Who Wins Auto vs. Manual Shift Debate at Your House?

"I know they say you can lose the MPGs, but it’s just so much nicer to drive."

Recently my nuts and bolts discussion with pumper Greg Posch, owner of Tri-County Septic in Holdingford, Minn., turned to the automatic versus manual transmission debate.

Posch, featured in this issue (“Man of Steel’’), was once a die-hard gear shifter who would never consider a truck with auto shift. In buying and rebuilding vacuum trucks over two decades, Posch wouldn’t take a second glance at an automatic truck, no matter how clean its condition, how low its miles or how tempting its price.

That all changed when he bought a used Ford L8000 a few years ago, choosing the great deal despite the truck’s automatic transmission. After working with the service rig during 2007, Posch’s attitude about auto transmissions has shifted 180 degrees. Now he wouldn’t buy anything else.

“I know they say you can lose the MPGs, but it’s just so much nicer to drive,’’ he says in a series of truck buying and building tips collected inside this issue. “Backing into yards, you can ease in there nice and slow and take your time.’’

The auto versus manual debate hits home with me, though not because I drive a big truck every day for my job. The closest experience I’ve had to Posch’s daily ride was driving a moving truck with auto and one-ton pickups with stick shift. But auto versus stick is a frequent spousal debate at my home, as I assume it is in many homes where, typically, the man wants the stick and the woman wants the auto.

Interestingly, the issues are much the same whether you’re talking about a truck with a 3,300-gallon waste tank or a 2,000-pound car. The argument comes down to mileage, reliability and convenience. If I say a stick shift would give us a few extra miles per gallon and would outlive an expensive automatic transmission in our family car, my wife thinks I’m silly and asks for proof.

Proof is hard to come by. When I look back at all the modern-day automobiles I’ve owned since the 1970s, I’ve only had one transmission issue, and that was a clutch going out on a stick Ford truck at 50,000 miles. By contrast, my last two automatic Volvo station wagons went 170,000 miles; one I sold and the other I’m still driving.

How about the miles per gallon issue? Check out mileage comparisons at www.fueleconomy.gov. For 2007, a Chevrolet Silverado with a 6-cylinder engine is rated to get 16 city/21highway MPGs, while the manual transmission model is rated at 16/23 MPGs. The government fuel economy guide estimates the manual transmission will save $170 annually on average. A 2007 six-cylinder Honda Accord with auto is rated at 18/26, while the stick shift version is rated at 18/27, with an annual fuel cost that’s a draw between the two transmissions.

According to the Web site, other advanced technologies bring greater fuel savings than a standard transmission. They include variable valve timing and lift, cylinder deactivation and direct fuel injection. And in gearing technologies, thrifty new continuously variable and automatic manual transmissions have seemed to render the debate obsolete.

In the end, my wife — and perhaps the wives of many other manual transmission fans in the pumper world — argues for the convenience of an automatic transmission. And she always wins this one.



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