Trying to estimate whether I'm old enough that when I buy the last car of my life, there will still be ones without screens to choose from.
The fiesta st is a decent example. An economy car, so very simple, but with a sports package. The only "smart" features, like traction control, can be turned off.
If we were in a car right now and I was driving, I'd have to look at the gearstick to tell you if it was auto or manual.
I genuinely don't get the USian obsession with driving manual gearbox cars being somehow "elite".
Autos (not DCTs) don't generally let you rev the engine as high as manuals do, they don't really let you take advantage of engine braking, and they may ignore your command to manually shift them into a lower gear at will (DCTs can do that too).
You're not really, especially on a long run. If you're doing motorway speeds there is no difference in economy and performance. An auto will be a bit worse in slow driving, when it's using the torque converter which is quite lossy.
> Autos (not DCTs) don't generally let you rev the engine as high as manuals do, they don't really let you take advantage of engine braking, and they may ignore your command to manually shift them into a lower gear at will (DCTs can do that too).
They will let you rev the engine as high as you like and will engine-brake just fine if you select a lower gear. They might not shift into a lower gear if you've got a gearbox that's smart enough to stop you money-shifting the engine.
Most Xantias had a 1.9 petrol making roughly 50% more power, although with appreciably less torque.
Automatics have been more efficient than manuals for decades. And the computer can shift a DCT faster than you can. These days a manual tranny is right up there with hand-crank starting your car: if you enjoy it, great, but don’t get smug because people don’t want to manually adjust the spark advance.
No, they haven't. At least, not ones the average consumer could actually buy.
While it's true that modern 8 or 10 speed automatic transmissions do now compete favorably with 6 speed manuals, the former didn't meaningfully exist in passenger cars or trucks until around 2017. Neither did DCTs outside of high-end brands- sure, they're starting to do that now that "torque converter loss" means they don't pass emissions, but that was an option that commanded a premium back in the mid-00s when they were introduced (and still not actually more efficient than a manual outside of shift speed).
An automatic with 4 gears is less efficient than a manual with 5, much less 6 (this was the standard until about 2010 or so); one with 6 gears is likely on par with the 5-speed manual (and loses to a 6-speed, obviously).
So no, "decades" is bullshit. It's a very recent advancement.
First car I looked up from 20 years ago (I own one), and the automatic does just a bit better than the manual:
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2005_Scion_xB.shtml
We bought manual version despite that. You shouldn’t have a hard time finding other examples.
My next daily will likely be something with approximately the same level of technology.
There are about ten buttons on the dashboard, of which the only ones I care about is the rotary knob that turns on the headlights and the button that switches the heater from "normal" to "EVERYTHING UP FULL ALL ON RIGHT NOW FULL BORE MAXIMUM EVERYTHING WE ARE GOING TO AIR FRY A POLAR BEAR ON THE BACK SEAT".
There's an LCD screen. It's the size of my thumb, and tells me how many miles it's done (only 190,000 - it's my low mileage one, my other has done 270 and there's a guy on my forum who's rapidly closing in on 600,000 miles in his), what gear it thinks it's probably in, and occasionally it uses this LCD to lie about the gearbox overheating because water got into the plug for the sensor when I drove through a river and it came over the bonnet.
It's not very fast or very efficient, but it does everything I need a car to do, and I have a full factory service manual for it and easy access to spares.
I love this thing, it's a "cold dead hands" kind of car for me. Only has 120k-ish miles on it.
I won't say it's my last car ever, I just have a hard time visualizing swapping it out for anything.
It starts, all the buttons work, it's cosmetically 95%. The single biggest issue is that last year it was down for a couple of months simply because of parts availability. It's not unreliable, but it's swapped a few things (water pump, radiator, A/C has had work twice, guess it's a bit notorious in the community). Purchased in 2013, it's a 12 year old car.
But waiting months for suspension components (air suspension, which I adore) was a real drag. Even with a dealer supplied rental.
That would be the thing that sends me over the edge long term, I think.
It'll be a shame when it happens, I love the car.
The dealer wants to buy it every time I take it in for routine maintenance.
- radiator replaced
- water pump replaced
- AC repaired (twice)
- suspension rebuilt
And that's considered to be a "good" truck? Good lord I'm happy we don't get such garbage sold here in Europe
They sell luxury goods, which people know to avoid when they care about reliability
The thing is, jeeps are even beating the BMWs when it comes to unreliability.
Yes Mercedes built that garbage for the US market because US market eats that crap. Then stellantis took it a step up and removed reliability from their vocabulary entirely - more profitable that way. I'd pick a modern VW over American garbage all day any day.
But sure, keep yourself convinced about exceptionalism of American SUVs.
G-Wagon is body on frame
The thing is, modern jeeps are a joke even compared to this "reliable" example.
There was a post recently about over-the-air update bricking Jeeps WHILE DRIVING ON THE FUCKING HIGHWAY. And no one cares. People keep buying this trash and defend double AC repairs. ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯
Yes, in spite of this it is considered a good car.
Cost roughly $150K