Manual or Automatic car?

Automatic. I’ve no idea why anyone buys a car with manual gears these days.

Grannytomany 1) what is the problem with driving a manual? I drive both, and have no preference either way
2) it does rather depend on how often you buy cars and what your budget is. I owned my previous car for nearly 15 years - and would be driving it still, if an idiot hadn't driven in to it. My budget for its replacement was limited. Its replacement is over 10 years old

Grannytomany

Automatic. I’ve no idea why anyone buys a car with manual gears these days.

Perhaps because some of us actually enjoy driving a manual car? Part of the driving experience for those of us who enjoy it?

I recommend a Yaris hybrid new or S/H, petrol engine automatic, very low emissions around town, cheap to run and very very reliable.

I think that’s my next car Katie59. I believe in a short time cars with gears will be rare beasts, similar to BetaMax recorders!

Automatic. I have a stiff left side neck/shoulder/arm problem and the relief changing to automatic was tremendous.

When my late DH was no longer able to drive, I had to hire a car on holiday and only manual was available. I found, as a poster mentioned above, that I had become ‘deskilled ” and it was a bother. No more manuals for me.

Thank you for all your help and input on this topic. You’ve made me decide to go for an automatic.
I’ve always been nervous about hill starts ever since failing my first driving test on one. It will be no longer an issue, lol!

You won’t be disappointed chrisks

It’s nonsense to suggest that if you drive an automatic car you’re not as engaged or as alert as you would be driving a manual. All cars require the driver to be alert and engaged - if you’re not, then it’s you, the driver, who is at fault, not the car.

The suggestion that you’re not doing “proper driving” in an automatic is rather silly, too. Certainly, you don’t do the gear changes, or find the biting point (which I imagine is what many manual car drivers enjoy), but you still have to be fully aware when driving - of your own driving and of what is going on around you; in effect, “proper driving”.

Any car can develop a fault, manual or automatic.

Anyway, Chrisks, I’m glad you’ve reached a decision. Happy car hunting 😁.

My fiat 500 can be driven automatically or manually, best of both worlds!

WhenI first got my new car I spent a while looking for the handbrake! It only has a button and it does it all automatically ,anyway. Of course I could have read the manual….

In our electric car we very rarely use the brake; regenerative braking does most of it.
We have driven automatic cars for years, we both had jobs that involved lots of driving and gave up manual cars very soon after DH did his first work visits to the States.
Enjoy your new car Chrisks.

Auto all the way!
Many years ago I went on holiday to Canada and rented a car - it was automatic. I loved it so much that when I came home, I swapped my manual for an automatic and have had auto ever since!

We chose an automatic because of DH’s shoulder problems. It took me ages to get used to it. I have driven manuals for nearly 50 years and my brain still wants to change gear!
However it is probably better to change to automatic and get used to it before any physical difficulty forces you to do so.

Auto ❤️

I have driven Hybrids for years and they are automatic. No way would I go back to manual. Automatic saves on your back, knees and seems to better adapt to road traffic conditions, for me, anyway and gives me greater control of the vehicle. My hybrids have saved fuel costs too.

Definitely an automatic. So much easier around town with all the traffic lights. When I broke my left ankle I could still drive as left leg is not needed!

Septimia

I wouldn't touch an automatic if could help it. Years ago my father referred to an automatic as a "woman's car". Since he was, at the time, teaching me to change the wheel, clean the plugs and set the points, the thought put me right off automatics! (I'd like to point out that he wasn't really a misogynist, just an engineer!)

What set the seal on my opinion was the time my friend's mum took us out for the day - in her automatic car. Something had gone wrong and it wouldn't move out of second gear for miles, leaving us chugging along at about 20mph.

Like all the gadgets now being fitted to cars (including the computerised stuff in manual geared cars), it seems to me to be just another complication to go expensively wrong. Once upon a time you could lift the bonnet and stand a fair chance of sorting out the problem yourself...

A manual car can go into 'limp mode' when an engine fault is detected too. This quite likely wasn't about the gears as such.

I had a left replacement shoulder operation after a crash on my bike. The surgeon recommended I bought an automatic car. I wouldn’t go back to a manual car now.

My husband fought against getting an automatic for years, until he developed back problems. You don't realise that changing gears impacts your back until you get backache....He bought an automatic and has found it to be amazing. Of course, I'd been driving an automatic for a long time....😉

I remember many years ago whilst on busy motorway which weren’t as busy as they are nowadays and the clutch went

never been more frightening than driving with no gears so the same problems can be hand irrespective of whether car is manual or automatic.

Having driven both I would choose my automatic any day of the week.

I'm in my 70s, started driving at 18, worked in car hire for a few years, drove all over the country for various jobs without a second thought. 18 years of helping run our family business from home and I now have terrible driving anxiety and only drive locally. We have just got (on lease) a plug in hybrid which is therefore an automatic and I've only driven it once, it seems so big, but the automatic bit is OK, just keep your left foot on the little shelf provided for it.

My car can be driven as an automatic or manual and I’d never select the manual function don’t like the paddle gear changers

Automatic for the last 20 yrs or so and would not want to go back to manual. Mind you for a couple of years after the change I would find my hand going down to the gear lever when I pulled up at traffic lights or whatever.

I drive both, next purchase will def be automatic!