Amdrew,
I suspect that fewer shops advertise manual transmission repair simply
because most cars today are automatics. Also, the mechanics who can repair
automatics also know how to fix manual transmissions. Manuals are a lot
easier to repair; my father rebuilt the manual transmission in his old truck
when I was a kid but he says he'd never attempt that on an automatic. He had
an automatic fail on another car and he paid a professional mechanic to fix
it. Dad said automatic transmissions are the only thing he won't repair on a
car himself because of their complexity and because he said they require
special equipment to test them for the right fluid pressures and so forth. I
bet there are a lot of home mechanics like him who feel that way, hence the
large number of professionals who specialize in transmission repair.
Modern automatics have locking torque converters that become a direct drive
at a certain speed. They're less efficient at slow speeds, equally efficient
at high speeds.
Few Americans know how to drive a manual shift car. I know how but I am not
good at it and besides the kind of cars I prefer (large sedans...I have a
chevy caprice, the second one I've owned) don't come with anything but
automatics. Only trucks, economy cars and sports cars have the option of a
manual shift today.
--
Chris Crawford
Photography & Graphic Design
Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com
http://www.plumpatrin.com Something the world NEEDS.
On 7/1/07 10:00 PM, "Andrew Fildes" <afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I suspect that automatic transmissions are not environmentally sound
> however they are 'optimised' as they are more fuel hungry.
> Perhaps because the torque converter does not involve direct drive -
> there has to be a loss there.
> They used to be 20% thirstier and prolly do much better now but I bet
> they're still more wasteful.
> Of course, if you're a leadfoot and use the extra power, all bets are
> off.
> And my point about their fragility stands. My local yellow pages -
> Auto Transmission repair shops outnumber 'normal' transmission and
> diff repairers by a factor of over 100:1.
> Feel free to correct me.
>
> I remember someone telling me that BMW were appalled when they first
> started selling into the US and Australia to discover that people
> wanted auto versions.
> They had to put larger engines in to maintain performance.
> Andrew Fildes
> afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
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