Learner driver - any point in manual?

Would be an interesting can of worms to see if auto only licence holders are generally less competent :D. My last car was dct (M3 v8) and I had to use sport and manual otherwise it would just be in the wrong gear all the time. The other issue I found is that if it was still changing up, say 2 upto 7th, then if you wanted to boot it then it was glacial slow, maybe 5 seconds before it thought about it and changed down whereas in a manual you van do whatever you want (rightly or wrongly). Due to it not being turboed it just wasn't a good fit imo as to get any real acceleration meant high revs. Obviously ymmv and most cars are Turbo these days, and gearboxes have advanced so less of an issue.
 
was wondering if the insurance costs is typically greater for automatics, which would very much impact a youngster - since automatics have more acccidents ?
googles not gratifying me with an answer, but, taking the automatic technology, as someone posted, to its logical conclusion

Electric cars are involved in 50% more traffic accidents than their petrol and diesel counterparts, according to a study by insurer Axa.

( article postulates it's because ev's usually accelerate faster, not, immediately the drivers motor skills )
 
It's worth learning how to drive with a manual, it gives you more options especially when you come to choosing your first car. You can always switch over to automatic later.
 
Haggisman said:
Do people really have issues getting distracted by changing gear and having to think about it (beyond their first few weeks of driving)?

I found changing gear becomes automatic (pardon the pun) pretty quickly, so much so that I found it distracting for the first week or so when switching to auto because I had to actively concentrate on not accidentally slamming on the brakes with my left foot when going for the non-existent clutch!
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Clutch control was by far the biggest issue / distraction for me when learning to drive. So much so that I'm confident I could have shaved a good half a dozen lessons off the time it took me to drive if I was in an auto.

As soon as I started driving I was swapping between auto and manual without issue and an auto only licence would have been a nightmare with my subsequent jobs.
 
theone8181 said:
Would be an interesting can of worms to see if auto only licence holders are generally less competent :D. My last car was dct (M3 v8) and I had to use sport and manual otherwise it would just be in the wrong gear all the time. The other issue I found is that if it was still changing up, say 2 upto 7th, then if you wanted to boot it then it was glacial slow, maybe 5 seconds before it thought about it and changed down whereas in a manual you van do whatever you want (rightly or wrongly). Due to it not being turboed it just wasn't a good fit imo as to get any real acceleration meant high revs. Obviously ymmv and most cars are Turbo these days, and gearboxes have advanced so less of an issue.
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That’s the point. Manual when you want to drive. Auto when lazy. Not really a fault of the car if you expect it to mind read
 
Thought I'd mis-read the title, surely it should be "any point in not manual?"

With automatics you're massively limiting your choice of car, and if something goes wrong with the gearbox, that **** is expensive.
 
uber soldat said:
With automatics you're massively limiting your choice of car, and if something goes wrong with the gearbox, that **** is expensive.
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Smarts were always automatic or semi automatic until the 453 model released in 2014, for the first time you could buy a manual one. I paid extra for the automatic version. Dominos pizza use manual ones as delivery cars here, they’re all decked out in Dominos livery.
 
Imo manual test should be mandatory unless you have a medical condition. If you cannot muster the brain power to use a manual then you shouldn't really be on the road. There are enough bad drivers as it is.

One thing a manual does teach people is rev matching both on up and downshift as well as coasting in gear to reduce speed etc. Basically the fundamentals of how a gearbox works. A little bit of mechanical understand of the motor vehicle doesn't go a miss imo.
 
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Hodders said:
Her question - by the time I'm 25 there will be very few manual cars as they will all be electric. Is there any point in taking a manual test?
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Older cars will likely be manual. Vintage cars will be manual. Then there are other vehicles like tractors. And your daughter will never know when an emergency strikes and she has to drive a manual.
 
Quartz said:
Older cars will likely be manual. Vintage cars will be manual. Then there are other vehicles like tractors. And your daughter will never know when an emergency strikes and she has to drive a manual.
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I was going to mention this. I know it is all unlikely but there could be an instance for example where you are in a car and someone has a heart attack or a stroke and you need to drive them to a hospital pronto but they have a manual car.

A lot of people are debating the positives and negatives of each which is rather irrelevant as it is all down to choice. Being able to simply use a manual is an important skill to have.

I drive a vehicle that has 12 forward gears and it is a godsend to have an automated box in that!
 
Realistic question here. Your daughter will obviously be young and will probably be girl racer . not an insult , most people under 20 are going to drive their cars like they are driving in the Monaco Grand Prix . Hell my ancient poor ancient Peugeot 106 engine Blew up because my heavy accelerator foot

she will obviously try and learn how to do doughnuts in whatever car she buys. I was always told its much harder to do doughnuts in a automatic car ( advise from my driving guess instructor but that was like 20 years ago )

question is your daughter thinking of using the car for doughnuts?

If so. Tell her go with automatic license
 
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I don't think we're there yet.

Manuals are cheaper and much more accessible as a first car.

Totally get the appeal. It's so so much easier. But might be a big regret at some point.
 
I drove manual work vans for 35 yrs (even double de clutching)but when buying my own car I went auto if possible - Wife passed in manual and I have to say she was crap - In no way could she co-ordinate a hill start - she was never 100% happy driving - I said drive mine but she wouldn't - When I got rid of my auto car as we didn't need it and it did 22mpg I said our joint car will be auto and she was horrified - after a few days driving it she was hooked - no way in this world will she drive a manual now.
I did get her to put her left leg under her right one and press it into the seat -that kept it out of the way so she didn't go for the clutch.

I can't belive how people have dug so deep to persuade her to take a manual test. - To be honest though it is an advantage if "needed".
 
Until the only manual cars for sale in the UK are classics/track/novelty vehicles I‘d still get a manual licence just because you never know if you might need to drive one either here or abroad. They might be on the way out here due to everything new going the way of mild hybrids to full EVs, but not everywhere will be transitioning away as quickly elsewhere.

If she’s 100% committed to only ever driving her own car, and will only drive new PCP/leased cars then go for it.

I learnt in a manual then got an auto straight away due to a lot of my time in a car being stop/start town driving and I don’t doubt it would take me 10-15 mins to get used to using a clutch again, but like riding a bike you pick it up again quickly vs only ever having cycled around with stabilisers on.
 
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