Re: Automatic transmission.

I went on Ebay, to look for a part for the heater directional control that seems to have failed on my Mondeo, so to narrow the search, I selected the search criteria to Breaking/Spares/Repairs, I then noticed that there were quite a few late, low mileage vehicles, being broken for parts, so I read the descriptions as of how they came to be in this sorry state, the story mainly being, "Automatic, Gearbox Fault", the cost of which to repair say on an 06 reg with 70000 on the clock, was not viable, thus an early trip to the scrapyard.

Re: Automatic transmission.

Ooooer - Our heater knob is playing up too !

Re: Automatic transmission.

Seriously??? Well... we can't talk and chew gum at the same time either... BUT that must be why most of US have good teeth?

I drive the brand new 9 speed transmission.. Pretty good considering a Semi-truck has only 10 speeds.. eh?

Re: Automatic transmission.

That might be because Britain has so few auto gearboxes Here they are available as recons just like an engine and there are plenty of auto box mechanics that specialise in them.

When visited Britain I wanted to rent an auto but unless you pay for a top of the range car they are just not available. When you rent a car here no matter what price range the second question they ask is 'auto or manual'.

My auto has no gears it is one of the CVT gearboxes, there are no gear changes and occasionally you get this odd phenomenon of accellerating and as the speed increases the engine revs drop.

Someone mentioned engine braking, there is none unless you go into sports mode or L. When did you last have a complete brake failure? The chance of you hitting something all by yourself would be millions of times greater than hitting it because your brakes failed.

Re: Automatic transmission.

Bwwwahahaaa. Most automatics give you far greater control of the car than a manual, you can select each gear individually or let the gearbox do it for you. Gear changes in an auto are far quicker than in a manual too.

If you really want to be in control you need an auto in a manual you have no choice but wiggle a lever through a gate.

Re: Automatic transmission.

You might like to consider one of the hybrid cars around these days too. No road tax for starters and also far less petrol to buy as they run largely on their self charging battery pack. My Toyota Auris is certainly one of my better buys after almost sixty years of iffy motor cars. Oh and it is an automatic also.

Re: Automatic transmission.

Having digested all the merits and drawbacks of Auto transmissions, my stance is, why over complicate?. The amount of extra engineering, sensors, hydraulics, servicing, just to alleviate pressing a pedal is ridiculous, and makes folks lazy, it smacks of the folks who use mobility scooters, although they are generally able bodied, each to their own, I guess some folks just want to “Twist and Go”.

Re: Automatic transmission.

Having driven over one million miles in cars using a gearbox afraid I am not getting your views on automatics. Also many times on Ebay I have seen MK4 Mondeo auto boxes with mileage under 10k for well under 1K.
At the end of the day it is not a vanity issue it is common sense.
Then again many of the old girls in the local village still drive those old "belt drive" Daff things.

Re: Automatic transmission.

I think your arguments regarding the engineering side of things to be quite ridiculous, this is all proven technology and autos have been around as long as manual gearboxes in engineering terms. I have had many cars over the years and had breakdowns like anyone else, but I have never ever had an automatic gearbox failure, although I have had to have new clutches fitted in manual ones.

Regarding the driving side of the argument it is not just pressing a pedal occasionally you also have to take your left hand off the wheel each time. If you drive through my town for instance you will have to negotiate something like eight to ten sets of traffic lights so that on a rough calculation between my house and the other side of town you would need to change gear somewhere in the region of fifty times, and if you drive for a living you can probably multiply that by ten in an eight hour day.

Why would you possibly want to increase your driving workload by that much if it could be avoided? With an automatic you are always in the right gear at the right time, the engine can't stall under load and hill starts are a breeze. So what's not to like?

Re: Automatic transmission.

I had one of those when I was in my 20s Mike so not quite an 'old girl' then Are they still available .

I progressed to Volvo automatics and had very little trouble with them driving many thousands of miles over 40 years .
Achieving 0-60mph in a fraction of a second was never a priority for me, reliability and easy of driving were the most important considerations and I found automatics met those criteria taking all the hard work out of driving.

I agree with Spitfire on one point things have got too complicated with cars these days with an excess of unnecessary features (like heated seats for example, who on earth wants a hot bottom .