Have you bought an automatic car after driving a manual?

[MyCatTibby]

Can you tell me you experience of driving an automatic car after driving a manual car? I’ve driven a manual for 32 years and am thinking of buying an automatic. I’ve no qualms at all driving an automatic but I’ve only literally driven one a couple of times. I’ll be buying it on PCP over 4 years and I’m probably being silly but I’m worried I’ll be rusty after four years if I go back to manual then.

Automatics are so much easier to drive. I've been driving one since I've lived outside the UK and will definitely get one when I come back.

It would be interesting to know once you've done that whether you missed your automatic or not, even though right now you don't think you will!

My David commute was getting worse and worse with stop start traffic for over an hour and it was absolutely killing my knee, so I swapped from a manual to an automatic.

It is much easier, but I'm a driver and I really miss driving the car! After a few years of having the automatic, it still feels like one of those kids cars in Disneyland.

Now I'm not doing the same commute I am contemplating getting a manual again, but I don't know if the novelty will wear off quickly and I'll regret it.

I have always been in a position where I have to drive other cars and never had any problems swapping between manual and auto except for someone else said my hand drifting over towards the gear stick then remembering I don't need it to. 🙇🏻‍♀️

Yes and like others wouldn't go back by choice but happy to drive a manual hire car given they seem to be so much cheaper!

If you learned to drive in a manual you never forget how to drive one - although on our crowded roads I can't imagine driving anything but an automatic.

Love mine & would never change back. Drove an auto for 2 weeks on a holiday & was so much easier. Initially switched due to leg pain but even if I had no pain, I would always get auto now. So much easier!

Love my automatic so much, would never choose to go back to manual! I’d been driving nearly 30 years when we switched.

Driving an automatic is so easy.

I have driven a manual a few times and I do adapt quickly. I just don’t enjoy it as much.

As others have said, I don't think they're significantly more fuel efficient any more.

For someone regularly driving long distances on the motorway it might make sense to have a manual. But the stop-start-slow driving of a built-up area is not conducive to fuel efficiency in any vehicle, and the ease of driving an automatic in that environment negates any small advantage in fuel efficiency a manual might offer.

I drive in an urban area and find the automatic makes it far easier for me to keep on top of everything going on around me - skateboarders, kids on bikes, other drivers, squirrels with a death wish. It was fantastic when my DCs were young to have that space in my brain that would have been occupied by just the mechanics of driving.

I've had an automatic for the last 8 years after always having a manual. It's a lot easier in heavy stop start traffic as well as when driving on unfamiliar roads in the dark.

DH and I are petrol heads. We like control and we like to feel the car. I've driven automatics in the past and I loathe them from a driving experience POV. But they're easy to drive, like playing a console game. Currently have an awful manual hire car (our car in the garage) and I wish it was an auto because there's no joy in driving it, just a chore.

I drive an automatic now as it's a hybrid. For the 30+ years before that it's always been manual.

I like the automatic, but have also had hire cars since that have been manual and also enjoyed that again.

I find jumping back in a manual car like riding a bike, you never forget.

I've just got my first automatic after only driving a manual since passing my test 35 years ago . I wouldn't have chosen an automatic necessarily but because my new car is a hybrid , I didn't really have a choice. I was initially apprehensive about getting used to it and had heard some stories of hitting the brake thinking it was the clutch . The first 2 or 3 days i just tucked my left foot under the seat out of the way . Within a few days , the left foot was out and I was driving it like I'd always had an automatic. I love it and definitely wouldn't go back to a manual now .

We have one of each and drive both regularly. Very easy to switch between them. Yes you can be lazier with the automatic, but the manual isn’t a problem at all - pretty seemless switching between the two. Many years ago before we’d bought and automatic, we holidayed in the US a few times and the hire cars were always automatics - even after spending a solid two weeks driving a few thousand miles around California, Nevada and Arizona, I got back into our manual car at the uk airport car park and drove him, barely noticing I had to change gears again. It’s like riding a bike or swimming - you don’t forget how to do it.

Took me a day to get used to it. I would never go back to a manual, can’t understand why people would choose to drive one 😁

then after not driving a manual for years I had to drive dh’s car back from the hospital. I admit I stalled it a couple of times but by the time I’d done 6 miles in it it had come back to me.

I don't know why anyone drives a manual.

I drove an automatic for nearly 2 years than went back to manual. I could not wait to go back to automatic and that is me hooked. Would not be without it.
When you drive an automatic you have both hands on the steering wheel!
Good luck OP.

You will be rusty going back to a manual, it won't be impossible to go back but it might take a while for it to click back into place, but I can't see that you would ever want to. Automatics are so much easier and safer.

I've just gone back to a manual after having an automatic for a couple of years, but I just didn't like it. I felt like I was in a big bumper car.

Back to a manual and I love driving again.

@MyCatTibby

I am looking at getting a car through an EV scheme which will be automatic. My one experience of having one nearly 20 years ago I hated so I actually just paid for a driving lesson in an automatic to see if I got in with it. I didn't want to test drive a car and spend that time trying to pick up how to drive one.

There are a few things with the EV that are different - if you take your foot of accelerator there's no real coasting and also it starts moving as soon as your foot is off the brake.

I was glad I did the lesson as when I test drove the car I was more comfortable and also had something to compare it too.

I drive a manual and my BF has an automatic so I drive both. Don’t have an issue swapping, you get used to not needing to change gear after a couple of minutes!

We have both, I don't really notice much difference

I drive both - mine’s a manual and Dh’s is Auto. I have no problem chopping and changing and the manual is easier to drive but DH struggles to remember about the clutch when he drives mine 😬 I don’t like him driving it 🤣

I disagree that they're safer. Perhaps safer for a nervous driver (who, one could argue, perhaps shouldn't be driving), but I personally feel you have much more control in a manual car. Either way it comes down to driver skills I guess.

I’ve had automatics for nearly a decade now, they’re great, but I have no problems driving my husband’s manual. As people have said, you never forget

I agree that they are not safer, often driven by women that can't manage gears, many more women have automatic licences than men, I am a woman before anyone accuses me of being a man

I agree. It’s easy to get lazy with an auto and not read the road properly, whereas with a manual, you’re constantly thinking about inclines, hazards, junctions, other traffic, etc., as you need to be thinking about when to change gears. A manual car makes you think more. Of course driving an auto, you can still be thinking about all those things but it’s easy not to and just let the car do its thing. Things like observation and concentration can more easily be lost with an auto. I’m not sure at all how an auto can be safer? It’s a lot more passive and you have less control, I.e. it will on its own if your foot comes off the brake in say a medical episode whilst stationery whereas a manual would stall. They also don’t slow down when you remove your foot from the accelerator as quickly as a manual where you’d get harder engine braking.