One of the biggest issues with the automatic is stop-and-go traffic. It's absolutely trash at accelerating smoothly but fast, and I have no choice but to either go very slowly forward to not make it janky, or really aggressive acceleration. With a manual car, smooth-but-fast acceleration is easy to achieve, but with this (Audi Q3) borrow car, it seems short of impossible to achieve.
More pet-peeves of automatic VS manual I'm experiencing are outlined here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32591426 but smooth city driving is probably what I miss the most currently, as that is mostly how I spend my driving.
You should try a car with a CVT from the last 2-3-ish years to feel the difference.
Oh and you can downshift to engine brake and the Sport model has flappy paddles to boot.
The six-speed automatic in my KIA for example, is from the past three years and it is not entirely great. It is perfectly fine 98% of the time, but those last two percent...
* Shifting speed is highly unpredictable on kick-down
* In certain temperatures it will slam the shift from first to second even when taking of very softly
* It will randomly decide to stay in a needlessly low gear on long, gentle inclines, even though there is plenty of power in higher gears if you force an up-shift in manual mode
* On low-speed sharp inclines (like my own residental street) it desperately stays in second gear to the point of almost stalling the engine, before does a brutal panic-downshift to first gear
But in standard highway driving or city-stop-and-go it is really nice.
I love driving manual, but a long stretch of having to commute in stop and go traffic made me switch to automatic, and it has always been a buttery smooth experience for me.
There is nothing worse than the smell of burning clutch in the morning.
We have an older generation Q3, which replaced a slightly smaller car that had a manual transmission and similar turbo 4-cylinder engine. I was a little bitter about this marital compromise in the very beginning, but learned how the car behaves and have no problems today. I only use the "manual" gear selection for speed control on steep grades. To me, it can provide smoother acceleration than I ever got in 30 years of driving manuals. It shifts quicker and with more continuous power delivery compared to any manual operation I've achieved or witnessed as a passenger. The change is learning to anticipate and speak to the car with the throttle instead of anticipating and speaking with the clutch pedal and stick.
For fleet efficiency reasons, these modern automatics will prefer high gears and also use clutches to lock-out the torque converter and avoid slippage. Combine that with fuel saving coasting modes and you can potentially reach states where a small turbo engine is at low RPM with low boost pressure and a high gearing load. If you want to accelerate right then, all these bad conditions need to be reversed through a kick-down procedure, and you maximize the feeling of a delayed surge in acceleration.
It's not the same transmission as the current generation Q3, but one thing I've noticed is that there is a slight risk of this sort of stuttering/slow take off when braking to a low speed without stopping. If I am at a complete stop with brake pedal depressed, the starts are very predictable. But braking into a turn lane or driveway gets the car into its most hesitant state if I try to accelerate back out of this slow roll.
In Italy the driving test is on manual transmission and many people use manual.
I trained in Rome, parking on the left side downhill (so backward is uphill), it was tough, but learned a lot of tricks in the process to prevent stalling. You also become very attuned to the clutch
I do love manual transmission, but the purpose is to have fun, not for daily usage.
Where I am it might snow or ice once a year. However I do own an SUV that has a snow mode. It starts in second to avoid spinning the wheels and will let you manually cycle through the 8 speeds if you want.
They have high mountains in there, including Alps, with highest peak at 2912 meters.
But yes, plenty of snow in many many places in Italy.
The 3 times I can remember there was snow in Rome the city would completely lock, with cars abandoned in the middle of the road (picture post zombie apocalypse kind of thing), so you can't drive even if you want to, because there is no room on the road.
In the end, it's up to the person.
How is driving uphill in a manual different than flat driving in a manual? (Serious question)
I remember an earlier discussion on HN where different people around the world learned different techniques for preventing the rollback. I remember lots of Europeans saying that's what the parking brake is for. Here in the States we're taught to let out the clutch until it starts to bite and then release the brake. You may still roll backward a few inches but that's no big deal.
I still get befuddled when parking her car because I never remember to shift into park and I'm wondering why I can't turn the ignition switch to off and pull the key out. Gets me every time!