Just curious to hear your opinions/preference on buying an Automatic or Standard car????

What ultimately made your decision and why??

Auto x 2: it's a North American Continent thing.

When in Little Britain drive small rattly underpowered small engined cars.

Once arriving in the real world, drive big nasty SUV/trucks with gas sucking engines and auto boxes with powertrain gadgets.

Sort of like small boys with learner vehicles as against real men who drink, smoke, wrestle bears in their spare time, and spit a lot, and drive real mens vehicles.

Rich.

Automatic's great for stop-and-go traffic.

Standards are good if you have a tendency to speed, as you'll hear the engine complain - no such thing in an auto. (Fortunately I haven't been stopped yet... )

We have both in one car - automatic with steptronic up and down shifty thingie. Never tried it though, I just leave it in automatic mode

Didn't know you could buy one that had both! Thats interesting to know....but I'm sure expensive to buy!

Once you try automatic , you never go back , besides you need a hand free to drink coffee / eat hamburgers or donuts while you are driving - thats the N American way

P.s standards are a lot more harder to sell for resale (though they are cheaper to buy)

Automatic seems to be the way to go here, manual/stick shifts are not that common, even old stuff is automatic for example we had a '55 chevy in UK and that was auto, we have a 1961 Mercury Zephyr and a couple of mid 75 torinos and they are all auto. We have seen a Canadian trying to drive a manual MGB

Mine has the same thing. Is a Hyundai Tuscon V6 version and is standard. Very reasonable (2005 model bought for $24,000)

Not used the tiptronic yet, but will in the winter, nice to know you have the control. It is also fool-proof so if you forget you have switched over it will still change gear for you.

I wanted an auto as was :scared: about driving on the "wrong" side of the road and didn't want to have to think about what side of the car the gearstick was on!

Hiya not heard from you in a while.

Can't believe you have the car that I want !! Very nice !!

Automatics are good because you get to meet new people when they come to push you out of the snow.

We have one of each. Have to say I have the auto and like it better. Makes me a lazy driver though.

Not expensive at all, it's a Kia

Both ours are autos. When mine gets replaced I will try and find a standard, I miss engine breaking, changing down to get in the power band going into a corner, and generally being in more control. Besides, dont want the kids to grow up without the pleasure of learning to shift.

If I lived somewhere I sat in trafic a lot then I'd stick with the Auto. New Autos are even pretty efficient now.

Most domestic cars dont even have the option of standard anyway, and Nissan recently ditched it on the Maxima, although Cadillac reintroduced it on the small caddy after 50 years with nothing but Autos.

A lot of trucks stick with standard as an option though for obvious reasons.

And steptronic is not at all like a manual! Wheres the clutch eh!

My husband, the Canuck, will only drive a standard. Owned only standards in Canada and has owned two standards here in New York. Resale value is zilch because there are few people who know how to drive them, but they are great in bad weather and you don't need 4wheel drive to get around.

Ah, so this is why HB prefers a standard - he has a bit of a lead foot!

We have automatic. I am still in the process of learning to drive and we thought it would be easier. HB is getting used to it but complains the speed pickup is not as good as a standard.

Good to know about the resale value of standards.