The manual gearbox is often romanticized these days. Driving stick is a dying art, but for many purists it’s the only way to go. It demonstrates a far higher level of skill than driving around in an automatic, unlocks a world of classic cars, and can give you far more control over the vehicle.
While it’s easy to list reasons why someone should learn how to drive stick, there are a good number of downsides. So here are five reasons why you really shouldn’t bother learning to drive a manual if you can’t already do so.
There is a learning curve
While anyone can learn to drive stick, it’s not something you can pick up in 20 minutes. If you’ve never used a manual transmission before it can take a few hours to get the basic muscle memory you need set in place. During that time, you’re going to stall a lot.
Even when your clutch control improves and you gain the ability to judge what gear you should be in, you will have to consciously think about shifting for a while. If your mind wanders, you may forget to shift down when braking, or shift up when accelerating.
Even when you have a little experience, you may still stall or mess up a gear change in heavy traffic or some other high-pressure situation. It takes months of regular driving before using a stick shift feels natural.
On the plus side, it’s a bit like learning to ride a bike. Once you know what you’re doing you can avoid driving stick for years and almost hop right back into it.
Manuals are getting hard to find
There was a time when almost every vehicle had a manual option. What’s more, the manual version of a car tended to be cheaper and boast a better fuel economy. But this is no longer the case.
Stick shifts became a bit of a niche a few years back. Only certain brands like Porsche, Mazda, BMW, and Subaru clung on to the option. And now, even those brands are ditching manuals.
Take BMW for example. The Mini was as closely associated with a stick shift as the Miata. It even had a dedicated driving school that would get you comfortable with the basics in an afternoon. But the Mini ditched manuals a few years back. The manual option also disappeared from the M5 a few years ago now, and has finally been phased out of the likes of the M2.
This isn’t going to get better either. As vehicles shift to hybrid or electric powertrains, manual gearboxes become less of an option. Vehicles are also far more powerful now, which means you can’t just jam an older manual gearbox in one. You have to design and test a completely new one, and most manufacturers don’t think the limited number of sales a manual would bring is worth the extra expense.
You’re probably worse than an automatic gearbox
Not long ago, automatic gearboxes were pretty terrible. They’d hold on to gears, hamper acceleration, and seemingly get confused when you tapped the brakes. But that hasn’t been the case for over a decade now.
Even on the lower end, a modern automatic gearbox will likely outshift even the most experienced manual drivers. Which puts you at a disadvantage on the track, and may mean you get worse fuel economy on the road.
Many automatics come with paddles too, allowing drivers to “shift” between gears when they feel like it while removing many of the downsides.
You have more things to break
It’s pretty hard to mess up an automatic gearbox. A manual on the other hand, can be misused and damaged. Try to force a vehicle into gear without the clutch fully depressed, and you may notice a grinding sound. That isn’t good, and has probably put the equivalent of a few hundred miles of wear on your gearbox.
“Ride” the clutch by keeping your foot on the clutch pedal and you might wear it out faster, or “glaze” the clutch plates and render them useless. A replacement clutch is not a cheap fix. While the parts themselves don’t cost much, a mechanic has to remove the gearbox to put in a new clutch.
A manual isn’t the best daily driver
While driving stick can be fun and engaging, it’s an awful option day to day. Especially if your commute involves a lot of traffic.
With an automatic, you can just leave your foot on the brake and take it off when you want to crawl forward. With a manual, you need one foot on the clutch, another on the brake (or your parking brake engaged), and moving forward involves gently letting the clutch up, releasing the brake, and giving it just enough gas to keep it moving.
Keeping the clutch depressed is also far less comfortable than pressing a brake pedal. It’s trying to come back up, so you need to apply a notable amount of pressure to keep it disengaged. Over time this can be fatiguing, and will cause discomfort if you’re wearing thinner soled shoes.
For example, I recently took a vehicle with a manual transmission through the Lincoln Tunnel and hit traffic. Said traffic moved too often to justify putting the vehicle in neutral and applying the parking brake, but not quickly enough to allow me to disengage the clutch for more than a few seconds. After 40 minutes, the sole of my left foot was feeling pretty rough and I had a newfound admiration for automatic gearboxes.
