Automatic or Manual?

[domhart10]

Originally Posted by Bungo

.....what's wrong with a powershift ?

It might be the engine, I used powershift in the new v40 (was a courtesy car with a tiny diesel engine) it was terrible. But I also used it in a more powerful S60 and it was awesome.

[volvoski]

My wife's xc 70. Is an auto as she likes them better than manuals.
I have a bad left knee as a result of football and rugby injuries as a youngster. Broke my right ankle four times and that has placed much extra strain on my left knee as the dominant push off foot and the one I took the weight on most when jumping in and out of the truck cab.
My old 911 was manual and I loved it but if I was stuck in a jam on the motorway my weekend could be ruined before I arrived as the clutch put too much work on my knee. My current 911 is tiptronic with steering wheel controls so it's the best of both worlds and I feel faster 0-60 time to boot. I was a class1 artic driver and have a bike licence and consider myself to be a petrol head but autos these days are just so good you don't miss the clutch. I didn't miss the clutch in the trucks I was driving either when they went auto and that was a big surprise. I genuinely think six forward gears is too much . A step too far. Box is cluttered and in my 911 I seemed to be forever shifting gears. Too frantic. The old mk3 cortina g x l I had as a first car was four speed and the sweetest box I ever drove. I don't think we have really progressed with manual boxes in forty years. Biggest bonus of an auto is no stupid two piece flywheel to go wrong. Daftest idea in car design for years that.

[Sasha94]

Auto for me please but it has to be a decent box. Of the 7 cars I've had since 2011, 3 have been auto (a 2008 Vectra 1.9 CDTi, a 2001 BMW X5 4.4 V8 and my current 2008 XC70 D5) the Vectra I hated as the engine and box were totally mismatched, the BMW was great and really suited the big petrol V8. The auto in the XC is very well matched to the D5, a superlative combination in fact. I couldn't imagine my car having 3 pedals! That said it's mostly down to the way the rest of the car is built and so suited to a self shifter. I have a bad back, it's a musculo-skeletal fault in my lowest 3 discs and it sets of an enhanced physiological tremor in my legs if I'm using a clutch pedal for example. I find the XC60 sets this off no matter what due to the driving position, no other Volvo does but most other cars do.

That said, when it comes to a drivers car it should be a manual IMO, so looking at third/fun cars that might keep me busy of a weekend and I'm looking squarely at manual cars... like a Boxster

[Mike 700]

Originally Posted by Bungo

.....what's wrong with a powershift ?

It's not 'geartronic'!

[kieran40]

Manuals for me all the time but I've driven auto's and liked them usually nearly go through the windscreen but I can overlook that fact lol

[Bigneil]

I have never owned an automatic but the delivery trucks at my last job were all automatic. When I started they had a fleet of Mercedes sprinters, they were all 5 speed, very smooth and always seemed to find the right gear. At first I thought that I would not like the idea of loosing control over the gear change but the Mercs were adaptive. By that I mean you still control the gear change depending on how far you pressed the accelerator down. I learned to enjoy it and vowed that my next car would be a Mercedes auto...it didn't happen. Then one year work ordered a whole new fleet of Iveco trucks. They were horrible, they had an electronic clutch that was slow clunky and cumbersome, you had to drive everywhere like you were driving granny to the airport or else the ferocity of the gear change could cause whiplash. The suspension was also set to powder your spine if you hit a pot hole. ... I left.

The works van I drive now is a Ford manual, the clutch and clunky gear change get to be a painful encumbrance after a long day driving in the city.

It seems to me not a question of auto or manual, but more a question of which automatic or which manual.

[Bungo]

Originally Posted by Mike 700

It's not 'geartronic'!

I went for PS as it is better than GT in performance and defo mpg and local indy guy rates PS over GT.
I guess it's all subjective but the mpg don't lie.

[osbourne one-nil]

I'm now on my third Geartronic and would never go back. The new 8-speed in my XC60 is so smooth and you can barely tell it's changing gear. I don't analyse things like some so I don't know if it's changing when I'd expect it to but I don't really care; I just like not having to think about it, do hill starts or worry I'm going to stall pulling out onto a busy road.

The only thing manuals have in their favour is (and quite pertinent to me in Cumbria) is when going through flood water, it's much easier to keep the revs high and the speed low in a manual. You can do it in a geartronic (not sure about all autos) by manually putting it into 1st or 2nd, but it's not something you can do instantly like in a manual. Other than than though - no competition.

[jonnyf90]

My 940 saloon is a manual, whereas my S90 is an auto.
Have no problems driving both, and it's nice to mix it up a bit.

The S90 is particularly nice for when I head to London and it's constant stop-start.
The 940 is particularly nice for Sunday morning B road blasts

Cheers
Jonny

[JayTay]

I've got the 6 speed geartronic in my C30 and love it, especially as when I want a bit of fun driving I can use the manual changes and left foot break like a go-kart!

I think the geartronic style of auto mechanism with manual choice is the way most cars will be going forward, especially with all the new self drive and computer controlled safety features.