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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2021 8:24:08 GMT
Manual has remained popular in Europe but not in the USA or Oz mainly because of thier superior fuel consumption compared to a TC automatic, and the vastly more expensive fuel here.
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Post by dixinormus on Jul 12, 2021 8:29:29 GMT
Didn’t think there was much difference in fuel consumption in recent years though?
Aside, didn’t the late Setright argue (over 20 years ago) that the CVT gearbox was way more efficient than any manual transmission?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2021 9:13:51 GMT
Didn’t think there was much difference in fuel consumption in recent years though? Aside, didn’t the late Setright argue (over 20 years ago) that the CVT gearbox was way more efficient than any manual transmission? Yes that's why I said "compared to TC automatics". I know the difference doesn't really exist any more for DSGs and CVTs and all that, hence the recent increase in sales of those options here, but they are still seen as an expensice extra, not the norm, and people evidently still baulk to an extant at paying more than they woudl for a manual, particularly at the small car end of the market. I was helping a friend choose a new car not long ago and I suggested an automatic - she recoiled on horror because she didn't like the way automatics "run away with you". She didn't like the feeling of loss of control. Imaginary, of course, but to her a real enough concern. I'm sure a test drive would get her over it, but she didn't want to exit her comfort zone at all. |
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 12, 2021 9:26:31 GMT
Aside, didn’t the late Setright argue (over 20 years ago) that the CVT gearbox was way more efficient than any manual transmission? Possibly, but did anyone ever make a CVT that wasn’t weird to drive? And small automatics of any kind are generally hateful, severely compromised machines. (A Hertz Mazda I had in Texas 20 years ago sticks out as an especially horrid example. Oh, and a Mercedes A160, which may have been a CVT. Ghastly.) Anyway, it’s a very different question, what an experienced driver prefers, rather than what a learner today has to master. It’s mostly just a matter of what the IT business calls ‘legacy’ and ‘installed base’, the stuff that’s already in circulation, which people expect to go on using. That, for the next few years only, means small, manual fossil cars, so that’s the bind today’s learners are caught in: a big investment in time and money to acquire a skill of rapidly diminishing relevance. We here have had 30 years or more to amortise that investment but they might only get five. That’s just how it is. |
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Post by dixinormus on Jul 21, 2021 4:54:01 GMT
True - people like what they know. Although this can often be overcome by price... do manufacturers still charge a premium for autoboxes? Presumably people like VAG must manufacture zillions of their DSG boxes these days..!
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 21, 2021 5:55:06 GMT
Did a first session in the Aygo with Boy2 late yesterday evening, and hit a wrinkle I’d failed to anticipate. Even cheap modern manual cars these days, it seems, have an EPB with hill hold, and this is the case with the Peugeot he has been driving and the Golf his new instructor has. The Aygo’s hill hold is a handbrake.
Boy1 knew this, but seemed to cope well enough. It proved a big problem for Boy2, to the extent that he wasn’t confident releasing it, and that I had to grab it a couple of times because the car was in danger of rolling. He says his instructor has been teaching him to hold the car on the clutch at junctions, and he was horrified that I wanted him to do something different. And how dare I buy a car with such an archaic device and expect him to use it!
We’ll get over this, I’m sure. Most things are my fault anyway these days, so this is one more to add to the list. But I am going to have to be the one to teach him to use a handbrake safely, which goes a bit beyond merely supervising his practice, as I’d planned.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2021 7:53:51 GMT
That's a wrinkle I hadn't anticipated either. Good point. Still trying to find an instructor with availability in December...
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Post by Humph on Jul 21, 2021 8:41:25 GMT
Entirely up to you and yours of course WDB, but we found that it just worked if we used the Aygo for as many purposes as we could while our son was learning and got him to drive. He was out in it two or three times a day, every day, from when we got it pretty much.
He was still at 6th form college at the time, and he drove himself there and back every day with one of us supervising, then he was working part time in a shop at weekends, so the same routine, and then in the evenings we'd make a point of going out for an hour or so to practise stuff like parking and hill starts etc.
Add in supermarket runs, gym runs, biking trips and so on and he was using it a lot from the get go. Didn't bother with an instructor after the first three lessons. Passed his test 12 weeks after his 17th birthday.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 21, 2021 9:09:37 GMT
That’s fine, Humph, but I don’t yet see enough of the basics of car control for Boy2 to be safe in mixed driving in a single-control car. He has only had three or four lessons with his instructor, where he’s been hampered by not really fitting into the Peugeot — hence the move to the new instructor with the Golf. I’m hoping he’ll be over that hump in a couple more lessons; I realise he had rather a lot to take in at once last night.
Tests are another matter. Boy1, by persistent checking and pestering, managed to shift his appointment from December on the Isle of Wight (!) to November in Southampton. In practice, that gives him five weeks of summer holiday to practise in the Aygo, after which he’s back on campus without it — unless I drive down there at weekends in the autumn. I do see the ‘just drive’ method having some value for him over the summer, though.
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Post by Humph on Jul 21, 2021 9:13:59 GMT
Well, it was really about making it a normal thing. He was in the midst of the final run up to A levels at the time and we were keen not to distract him from those, so it was more about creating a scenario where using the car was just a method of getting about as opposed to preparation for yet another exam.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2021 12:34:53 GMT
Oddly, rising used car values are making me reconsider my approach to the family fleet. My Civic is now valued at £10,665 by WBAC, which is £3k's worth of equity which I hold (I traded the Merc in for it, remember, and was given £1050). I just had the Civic MOT'd, I've done 1,700 miles in it since the last one. Nearly £200 a month PCP payments is starting to look like poor value. There's a 2008 Mondeo 2.3 Titanium X on 80k miles for sale locally, good ownership/service/MOT history. I could sell the Civic and buy that outright. And still have my £1.5-2.5k ish budget for getting a smaller manual car for the lad later this year. Mondeo: www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202107034581898Hmm. |
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Aug 3, 2021 12:40:30 GMT
8000 miles in 13 years?
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Post by Humph on Aug 3, 2021 12:49:47 GMT
80,000 according to the ad.
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Post by EspadaIII on Aug 3, 2021 13:00:32 GMT
What's the worn button (top right in the centre of the dash)? Does that turn the parking sensors off? If so, why so worn? Otherwise looks tidy and unlikely to lean...
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Post by Humph on Aug 3, 2021 13:03:59 GMT
Not sure if that 2.3 engine would be Ford's best effort, thirsty thing without any huge performance benefit.
But, it looks like a perfectly pleasant car I suppose. I think you'd miss an estate though, despite that having a huge boot. Should be good budget motoring though I suppose, if you don't plan on going too far in it too often.
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