http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...hift-dead.html

5% or thereabouts, and I bet many of those are Mustangs and the like. Probably won't be long before manufacturers stop offering it as an option.

Which would be really sad

Aren't they cheaper to buy by a reasonably significant amount?

When I buy a car for myself it'll be a manual. Until then sharing an automatic with the wife.

They generally aren't as easy to sell though when the time comes, as so many people don't want them.

hate the fact i couldn't get the Ridgeline in a manual

its funny that here you can pass a test in an automatic and then be let loose to drive whatever you want!

i've never driven a manual left-hooker, but really want to try to see what i'd be like adapting to it!

It's actually very bloody easy! It was more difficult remembering which side of the road to be on, the gear changing is as natural as a rhd!

Obviously, I can work a lhd car but it's not natural as, for a right handed person, this configuration puts the phone/coffee/cigarette in the same hand as is needed to change gear. I once had a very nasty mishap when changing gear on the wrong side, somehow hot fluid gushed from my hand into my shorts. I'm sure I could have managed had I not had to move everything from one hand to the other.

Once you've crashed your knuckles into the door a couple of times you figure it out. We used to drive left hookers in the UK, no problems adapting, you just do it

Yes i'm looking at buying a new Audi and the manual version is nearly $3k cheaper than the automatic..cant get a diesel for love nor money though..even BMW which offered a 335 diesel up to 2011 have now ceased to offer a diesel engine..bummer

Mazda are allegedely bringing their skyactve diesel over later this year

Didnt realise BMW had dropped the oilburners.


I suppose the realities now are that automatics are as efficient and responsive as manual boxes, sometimes more so. Its just not as ingrained here to learn to drive stick as it is elsewhere. I guess in the UK its driven mainly by most cars having much smaller engines and automatics traditionally being the expensive option. Im guessing that small cars with <2.0l engines make up the majority of the 5% rather than pony cars.

We have one stick and one auto, I prefer the engagement of shifting my own gears, but on long roadtrips there is a lot to be said for just shifting into Drive too.

i was watching a review of the new golf mark 7 that is on sale in the UK and the new 1.6 TDI engine can do apparently 88 mpg.

Its pretty bizarre that its emission rules that prevent diesel availability in North America. Lower NoX levels or something. Never mind the fact that they get better mileage and have lower CO2 levels.

On long road trips it scarcely matters. Inching your way through city traffic is when an auto makes sense.

Right, I should probably clarify that the only time I have to inch through city traffic is when we are on long road trips.... Otherwise a traffic jam for me is getting stuck at the lights.

Do you sit with your foot on the brake at lights, or do you slip it into N?