Automatics changing my view.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

I dunno about failproof manuals, lazy driving and lack of maintenance will have it needing a clutch every 50k or less, and burn up the synchros in 100K, then just plain bad drivers will chip up the teeth, and they never seem to be particularly strong any more. The linkages wear bushings and pop off, or bend with heavy use and they get balky. Clutches always seem deperately undersized this side of the pond too, I swear the clutch size they put in a 150HP 3500lb car over here would only go in a 60HP 2000lb supermini in Europe, and with the stop-start city driving that's all too common over there, 60K is a normal lifetime for a clutch.

Some models of automatics have their problems, but the good ones go on and on with regular fluid changes.

I quite like the auto in Wile-E it's a 4 speed electronic one, the F4-EAT which gets a bad rap, which I think is all fluid and heat related. i.e. change the fluid and keep it cool and it's a winner. Ford the dumbasses never specified a fluid change interval apart from on the severe service schedule (30K)

Anyway when I was used to it last time he was in service, I got so I could do these little twitches of the foot on the throttle pedal and make it dance up and down the ratios as I liked. Only been driving him a few days again now, so still relearning that, and he might be relearning as well, since battery was off a lot.

edit: BTW when I firmed up Marvin's dumb as a plank hydraulic automatic I began to like that a lot too, became less vague, and more predictable, and thoroughly deslushed. I'm not exactly sure how I killed it yet, it was at 200,000 miles of service, 10 months previously I exploded an experimental LSD traction insert in the poor thing, and it might have been damage/debris incurred from that.