Have you switched from a manual car to an automatic? Do you like it?

[LindorDoubleChoc]

Asking because I drive a large, heavy clutch, quite old manual estate car. It's hard on my knees and ankles. The clutch doesn't engage until almost fully up and it's a big clunky car, quite difficult to park.

I have a new job which requires me to drive the company car. It's an automatic Golf, only a couple of years old. It's like a whole new driving experience! Although I have some experience of driving automatics on holiday, every car I've owned in the UK has been manual. So it's taken some adapting. It feels like if I literally brush my foot over the brake pedal we go into an emergency stop! I can't seem to set off smoothly either - lots of kangaroo jumps - the car speeds away from me as if I have no control and I'm terrified of smashing into cars parked just infront of me as I set off.

But once on the road and cruising around - it's lovely! I'm always driving in a slow urban environment so constantly stopping and starting and not having to go up and down through the gears all the time is something I could get used to.

Remind me again - what are the disadvantages of automatic cars?

I switched to an automatic 15 or so years ago, due to left ankle problems (now need a replacement... ankle not car ). I had a Twingo and now have an electric Zoe. The Twingo was pretty noisy on motorways, but no other problems. It had fully automatic and semi-automatic modes so you could chose to change manually (just a touch of the stick) if you wanted to. Useful as I actually live halfway up a mountain! The Zoe of course doesn't have any gears so the ride is very smooth. I wouldn't go back! In fact I struggled to pass my test (in my 30s) and wish I'd never bothered with gears... though useful to have on my licence just in case, I suppose.

Don’t have time to read full thread, but I never had an emergency situation when I would have to drive manual car. Many people talk about it, but how often does it happen? You can’t drive someone’s car without buying insurance anyway, and it’s not something you do when there’s emergency, unless it’s zombie apocalypse and you have to act fast. If it’s emergency aka my car broke down, I can call a cab or rent a car.
Automatic gearbox is great, but I prefer it to have semi-manual option too to change gears when downhill, but to be fair if you don’t have this function just brake to intended gear and it’s fine.

If you have fully comp insurance, you're usually insured to drive any other car (third party cover only) so no insurance issues. I've had instances when I've been away from home / travelling and a friend/family member has been ill/injured so I've driven their car rather than be stuck for hours waiting for ambulances etc. Not everyone visits / lives in places where there's accessible public transport.

To me driving (a manual!) is a life skill, just like swimming.

If you have fully comp insurance, you're usually insured to drive any other car (third party cover only) so no insurance issues. I've had instances when I've been away from home / travelling and a friend/family member has been ill/injured so I've driven their car rather than be stuck for hours waiting for ambulances etc. Not everyone visits / lives in places where there's accessible public transport.

To me driving (a manual!) is a life skill, just like swimming.

x

I have comprehensive car insurance, looks like I didn’t read through policy carefully😂 Never had to drive someone’s car though and not sure if I could drive manual now, probably lost the skill already. I know the theory, but that’s it, all gone.

If you have fully comp insurance, you're usually insured to drive any other car (third party cover only) so no insurance issues
It may not be illegal but it’s a huge insurance issue! If you had a crash and the car was damaged or written off you’d get nothing for it. That could be £10,000s just gone. No way would I drive someone else’s car on 3rd party insurance, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that and no way would I let anyone else drive my car under those circumstances either.

A while back up-thread the OP suggested that driving an automatic with both feet would be "stupid". Far from it, there's a split opinion on this but many expert sources suggest that two-footed driving with an automatic is safer than right-foot driving.

Interesting, when I asked my driving instructor about this his response was "absolutely not".

Really? Not even to save the life of a loved one?!

Same here. I originally passed my test in an automatic and was always told right foot only. A few years later when I needed to pass in a manual for a company vehicle I found it strange using my left foot as well.

So you use both for manuals? That'd be one more thing to learn, aka "far too much to be doing while trying to drive" in my book! 😄 When I read about people stalling when moving off from the lights I am very, very glad it's all automatics here. (I think slow moving from the lights is less about the cars than the drivers' response times - my little old Corolla zips away quite happily.)

Are you posing some sort of hypothetical ethics question? Because in the real world wouldn’t you call an ambulance for something that urgent and life threatening? Having to drive someone else’s car in a life or death ‘emergency’ is just something that I’ve genuinely never heard of happening to anyone. Often it’s not advised to move injured people yourself anyway and non drivers typically manage to get through life without their loved ones dying as a result. But if it was the zombie apocalypse then sure I’d drive and screw the damage to my car!

Last time I called an ambulance, it was going to be a 9+ hour wait. So I drove my relative instead (covered by my third party insurance). In a manual car. The A&E consultant told me I probably saved her life. So yes, it does happen. Hopefully it will never happen to most people but a little bit more effort learning how to use a gearbox is hardly onerous.