Well there is another good reason for a MT; apparently most of today's young car thieves can not drive manual transmission cars. Autos are more likely to be stolen.

 

judging from the fact that there are probably no where near 150 G37 owners here, i'd have to take this poll with a grain of salt

 

That's a good point, though I am not sure I agree that it is the only reason. Perhaps there are more MTs because their governments are supposedly more consumption cautious. My friends in Frankfurt never mentioned gas consumption, and my European friends here got to know me because they saw I drove an MT and were "impressed"..

And yeah driving an MT is second nature for me as well, but in doing so it makes paying attention second nature. When I drive an auto I feel confused..

 

If you read my original post, I said G35 or G37's... But thanks for the heads up.

 

grew up on mt. Learned to drive on a 5 speed civic them 5 speed sentra, then 5 speed sunfire. I know $hitty cars but that is not the point. Yes i agree that a mt is fun to drive. I mean i was 15 and driving an underpowered car but it was fun because it was a mt.
now i am looking for something more refined "lux sport".
Neither one is better and neither is worse they are different and both at 330 hp will be a he!! of a lot of fun to drive.

And as for europe it is all about the fuel prices. When i was in france for 6 weeks i had a new nissan micra what a fun car to have in the tight streets of Pau france. A mt is a ust over there or you'l have no power and no fun.

 

The clutch and gearbox in the 6MT are butter. I wouldnt have it any other way in this car.

 

WOW

 

++++1

 

That's what practice is all about, especially in a 6MT

I'm a good enough drag racer to have consistency on most of my runs. Ofcourse, launching is always the biggest factor. But I have my shifting in excellent consistency.

I don't get why performance is ever brought up when choosing between a manual or automatic (this is not directed to you KAHBOOM; im speaking in general). I didn't even bother to think of performance when I chose a 6MT. The only thing I could think of was its fun factor...

I didn't have conveniance nor performance as a factor in my decision; fun was the biggest factor. Therefore, the choice was an easy choice.

.

 

Good post. Most of this is right on. Having lived in Europe years ago and driven cars over there I understand.

It seems to be a contradiction though to say driving an MT is natural, routine and subconscious and after a while it becomes a nuisance. The first part is true but the reason an MT can become a nuisance is the type of driving you have to do. If it is a lot of stop and go and in traffic the shifting is not subconscious and natural. It takes thought, action and lots of extra effort so it becomes tiresome. In a more rural setting or low traffic situations this isn't the same kind of issue.

MT's also aren't always lower weights than AT's. Gas prices in Europe are always higher than in the US and have been for many years.

 

RBull, I agree with your comments.

It may have sounded contradictory as I didn’t elaborate on my thoughts well enough. Driving MT, at least from my perspective, brings a lot of joy at first(while you learn to drive an MT) as the car does exactly what you want it to do – you are in total control and in absolute charge, you are the boss, YEAH, so the fun factor goes up. You have all that horsepower under your submission, just waiting to take your orders. Isn’t that great? It also requires a lot of interaction with the car, so it keeps you busy and entertained. You are exploring the performance envelope of your car as you have to make your own decisions about gearing. It requires a conscientious effort.
After a while driving MT becomes natural, routine, and subconscious. You know what you can expect out of you car, you know exactly when to shift, so your curiosity level goes down, and driving doesn’t offer big surprises or require that much attention anymore, at least on the surface. Your brain resources become freed up to do other things, so you start thinking about your girlfriend and don’t remember how you got from 1st to 5th gear. You are still in charge though, so you don’t even think about giving up on your MT yet. It takes a while.
Nevertheless, driving, and shifting gears requires mental resources. An interesting trivia. In a psychology class I took in college, the professor said that there were studies which found out that while you are driving on the highway and seem relaxed your brain is subconsciously making on average 135 decisions per second about the traffic situation, controlling your car, and basically interpreting the big picture. It’s amazing isn’t it? And I used to wonder why I would get so tired and ready to fall asleep after say 8 hours on the highway apparently doing nothing, just sitting, following the road, and listening to music. Brainless job, right? Apparently, not so. Even minor subconscious decisions like shifting gears add up to total fatigue. So, when you get to the stage in your MT driving experience where your mind is off the driving and is occupied with something else, but your brain still does the shifting, you are not enjoying it anymore and at the same time it adds fatigue. 1-2 hours on the road every day add up to your 8-10 hour at work.
Let me describe it like this. Driving an MT is like delicious ice-cream. It’s delicious but it has a lot of calories. So you buy yourself a whole box, and start indulging yourself. At first it feels great, you are loving it and you don’t think about the calories, because the pleasure of eating it far outweighs the fact that your waistline is getting bigger. After you’ve had 20 ice-creams cones in a week, you don’t derive the same pleasure from eating it anymore, and instead you start worrying about those 2 notches on our belt. Does that sound familiar, can you relate? So in the case of MT, it took me 13 years to be exact, to get to that point, where the joy was not enough anymore to outweigh the extra effort. That’s when it became a nuisance and I’d rather have the AT do it for me. Like you said, in traffic situations it is “tiresome” even though it is a mechanical process on the surface. With AT you can still have a lot of fun when you want to, but you can also relax, on your way home from work. With MT, you can’t.
In a nut-shell, if you allow yourself one ice-cream a week you can enjoy it for a long time, but if you eat ice-cream everyday you get sick of it and fat on top of that. So it depends on how much driving you do, under what conditions, and how long you’ve been doing it.
Ice-cream is good, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve personally had enough if you know what I mean That’s just my experience of driving MT for 13 years.

 

Wow, I couldn't have said it better myself. It took me probably about 10 years to get to the point you're talking about. And I'd be interested to see how a lot of the younger 6MT die-hards will feel in another 7 or 8 years. Sure, a lot of them will still be MT enthusiasts, but I'd be a good bunch of them will be looking for an auto.

In the past week and a half, I've probably sat in about 6-7 hours of bumper to bumper traffic--move 10 feet, stop. Move another 10 feet, stop again. I was in stop and go traffic today for about 1 1/2 hours, all the while thinking "I am so glad I don't have a manual".

 

Cant the same constant eating of ice cream have the same affect on you with an Auto too? I mean you sometimes get tired of the Auto and want to rip the gears? lol

 

Oh absolutely.. there are still definitely times when I would love to have an MT again, but unfortunately, the times where I don't want one outweigh 'em. One of these days when I don't have a job that requires a lot of sitting in traffic, I'll slip back into an MT.

 

Why not that many on here? My dealer, one of four in Houston, has delivered 23 cars by now. So Houston wide that would be say 4*23=92 new ones in Houston. Houston is 4M population roughly and US is what say 220M? Then the total in the US might be 92*220/4= 5060 cars US wide. So if 5% of owners are on here that would be 250 cars owned by those on here.