OV9

MINI One Convertible. Perfect time of year for it

Long MOT, mechanically great and hood very good too but paint is getting tired. £1000 ono (unless you’re Foz, in which case it’s £5k )

It’s not an auto, I assume? If it is I’ll have it
My stepdaughter is learning to drive auto-only, and I can’t think of any good reason to suggest otherwise.

Jobbo wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:46 am My stepdaughter is learning to drive auto-only

Why? She seemed neurotypical when I've met her...

Jobbo wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:46 am It’s not an auto, I assume? If it is I’ll have it
My stepdaughter is learning to drive auto-only, and I can’t think of any good reason to suggest otherwise.

i suppose the only real issue is being restricted when buying/renting cars. Auto trader has 500k cars , only 216k are auto.

However, that will obviously get better with more EVs, hybrids, etc...

I can imagine it becoming less and less of an issue.

When we were young small autos were utter shite with 3 speed power sapping slush boxes and best avoided. These days more and more cars are two pedal flappy paddle things.

I bet the autotrader figures have a far higher proportion of autos if you restrict it to a max of 5 years old.

integrale_evo wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:15 am I can imagine it becoming less and less of an issue.

When we were young small autos were utter shite with 3 speed power sapping slush boxes and best avoided. These days more and more cars are two pedal flappy paddle things.

I bet the autotrader figures have a far higher proportion of autos if you restrict it to a max of 5 years old.

surprisingly not, it's roughly the same proportion (a little improved, but still less). Though AT probably isn't the most fair test because it's quite expensive to post ads on there, so cheaper older cars are already filtered out a bit.

The manual will be dead in all new cars by 2030 won’t it, not sure I’d bother with it again if taking a driving test this year.

The only argument against it now is “the thrill of driving”. But since only 1% of the population (being generous here) actually feel that.....

Rich B wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:02 am

Jobbo wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:46 am It’s not an auto, I assume? If it is I’ll have it
My stepdaughter is learning to drive auto-only, and I can’t think of any good reason to suggest otherwise.

i suppose the only real issue is being restricted when buying/renting cars. Auto trader has 500k cars , only 216k are auto.

However, that will obviously get better with more EVs, hybrids, etc...

That’s well over 40% auto. I bet it was more like 10% or less when I learned to drive.

It’s really not a hindrance now, and there’s no point in her passing her test in a manual to then drive autos only forever.

mik wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:48 am The only argument against it now is “the thrill of driving”. But since only 1% of the population (being generous here) actually feel that.....

I still maintain that the act of interrupting drive to change gear is detrimental to the thrill of driving. If cars had been single speed from their invention, we wouldn’t be adding manual gearboxes now to make them more fun.

I like the noise a clear lift of the throttle followed by squeezing back to full throttle after a gear change makes on a decent sounding car.

Autos sound crap, although a lot of that is probably because most modern cars sound crap.

When I drove my mums car at 17/18 it was a Renault 19 1.4 with a 3 speed auto and it was awful. But if you had a big engine more suited to the gearbox it would have been too expensive to insure for a teenager.

Presumably small engine autos that a teenager could be insured on these days are far more drivable.

integrale_evo wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:12 pm I like the noise a clear lift of the throttle followed by squeezing back to full throttle after a gear change makes on a decent sounding car.

Autos sound crap, although a lot of that is probably because most modern cars sound crap.

M2s are a prime example of this - they sound terrible in auto.

But that’s just a consequence of changing gear and having the throttle applied - I presume you can just lift off whilst pulling a paddle on something like that and it will sound like a manual and be suitably slower too.

Jobbo wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:46 am It’s not an auto, I assume? If it is I’ll have it
My stepdaughter is learning to drive auto-only, and I can’t think of any good reason to suggest otherwise.

Sorry, it’s a man-well.

I see where you’re coming from on the licence, that there’s no significant downside to doing auto-only, but I’d approach it the other way. Is there an advantage to auto-only ? No. So I end up at the opposite conclusion: may as well get a full licence.

Sundayjumper wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:48 pm

Jobbo wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:46 am It’s not an auto, I assume? If it is I’ll have it
My stepdaughter is learning to drive auto-only, and I can’t think of any good reason to suggest otherwise.

Sorry, it’s a man-well.

I see where you’re coming from on the licence, that there’s no significant downside to doing auto-only, but I’d approach it the other way. Is there an advantage to auto-only ? No. So I end up at the opposite conclusion: may as well get a full licence.

The only advantage is if you are so uncoordinated you can't manage a manual test. But if that was the reason, I'd be suggesting that maybe driving isn't for you!

The only folks I know with auto only licences are horrible drivers.

Also lost foreign hire cars are manual, its rare to get an auto even if you book one like my colleagues do

It’s her decision though so let her crack on, it seems most young people have a different usage pattern to us old farts anyway.

Dave!

Good to know Rich thinks my stepdaughter is Doing It Wrong. I’m sure she’ll lose sleep at night over this

Jobbo wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 3:08 pm Good to know Rich thinks my stepdaughter is Doing It Wrong. I’m sure she’ll lose sleep at night over this

not sure I said she was doing it wrong? I thought quite a few of us were having a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages and why kids might not think it's worth learning manual?

Jobbo wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:08 pm

mik wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:48 am The only argument against it now is “the thrill of driving”. But since only 1% of the population (being generous here) actually feel that.....

I still maintain that the act of interrupting drive to change gear is detrimental to the thrill of driving. If cars had been single speed from their invention, we wouldn’t be adding manual gearboxes now to make them more fun.

But the interest is in minimising that interruption, smoothly, and at the appropriate time. Which can also mean DDC for downshifts, and H&T for braked downshifts. None of which is easy - hence the satisfaction when you get it right. Pulling a paddle has never replicated this for me - hence I tend to let autos just get on with it themselves.