4. Selling Your Vehicle.
The market narrows considerably when selling a car equipped with a manual transmission and I’d bet the value suffers, too.
CSA
@“common sense answer” depends on the car. Something like a Camry or Altima with a manual would indeed be a hard sell. But a Miata or Z06 Corvette would not be, as the people who typically buy those cars expect them to have a manual.
chunkyazian: You nailed it. EPA testing is necessarily designed to eliminate the driver skills variable. Car and Driver significantly improving MPG with a manual transmission is not surprising. My current and previous cars (M/T) have well exceeded EPA ratings. My most recent A/T cars were lucky to reach EPA ratings. Road & Track tested my 2010 Kia Forte SX 6 speed M/T at 0-60 6.9 seconds and Top speed 135 mph! I will never confirm those figures. A rapid acceleration for me is entering a 60+ mph highway from a gas station. I would estimate my 0-60 time in the 10 second range. My average MPG display automatically resets when I refuel. If I look at it after reaching highway speed it will read 4 or less MPG! After cruising at 60 mph in 6th gear for 12 miles it will read 30+ MPG.
A big reason for recommending manual transmissions is that your car will be a lot less likely to be stolen. We have several cases here where a car was broken into with the purpose of stealing it and it was left a few feet away, with just some of the content removed. Also several case where the car was left a block or so away; the drive probably gave up…
This would never be my reason for buying a stick shift, but someone in New York might think about it.
High end cars like Porsches and Corvettes are stolen by more competent drives.
Most cars manufactured in the last ten years have the same immobilizer system in both automatic and manual equipped vehicles. If a thief wants to drive the car away he has to steal the key.
Driving a manual transmission car is a dying art, at least in the USA. I expect the car I recently bought will be the last one I ever own (manual transmission that is). I don’t know about the sports car segment but for a commuter car you’ve really gotta look high ‘n’ low to even find one.
I’m proud that I can drive a manual transmission. I also thought it useful to be able to drive a boat, Bobcat, bull dozer, etc. My pansy friends don’t know what they’re missing. I still prefer an automatic for regular driving though.
@texases writes …
you think those Mustang differences are significant? And why don't the Camaro's better numbers matter to you?
Yes, it is significant and it matters. That’s my opinion anyways. It may not matter to everyone of course. The challenge was to identify a newer model car where the mpg and 0-60 times are as good or better for the automatic version, comparing the same make/model/year car, automatic vs manual. The Ford numbers , after reviewing the content of the links, didn’t meet the challenge, so I wondered why they were posted as meeting the challenge. I wasn’t inclined then to spend any more time sifting through the Camero data. @FoDaddy however has done it and posted a summary above. Assuming this is an accurate, unbiased representation of the data for the same car, the only difference in the configuration being manual vs automatic, then that car, the 2016 Camero in that configuration, indeed does meet the challenge, and by a quite clear margin. So poster FoDaddy is correct, there is indeed at least one automatic equipped car with both improved mpg and 0-60 times, compared to the manual equipped version.
The only caveat is that the 0-60 times are Car and Driver experiments, and C&D wouldn’t meet the criteria as an unbiased source, since they sell advertisements to the auto industry . But it is hard to imagine they’d be biased toward one version or another on reports for the same car. So I’d discount that concern. I think the data shows there is at least one such car.
It appears it took quite a sophisticated automatic transmission to do it. It will be interesting to see how it holds up over time and miles, reliability-wise.
For the first car , the Ford Ecoboost with that particular configuration, the numbers sayManual 0-60 5.5 seconds
Automatic 5.2 seconds.
I’d be willing to bet that you get that kind of time variation just from one attempt to another with the same transmission type.
40 to 60 times are much more repeatable and less dependent on the traction available on any particular type of pavement.
I’m pretty sure the advertised 0-60 times reflects the result of a drag strip test, where the pavement has so much grip that your shoes stick to it while walking on it, not to mention it was a result that was achieved exactly one time in a row.
It seems like if it is the same track and same condition it’s a fair test. And 0-60 times is a pretty good estimate of how quick the car is. If you are required to give quickness a single number, I think it’s a good comparison. A car designer, if trying to achieve the best 0-60 time, might not want to use a 6 speed manual transmission however. A 4 or 5 speed might actually be quicker to 60 mph. Too much shifting slows down the time.
4. Selling Your Vehicle. The market narrows considerably when selling a car equipped with a manual transmission and I'd bet the value suffers, too. CSA
It also means you can get better deals on second hand cars if you are willing to own a manual. If you buy it after the depreciation curve flattens out, you can sell it later for not a whole lot less than you paid for it.
That’s the beauty of old beaters, buy one cheap and even if you totally wreck it, you haven’t lost much.
It seems like if it is the same track and same condition it's a fair test.It's not about fairness, it's about repeatability.
No doubt repeating the same test many times and taking an average would be an improved testing version. The drivers probably don’t want to do that though, too boring.
Those tests are quite repeatable, a couple of tenths for sure.
Just curious, when I compare cars I usually do it – not by C&D or MotorTrend – but via the Consumer Reports used car guide booklet. They publish 0-60 times there. Does anyone know the source of those 0-60 times? Are they from the manufacturer, or from C R tests? They don’t seem to break them down by transmission type, so I wonder if it is an average of the two types, or just the car they happen to have, which is probably the automatic version?
As far as selling goes I sold a manual Camry (in 2002) and a manual Ford (2014), both for a higher price than their counterpart automatics. If someone wants a manual, it is so difficult to find one, that they are willing to pay extra esp for a clean one.
CR’s data is from their tests. Most manufacturers don’t publish 0-60 times, except for some European brands, Porsche I seem to remember.
Yup!
CR’s test results are all compiled at their own extensive auto test facility in East Haddam, CT.
Years ago, they bought an old drag strip–which they use for acceleration and braking tests-- and then added peripheral roads for handling and ride testing. They even have rock emplacements for testing off-road vehicles.
It is a pretty impressive facility, and an aerial view of it can be seen in this news article from a few years ago:
http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/20120416/PRINTEDITION/304169996/vehicles-get-a-workout-at-east-haddam-test-facility--consumer-reports-staff-in-east-haddam-giving-new-cars-tires-a-rigorous-exercise
@Docnick wrote: “A big reason for recommending manual transmissions is that your car will be a lot less likely to be stolen.”
A big factor for me. The two automatics I owned in the past were both stolen in the '80s. One by stealing the key.
The four manuals, no problem (so far, knock wood).
Teenage car thiefs are rampant in Wash. DC. Newer, more secure cars have slowed them down.
All Ecoboost is, is Ford’s branding for their line of gas engines with direct injection and turbocharging, nothing particularly exotic.
Isn’t that about as “exotic” as it gets these days in terms of production car IC engines?
Blackbird