Yup, last word from me. I personally like both. I just picked what I thought would work best for me for what I need. I'm fairly adaptable, but I see no particular problems with gears; only a few advantages for hydro. But...you do pay more for those advantages as you mentioned. My grandfather said that he would never go with a car with an automatic transmission. He said that standard shift works just fine, and they have worked fine for decades. He was so hard headed about his belief in transmissions that it wasn't until he had his left knee replaced that he finally said that he would reluctantly go with a "junk" automatic transmission car. Since he is in his upper 90's, he figured that even a junk automatic transmission would likely last him long enough. I'm not quite that stuck in my ways. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif As the consensus agrees, a guy should buy what they like; there isn't really a "wrong" choice here.