Who still drives a stick in 2025?

[jyoutz]

As a young Andretti wanna be I cooked a fair number of automatics.
That happens when you get less than 5000 miles on a set of rear tires racing from light to light.
I've always been good on clutches, automotive and agricultural.

I don’t think there’s any comparison between the current 8-10 speed auto stick automatics and the old 3-4 speed slush box automatics.

 

[pmsmechanic]

I don’t think there’s any comparison between the current 8-10 speed auto stick automatics and the old 3-4 speed slush box automatics.

That may very well be true. I had a bad experience with automatics around 40 years ago and I switched to standards.

Clutches easily last at least 2-300,000 miles or more for me. Even on the cummins that I pull trailers with.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

My wife drives a broomstick... does that count?

 

[jyoutz]

That may very well be true. I had a bad experience with automatics around 40 years ago and I switched to standards.

Clutches easily last at least 2-300,000 miles or more for me. Even on the cummins that I pull trailers with.

My last standard I had was a 5 speed coupled to a Dodge 2500 with Cummins motor. I had about 180k miles on it with original clutch when the transmission sized up while pulling a stock trailer on the interstate. Turns out the case had a crack and the fluid had drained out. No fault of the transmission. When I went to replace it, there was no comparable truck I could find with a manual. Went automatic and haven’t regretted it.

 

[Chilliwack Murray]

Daily driver Frontier is an 8ish speed auto which is nice in traffic but when it goes it will likely cost what the truck is worth to rebuild. I would've bought a standard if it was offered.

Apart from a couple Aerostars everything I've owned were standard and I've only changed a couple clutches - one on the 3500 Dodge at 140k that failed due to the two piece flywheel and one in an 89 Escort with 350K - that one the clutch was fine but I put a used transmission in because the synchros were going - mostly due to my younger self hard shifting trying to keep up with much sportier cars.

We had a Focus that my wife put 250k before my son learned to drive on it and has put on another 200k with the original clutch is still in it today. Clutches can last a very long time and standard transmissions are rebuildable by an average home mechanic, usually they only require bearings - if you aren't rushing your shifts the synchros will last almost forever. Rebuilding, internal repairs or even diagnosing an automatic on the other hand is beyond the ability of most home mechanics and the modern 5-10 speed automatics are orders of magnitude more complicated than an old american 3 spd auto.

It's one more step toward disposable vehicles completely unserviceable by the owner.

 

[sd455dan]

It's not really up for debate. Look at the Monroney stickers. Today's automatics are achieving equal or better MPG than manuals in the same vehicles. There isn't nearly as much parasitic loss through a modern automatic as their used to be, there are double the gears, and the ECU can totally control operation. So, automatics are now more efficient than manuals.

And, for pickup trucks in particular autos can hold more input torque which is why the OEs have all gone away from manuals on the diesels. Ram tried to hold on as long as they could, but even then they would derate the Cummins if the manual was paired to it.

Still, I prefer a stick in my muscle cars so my Challenger 392 has a Tremec 6060. But I'll always take the auto in a pickup truck.

I can attest to the fact that the earlier manual transmission HD Rams do better on MPG than the autos. There were some engine changes in the 5.9 on the 1/2 year difference in our two trucks but the manual truck consistently gets about 3 MPG better than the auto equipped one.

Today they seem to have refined the autos and lock up to equal or better a manual.

 

[sd455dan]

True, but over the past 40 years I have never had to replace an automatic transmission, just change the fluid/filter. I have probably replaced 5 or 6 clutches on the 20+ vehicles I’ve owned. Always at around 100-125K miles.

I have killed several turbo 400's never destroyed them but always seemed to be the forward / direct clutch pack failures. New frictions etc. and good to go.

 

[jyoutz]

I can attest to the fact that the earlier manual transmission HD Rams do better on MPG than the autos. There were some engine changes in the 5.9 on the 1/2 year difference in our two trucks but the manual truck consistently gets about 3 MPG better than the auto equipped one.

Today they seem to have refined the autos and lock up to equal or better a manual.

The earlier manual transmissions on the Rams were only 4 speed with overdrive, not like the current 8+ speed autos.

 

[Hay Dude]

Daily driver Frontier is an 8ish speed auto which is nice in traffic but when it goes it will likely cost what the truck is worth to rebuild. I would've bought a standard if it was offered.

Apart from a couple Aerostars everything I've owned were standard and I've only changed a couple clutches - one on the 3500 Dodge at 140k that failed due to the two piece flywheel and one in an 89 Escort with 350K - that one the clutch was fine but I put a used transmission in because the synchros were going - mostly due to my younger self hard shifting trying to keep up with much sportier cars.

We had a Focus that my wife put 250k before my son learned to drive on it and has put on another 200k with the original clutch is still in it today. Clutches can last a very long time and standard transmissions are rebuildable by an average home mechanic, usually they only require bearings - if you aren't rushing your shifts the synchros will last almost forever. Rebuilding, internal repairs or even diagnosing an automatic on the other hand is beyond the ability of most home mechanics and the modern 5-10 speed automatics are orders of magnitude more complicated than an old american 3 spd auto.

It's one more step toward disposable vehicles completely unserviceable by the owner.

My Ram dealer rebuilds modern or older Ram automatic transmissions on site.

 

[sd455dan]

The

The earlier manual transmissions on the Rams were only 4 speed with overdrive, not like the current 8+ speed autos.

Right , that would be the NV 4500.
I have the close ratio NV 5600 6 speed and do like it a lot. Nothing against the auto in the other truck, If lots of stop lights in the city are on the menu , will take the auto 20:1