No manual trans, on purpose?

[Catpaw4x4]

I’m one of that 6%. But right now I have all autos and I feel like my soul is slowly dying.

I purchased in 96 a 5 sp Manual Discovery - "purposefully"! I finally gave into an Automatic in 2013 when I joined Corporate. I still have my Discovery and love her for the exact reason that she is a Manual. I will never give her up. Clutch replaced at 125K and only because of some other engine work that made the clutch accessible but not due to excessive wear. She is now at 278K with that second clutch.

 

[Krabby]

… joined Corporate…

At JLR?

 

[255/85]

With the upgraded torque convertor Ineos is using the ZF should be fine. Probably a little disconcerting that Ram has never used a quality transmission, but even they are using a ZF as of 2019. ( my 2018 had a boat anchor)

Is there really anything special about the Ineos spec'd torque converter? I would've thought "yes" a couple of years ago but now? The Eco Diesel Wranglers are now running 8HP75s afaik.

 

[Kevin Mokracek]

I have many, many thousands of miles off road, and broken everything you can dream of at some point. A lot of what we do in the US is much harder then most over seas trails, and that may be part of the problem. When you are navigating furniture size boulders, a stick shift will make your life hell and the count down to major breakage is on. On easy, backcountry tracks, and lacking anything like major snow, a manual is fine. Try a manual on the Rubicon and you will be in the hurt house for example.

You are exactly right, I drove stick shift 4x4's for 30 years and loved it but that was mostly due to the fact that I had never had a automatic 4x4. The first time I got behind the wheel of a automatic 4x4 I never looked back. Hard trails are so much easier with an automatic. If I'm completely honest one of the main reasons I didn't get an automatic sooner had to do with my ego and looking down on those who drove automatics, what an idiot I was.

 

[255/85]

This is also contributes to why most manufacturers have dropped manuals - to difficult to implement AEB to get top safety ratings.

And cruise control will ramp up a manual to whatever speed it's set at regardless of the gear selected. Maybe they have lockouts that prevent that nowdays but I have to make certain I'm in high gear before I reengage it on one of my vehicles that has a manual transmission. I also hit "resume" on the steering wheel by accident once while in a lower gear. Startled the devil out of me for a few seconds before I figured out what occurred.

 

[Catpaw4x4]

At JLR?

Not quite - but the Disco came out of a corporate program out of Lanham MD . The corporate car was a Subaru Ouback!!!

 

[evomind]

If it’s just a preference than of course they aren’t wrong, if you argue manual performs better offroad, then in my opinion that’s not correct at least on an overall basis.

Im not arguing for nor against, I am pointing out that a lot of purists prefer it.

 

[OGrid]

I can’t see how IA could produce a vehicle with a manual transmission with the intrusion that currently exists in the front right footwell.

No way a clutch pedal could fit with that being there on RHD vehicles.

 

[Jeremy996]

My Grenadier is the first automatic I have owned; every other car I've had has been manual.

Speaking to the engineers at one of the demonstration days, the decision for auto only was taken very early on as the manual take up was expected to be much less than 10% and the compliance/emissions testing cost would have, more or less, doubled!

 

[Mountain4x4]

Keep in mind you would hardly ever notice most transmission upgrades. While a low stall torque convertor makes sense, most of the transmission disasters such as my 2018 and prior Ram, or Ford and Chevy 10speeds now, are simply cheap parts. Re-builders add a few hundred dollars in better fasteners, better torque convertors and such, and WHALA! You have an awesome transmission. Really sickening honestly.

 

[Tinerfeño]

I had a good opportunity to compare these last Sunday. I was with 3 friends on a hill just 2 kilometers from my Finnish home. 20-25 cm of snow, -15°C. I had my Disco -98 V8 auto, 265/75R16 Insa-Turbo Special Track tyres, automatic diff lock in the rear, Torsen in the fron. A friend had Disco -90 200Tdi manual, same tyres, no axle diff locks.

There was no traction whatsoever. The snow turned to powder as soon as it was broken.

However, my worst autobox experience was surpassed here: as soon as I lost traction, the wheels spun uncontrollably, even though I was using 1st gear locked. I tried to drive away from the above situation at least 20 times and then gave up and winched myself. The manual diesel also had problems, but because it didn't spun wheels so badly, it did make better progress despite having no axle diff locks.

The problem with autobox is that it is constant force device. When static friction changes to kinetic friction the friction coefficient gets smaller which causes increased wheel spin. Additional problem was the aggressive throttle response of the V8.

The manual transmission is a constant speed device. Loosing traction does not cause tremendous spin and relatively mild throttle response helps controlling that. The costant speed is also very important when driving over obstacles. Especially to older dieseld, 200Tdi and 300Tdi just go over these without need to react on throttle.

 

[Disco Dave]

In my 4WD group, drivers of auto’s get penalised at the end of the day. Why? They out perform the manuals to such an extent, they deserve to be penalised!

 

[bimmerteck]

Can you push start an auto, I think not. Manuals for the win!

On older ones, sure, though it’s not for the faint of heart. Just yank them backwards and shift from neutral into reverse. Had to do that more often than I care to admit on my ‘74 bronco.