hey some guys at school have been tearing on me for wanting to change my auto to a manual, and they say an auto is faster anyway unless you are a really good driver, and i say no a manual is still faster as long as u know what u are doing.....also they said an auto would beat a manual off the line which def isnt true unless the auto is heavily modded and the 5spd is stock....some input/facts would be great to prove them wrong!!!! thanks

 

Sounds pretty much like you are right and they are wrong.

Compare the 60' times of autos and manuals...and of course the 1/4 times and speeds...

 

it sounds like they have the words "automatic" and "manual" mixed up in their heads. everything they said about an automatic is true for a manual. you're right.

 

A 5spd pulls quite a bit harder off the line than an automagic. Think about it, even if the manual guy is an average shifter, he still has almost 1 full second for error. That's alot.

Take a stock a-magic vs. stock 5spd, the 5spd being a fair shifter, with an average launch, he will win everytime. Just the facts of life.

 

how is a manual faster off the line? you start out in first gear either way..?

 

just show him the stats: 0-60 for auto and then manual,,,
manual is about 6.2-6.7 auto is 7.2-7.7

 

i think they call it GEARING... there are 5 gears in a manual tranny and 4 in an automatic. with the engines being the same, EXCEPT for mods, the tranny is the difference. talk to your friendsand see what they think about that. the gear ratio's are different. see what you come up with or what they have to say about that

 

then cant you change the gear ratio on an automatic?? im really trying to understand this..

 

"some input/facts would be great to prove them wrong"....
Well, here's one proven effective method for those retards in your school.
Get yourself a nice baseball bat and beat the crap out of them until they scream for this: M.A.N.U.A.L

 

hahahah thanks a lot guys ill print this out and show them!

 

I sure wish the gearing was readily modifiable in an automatic --
But they are nothing like manuals. In a 5 speed manual, there are 5 independent pairs of input and output gears. So altering the gear ratio of any specific gear or all of them is relatively easy provided somebody makes different gear sets for your car.

In an automatic, we have a ring, a sun, and a set of planetary gears. Interchanging which of the three are used as input and output gears determines the gear ratio. So in an automatic, I think its fairly difficult to change one gear ratio while keeping all the others the same.

I think this may explain why in virtually every 4 speed automatic I have seen in my life, 2nd gear is always about 75% taller than 1st gear while 3rd is 50% taller than 2nd and 4th is 50% taller than 3rd. It can't be just coincidence that every automaker thinks those are the best spread of ratios. Probably to tailor gear ratios closer together would require extra sets of input/output reduction gears at the back of the tranny -- but then the tranny would get too big for most front drive cars and then you might as well have a manual transmission or just pack more power into the engine --

Aside from 0-60 blasts, a manual is more fun to drive and gives better fuel economy -- a 5 speed can yield 20% more economy in continous lower speed stop and go "real world real big city" driving and 10% more on the highway. Fuel economy differences could be even more pronounced in hotter weather -- as temperature rises, the viscosity of the tranny fluid drops which probably reduces the efficiency of the torque converter when its not "locked up".

 

The max actually starts off in second gear for automatics

 

Even the worst of stickshift drivers will be able to keep up with an auto, and if they even remotely know what they are doing they will kill the auto

 

this isnt right, is it?????

 

Yea, automatics are faster than manuals. That's why the worlds fastest cars, like Ford Tauruses, Chevy Monte Carlos, Buick Grand Centurys, and Pontiac Grand Ams, are automatics.

Sheesh. What kind of school do you go to? Did these guys get off the short bus?

 

chris explained it pretty well above... but the mileage part doesn't work for our cars (at least in OD)... the OD gear on autos are taller so the engine spins at a lower rpm give them an advantage on long cruises... giving them a 1 mpg advantage over the manuals on highway ratings.

Automatics inheritly lose some power because they are hydraulic using ATF except when the torque converter locks up in OD (4th gear for our auto cars).

Autos have 3 forward gears (not including OD) whereas manuals have 4... hear the term 'close ratio 5/6 speeds'? We don't have this actually but the manuals can keep the revs up better than autos between gear changes.

 

Yes the quote that autos start in second is partly true.

It will not go to first unless you come to a complete stop. This is the case with most autos.

It WILL shift to first if you give it enough throttle to kick down below about 45 - 50km/hr

(This doesn't apply to US models, but Ill put it here anyway)
It WON'T go to first ever if the tranny is in SNOW mode on the A/T mode selector. EG three way position switch with Power/AT/Snow (similar to 3rd gen)

 

from a dead stop the auto Max wont start off in 2nd gear. If you go from a rolling start like 5mph or so itll go to 2nd instead of 1st.

in the Max, the auto gets better gas mileage then the manual cause the 4th gear ratio is really low. (.69)

Dont forget auto's lose more power then manuals and auto's weigh more. Its true that the worlds fastest cars are automatics. But those are crazy modified ones, not the autos that you see in everyday cars.

 

i dont know the stats for previous models but that is not the case with the 2002. it is also not the case for almost every other car out there. for the most part manuals always get better mileage than autos.

 

well, i knew that, but i was talking about a dead stop