long it's been since you're worth thirteen.
But if you will, recall, those three years are like
twenty regular people years, three really long years. You're right,
because you're just staring at the keys to the car,
(02:55):
oh Man, wishing that they were yours. I stole my
dad's car one time. Bad. I just drove it around
the street and I drove it back. I thought it
was cool. Man, I was like Indiana Jones, that's a
bad idea. Don't do it, don't know, and yes, do
not do that. I'm sorry I forgot. Yeah, don't you know.
I think at some point or another, you know, most
(03:16):
parents take the kids out a little early and teach
them in a parking lot so they don't get behind
the wheel for the first time ever when they go
to driver's head with them. It's not not most, but
a lot of times that happens. Yeah, that's what when
I say I still a car, I'm kind of joking
because my I mean, my dad knew and everything, and
it's not it's not a good idea otherwise pedaling. I'm
(03:39):
in reverse. Yeah, I'm in reverse. It's a car reverse, Hannah.
But no, people do go out in the parking lot
and stuff. Um, you know, that's that's what my dad did.
That's actually where I learned to drive a stick shift.
Same here. Oh yeah, silver dome parking lot, Silver Dome,
that's the silver Yeah. My I was in, um, the
(04:00):
parking lot of the school that my mother teaches at
on the weekend, because we knew everybody who could possibly
be there. Um. But you know, I think it's sort of,
at least in the States, it's sort of a tradition
where you have mom or dad take you out to
like parking lot and say, okay, sit behind the wheel.
I'm gonna sit in the shotgun. See incredibly nervous. Don't
(04:21):
get in there. And and you know, like my first
experience beyond the wheel, I was in a in a
a stadium parking lot that had a capacity. I thing
had a capacity of like a hundred thousand people or something.
So I was in this wide open area. There were
no cars around, even even the in the light poles
were spaced out far enough that you know, there's very
little little danger of hitting anything, you know, being able
(04:41):
to you know, parents would be able to intervene and
stop if anything was going on unusual. But you know
you're in control the whole time. It's not terribly difficult.
We're not going to condone doing that on the air.
Of course, it's kind of going down the wrong road here, Yeah, Scott,
maybe right. Maybe we got wrapped up in our in
our checkered paths a little bit. But but the point
is the only reason that I'm bringing up this idea
(05:04):
of the parking lot of stuff, and um, the the
whole idea here that that Chris and Jonathan West were
getting at with us, UM goes back to UH transmissions.
Automatic transmissions happen a lot more in the States, um
than they do in some other countries, some other places. UM.
And I'm surprised all the time. I'm surprised by how
(05:28):
many people don't know how to drive a manual transmission. Yeah,
I've run across across many people that have no idea
how to drive a manual transmission. Not that it's not
anything terribly wrong with that, but I'm saying that you're
you're better off if you do know how to drive
a manual transmission. And there's a lot of reasons for that,
and we've got and rather than us teaching you how
(05:48):
to drive a stick which is impossible over you know,
over the podcast waves, it would be really weird. Yeah,
it really would be. It sounds so awkward to go
through the mechanics of it and you're pushing the clutch
off in the gas you you know, it's just it
doesn't work. So what we're what we're saying here in
this podcast is here's here's some of the benefits. Here
are the reasons why it might be a good idea
(06:09):
to to learn how to drive a stick because he
may think, well, I don't own a manual transmission car,
I don't drive a stick shift, so why would I
ever need to learn? Um, there's a lot of reasons
why you may want to consider it anyways, And you're
never too old. Yeah, even if it's not for you,
and you may never use that ability, you may use
it all the time. You never know. You may you
(06:30):
may all of a sudden realize what you've been missing.
Because let me tell you, if you like, I'm I'm sorry,
I'm a little bit militant about this. If you like
high performance vehicles and you ever see yourself driving one,
you need to drive manual transmission. I agree, And they
have they have ways around that now. I mean they've
got you know, the trip or Tiptronic or whatever it was,
(06:53):
you know from Audie and um all the all the
automatic cars that have shifting abilities, you know where you
don't really use a clutch, You just you just pull
the pull the gear shift or the paddles on the wheel. Um. Sure,
they still require a fair amount of skill to drive,
but nothing like when you're you're manually shifting the gears
and you're using the clutch and you're using the gas
(07:13):
and you're I mean you're you're doing a little dance
on the three pedals on the on the ground there.
It's it's it's totally different. And really, I'm like you, Ben,
I feel you get the most out of a performance
vehicle for sure, out of any vehicle really when they
have a manual transmission. I totally jumped ahead and listed
one of the reasons I did accidentally, which is just
(07:34):
my my hobby horse is driving the high performancetance. But
one thing that we should explain to people who would say,
you know what, what's the difference between an automatic and
the manual, Like if we if we gave them, what's
the quick answer, what's the difference between them? Yeah, Well,
one automatic, I guess this one where you just select
(07:54):
drive and that's it. You put your hands on the
wheel and you've got to break and gas and that's all.
And the car automatic, the transmission automatically shifts, automatically determines
what gear you're in first, second, third, fourth, or even
fifth in some cases are more um and then as
you come to a stoplight or you know, you slow
down on the highway or whatever it is, the transmission
automatically shifts itself back down to the appropriate gear. So
(08:17):
no matter when you hit the gas, when you hit
the break, you're in the appropriate gear for that speed.
And uh, you know it's it's mindless. I mean, you
just you don't have to think about it one bit
until you put the car in park. When you when
you finish wherever you're going, Um, that's it. And a
manual transmission, on the other hand, you know you're you're
determining everything about you know, how that vehicle moves. It's
(08:38):
you know, you determine how long you're in first gear,
how long you're in second gear. Um, if you want
to shift for performance, if you want to, you know,
you want to hang onto that gear a little bit longer.
You can get up into the power band of the engine.
And that's that's one thing. See I'm going through a
couple of the benefits here already, but you're you're far
more in control of the vehicle when you've got a
manual transmission. And UM, I don't know, some people just
(09:00):
can't seem to get by without it. Now because I'm
one who I think I h I don't know if
I could ever have a card, it's not Are you
one of those? Are you one of those guys? When
you're driving automatic? Do you find your left foot hitting
for that ghost tedtal? I find myself reaching for the
center area of the car to shift. I do, but
I don't. I don't, you know, it's weird. I I
do that more often than lift up by left foot
(09:21):
to have the clutch. But I've heard of people doing
that too, like putting their foot through the floor. I
you know, the Monte carlo Is, and I feel it's
okay for me to mention it in this podcast. The
Monte Carlo isn't automatic. And a lot of times you
see the bigger cars, you know, those road boats, a
lot of times those tend to be automatics nowadays tend
(09:44):
to be tend to be. But there are, of course,
uh there there are, of course a lot of larger
uh manual transmission vehicles. Yeah, there's some ex sensions. They
may have a need to trow a heavy load like
another vehicle behind it, or a boat or camp or
something like that. And you know, if you're traveling through
the mountains, are you're traveling, you know, up boat ramps
or whatever, you want to be able to select the
gear that's appropriate for whatever the load is that you're telling. Um,
(10:09):
So it makes sense. And I know they're automatics that
that are more than capable of doing that, but some
people prefer the just to control, prefer controlling everything about it.
And I agree, Yeah, there's you know what we're let's
go into the benefits, can we because we've just got
a few here, and if you want, I mean, you've
got you've got a couple or you're just listening, we
(10:29):
can just talk about okay, because I'll just go through
real quick. But there are a few. Um you can
find these all over the place. I mean you look
it up online. You can find several of them here
and there. And people have their own opinions about these two.
Because someone may disagree with what I'm gonna say here.
Others may say, like it's it's definitely more fun for
me to drive an automatic because then I can I
(10:51):
don't know, balance my drink or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
the radio exactly. Yeah, yeah, Okay, ready's real quick here.
So I think I think maybe one of the biggest
advantages is fun. We talked about that already. Um. You know,
just for me, if you're driving a car, you can
you can ring every little bit of performance out of
that car if you have a manual transmission versus an
(11:13):
automatic where you're kind of stuck with the programming that
uh you know the factory has set up for you.
Um and you know what that kind of what might
allow to say this one now too, because um, so
you can hold the gears longer, you get you get
more power versus an automatic vehicle if you hold it
into the power band, you know, which is usually a
higher rev In my car, it is anyways, Um, and
(11:34):
when you get that, when you get automatic transmission, a
lot of times you'll find that they are, um, they're
programmed for shift points with efficiency in mind, fuel efficiency
and not performance. And that's the that's the downfall of them.
For a lot of people. They say, well, yeah, it's
more efficient to drive this way. But a lot of
people will say also that if you choose your shift points,
(11:55):
manuals more efficient. And I think you'll see that in
some of the e p A numbers that Um, if
you go to fuel economy, I go if you'll find
that manual transmissions are actually more fuel efficient than automatics.
But absolutely, which is really strange because it makes sense.
It's just driving style stuff. So you know, at best,
if you get a manual transmission in a performed arms
rather an automatic transmission in a performance oriented vehicle, which
(12:18):
I don't know why you do that, but um, you
may get a compromise between fuel economy and performance. And
they may even have a you know button that switches
switches over to performance mode or something like that, but
you're still accepting the factory program shift points for that vehicle.
Whereas if you have a manual transmission you've got complete
control over that. So I don't know. I just I'm
(12:41):
extremely biased towards it as well. Yeah, I think that's
the point that we definitely should spend some time on
and people should really think about. If you I mean,
one of the reasons that learning a manual transmission is
so worth it, uh is because it's it's not that
hard and it really he does allow you scout. When
(13:02):
you're seeing more control over the vehicle. You're not just
talking about being able to pop the clutch at a
crazy power banded time and then go into you know,
a super accelerated mode. No, no, no, I'm talking about
control that you can. You can decide that I want
to dramatically slow the car down without slamming on my
brakes before I get to this next turn, you can downshift.
(13:25):
If you don't, I guess you have to understand the
way the engine and transmission work together in your own vehicle.
You have to understand what's going on before you know
what it's capable of, and or so you know what
it's capable of before you get yourself into that position.
But um, it seems like you just have more ability
to control the vehicle on slippery surfaces, you know, like
if you're in the rain or snow or mud, or
(13:45):
if you're on that boat ramp you know that has
moss growing on it. You may not want to to
take off in first gear. You may want to start
in third gear. Um. You know, so a little less
torque to the wheels and you know you're able to
be able to pull yourself out easily. We should tell people, um,
the gears, what in the order, not going through naming
each one, but what changes as the gears go to
(14:07):
like the sixth gear, the fifth gear. Oh, your your
gear ratio changes so that it's working not quite as hard.
It lowers the revolutions permitted on your engine. UM. So
you know, first gear you can take it all the
way up to six thousand revs whatever. You shift into
second gear, it's back down to you know two and
a half, and then and then it slowly climbs back
up and you hear the engine it peaks and then lowers,
(14:30):
and then it peaks and lowers, and you're shifting through
the gears and it's really a lot of feeling and
listening to what your car is doing. That's exactly what
I don't want to stap my fingers because I'm sure
it sounds weird in the microphones. But that's exactly why
I wanted to get a driving stick. Makes you brings
you closer to your car. Everyone who drives, everyone I know,
drives a manual transmission vehicle. Uh, they are more on
(14:54):
top of anything that's irregular about their car. Yeah yeah,
because you know what sounds to listen for. You can yeah,
you can feel it is right. Yeah. Yeah, so we're
we're getting closer to my own personal number one reason.
So I'll just go through these kinds quickly here because
we're getting off a little bit. But um, let so
you can you can start a car with a dead
battery just by push starting it, which is another great benefit.
(15:19):
Automatic you can't do that, but in a manual transmission
you can. So's say you've got a dead battery, come back,
your headlights are on, car won't start. You can bump
start the car. Um, you just put it in gear,
popping the clutch after you get rolling, and uh and
you're on your way. So that's another quick benefit. Um.
Hopefully that one hasn't happened too often. Um. Yeah. Cheaper
to fix and maintain is often one of the things
(15:41):
that people mentioned, um because just inherent the costs are
I guess a little bit steeper for an automatic transmission
because you don't want electronics and fluid flow and there's
just it's it's a different, completely different set up inside there,
and we're not gonna get into the mechanics of both
of them. But a manual transmission, relatively speaking, is and
(16:03):
see someone's going to complain about this or say that
I'm not right, but it's easier, easier to work on
than an automatic transmissioner at least troubleshoot and figure out
what's going on at it and don't you know, gloss
over that and say like that's that's the way it
isn't every case, it's not, no, But um, as a
general rule of thumb, manual transmission they cost a little
(16:23):
bit less than than an automatic transmission. That even goes
for the purchase of a new vehicle, you'll pay less
for a manual version of the car. Most definitely automatic
version of a car, maybe as much as a thousand
dollars or more. And you know, get to up to
luxury vehicles, I suppose, which is money you can use
for aftermarket modifications exactly. Yeah, so there's a you know
(16:45):
again advantage disadvantages as far as maintenance and costs go. Um,
we talked about control already. UM. One thing about the
We mentioned this earlier about downshifting and brakes and all that.
You can use the engine to engine break. You can
downshift and select what gear you're into the car slows
itself down versus you, you know, hitting the brakes. Um,
(17:07):
so you know what's more expensive, breaks or a clutch?
Probably the clutch, but um, a lot of people use
the gears to slow the car down. And I do
that all the time. That I do that all the time,
but my brakes last an exceptionally long time, I hope,
So I really do ye saving for that clutch, you know,
that's kind of what I'm doing. Yeah, Um, I don't know.
(17:28):
I guess. I guess we're down to maybe my last one.
Really is this your favorite? This is my favorite advantage?
And then I've got one Let's tell you what before
I get to my favorite advantage because that one kind
of let's just leave that to cap everything. That's the
big one, I think, because there's one disadvantage and the
only disadvantage I can think of is really like city driving,
stop and go driving if you're in because especially if
(17:48):
you're in place with a lot of hills and you're
at an intersection. That's my least favorite is the uphill
intersection where you've got a kind of ride that ride
the gears just just to make sure you don't roll back,
you allow the clutch to slip just a bit more
than you normally would. It's, um, it's a bad situation
when you're in stop and go traffic. It's not it's
(18:09):
not terrible. I mean, I live with it. It's not ideal,
but it's Yeah, it can get tiring after a while.
Let's say you're in an hour long backup or two
hour long backup in a big city. Yeah, that can
get tiring. Or just in Atlanta during the afternoon, you're
just trying to get home ten miles or whatever it is.
But um, don't don't go to the big advantage, because
(18:30):
I've got some advantages that we should do. Great. Yeah, okay.
One is, um, when you know how to drive a
manual transmission, your life as an owner and a driver
becomes dramatically easier. Your dreams of being a valet that
you had thrown to the ash. Can they're back, You're
(18:51):
back in business the UM. Yeah, rental cars, it is
usually UM depending on where you go, Uh, you can
you can work something out if you're able to drive
any vehicle they have. And in some places, and you
were telling me this, Scott, remember like in UM, Western Europe,
(19:12):
in Europe in general, anywhere in Europe in general, a
lot of a lot of the rental cars are rental
car companies offer manual transmission cars, which you don't find
here in the United States unless you specifically ask for
that or or search for that. You may be surprised
when you go to Europe by you know, well that
was what we gave you, because that's the standard transmission. UM.
(19:33):
You have to ask specifically for an automatic transmission versus
having to ask for a manual transmission like you would
here in the States. So you're able to and first
if you need to imagine if you need to UM
drive someone else's car for some reason, Uh, you don't
want to be in a situation where there's an emergency
(19:53):
or something and you go, uh, God, let me look
at my cell phone. Who do I know that drives manual?
You know? And UM also there is something to me
said about about the way it works. See, I think
a lot of people forget that automatic transmissions are prevalent
in the US, but they're not the normal, the normal
(20:15):
thing everywhere else. I mean, automatic transmissions are like free refills.
It seems normal because it's everywhere here like that. It's true. Man,
if you go outside, if you go to a lot
of other places, they're not gonna let you just you know,
mosey back up there with your cup and it's weird.
And know'd I get a I get a great satisfaction.
(20:39):
I mean, I honestly think about this a few times
a week that I'm completely in charge of making that
car move forward at the rate it moves forward and reverse.
I mean, I like the different sound that reverse makes
versus the forward gears. I like everything about driving a
manual transmission. I just really really enjoyed a lot, and
I think I would miss it if I had an automatic. Um,
(21:01):
you already hear my top one and you've kind of
skirted this already. This is the one. Yeah, I just
wanted to put put on that point and you've already
kind of said this, Yeah, but that's okay. But when
I put it out this way. I'm gonna I'm gonna
just plainly state it so that you understand that when
you can drive a manual transmission car, you can drive
anything in the world. You could drive, you could drive
(21:23):
any car on the road, any truck on the road.
Maybe that's a better way to say it, that you
can drive any car on the road, any truck on
the road because you're able to drive an automatic. Of course,
able to drive a manual transmission. There's nothing else. There's
nothing else out there, I mean not. I can't think
of anything else other than maybe like a jet powered
car something like that. You know that, but that's not
(21:43):
legal on the road unless you have a Chriser turbine
or something. And again that was set up as a
as an automatic transmission, I believe. So there you go.
You're all set. You gotta drive a manual. You're able
to drive every single car on the road. Enjoy it.
There's no disadvantage to learning it, no none at all.
And I just encourage everybody that I know to try.
(22:04):
I've had some resistance, uh, you know, from people that
say I don't really need to Why why would I
want to do that? I was buying automatic, Well, that
doesn't cover every situation. So I think it's just a
great skill to learn. And if you know, the earlier
you learn the better because you won't forget. You won't
forget how to how to drive the car. Muscle memory exactly.
Muscle memory just just repetitive motion. And like myself, I
(22:25):
don't think about every shift I make anymore. When I
first started driving, you better believe I thought about every shift.
I couldn't have anybody talking to me while I was driving,
because you know, you're thinking, like, Okay, it's ok we're
going I'm going seventeen, I should be in second gear,
you know, whatever it was. You know, it's like a
It's a very formulaic thing for me at that at
that time, and and then once you get the feel
for it, in the in the rhythm for it, I
(22:47):
don't think twice about it. Now I don't. I don't
consciously think about what I'm doing. It just happens. And
I gotta say, man, I I completely I completely agree.
I wasn't. I wasn't converted to stick um full on
after until a few years after I learned to drive it.
(23:07):
But historically, for me, at least and please everybody listening,
I'm not saying this is the case with your your vehicles,
but for me, historically, UM, I have had more problems
with automatic transmissions and vehicles that I've I've driven or owned.
You know, I'm in the same boat for real. Yeah,
(23:27):
maybe that's why we're so hardcore. But the clutch, you know,
the clutch is just normal wearing the clutch. You can
look at the clutch like it's, uh, it's a it's
a wear material because it slowly wears a way. It's
like you look at it like breaks or tires or
something like that. Of course you're going to wear through that.
It's it's something that you consumable. You expect that. So
when you when you say like, oh, I've got to
go in with you know, my clutches out, that's not
(23:49):
really saying you have a transmission problem. That's that's simply
you've got your your clutches. Weren't that happens? And then
you know with an automatic transmission, if you're going for
an automatic transmission repair, that means something usually is is
up inside there. It's gonna cost you more than you
know a clutch repair would. Don't even tell me you
know how you're you know, you're saving up for a clutch,
saving up for transmission, and I'm hoping it doesn't turn
(24:12):
out into being, uh me saving up for a different vehicle. Yeah,
I couldn't see you on something other than the amount
of carla I I can't either. I guess I'll just
custom van, a custom van. Finally talking about man, I
don't know, an airbrush shark on the side or something
like dude, that would be that would be cool. What
(24:33):
was our producer think? Yeah, he's not that gave us
the nod. Awesome. I think if we've got Matt giving
us the nod, then we can't we can't end on
a better point than that, right, Yeah, I think he's
tell us to wrap up, and he's tall us to
wrap up. All right, So, um, let's see the things
that we always say at the end of the podcast. Now,
Facebook yes, yes, car stuff yes. Twitter yes, also car
(24:55):
stuff yes. And then wow, this is like the fastest
interview ever. Uh, there's some guy on the website who's
been writing this blog. Yeah, it's been he's been writing
the car stuff blog recently high speed stuff at first.
Now it's car stuff and um, also We've got a
bunch of you know, articles on our site on how
stuff works dot com and you can find just all
(25:18):
kinds of different information about anything you want to really,
I mean, of course car related, we're talking about that,
but really there's everything there. And if you are looking
for something that you have not found, uh, never fear,
We're always hanging out here on the internet for you.
Uh send us an email with suggestions for future episodes. Um,
(25:39):
maybe photos of cool breakdancing moves, throut of that very good,
and um, any anything else that catches your interest. Ay.
One thing, you will not find any photos of me
break cancer on the site, so you know, go ahead
and come on to the site. I'm not gonna Scott.
Scott did make us take take those clips down? I
mean I thought you were finding your stride. Sorry, and
(26:01):
the King of the Worm, what's okay? We gotta go.
What's what's that? Email emails car Stuff at how stuff
works dot com For more on this and thousands of
other topics. This is how stuff works dot com. Let
us know what you think. Send an email to podcast
(26:21):
at how stuff works dot com. M
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.