The manual transmission is sometimes regarded as godlike in car culture. Enthusiasts who worship at the altar of the manual often believe that all vehicles are made better with a third pedal. Most of the time, I’m inclined to agree. There has yet to be a car that I’ve driven that was made worse with a shift-your-own-adventure transmission. But this cannot be the case for every car that has ever existed. Is there a car that was somehow made worse with a manual transmission?
Admittedly, this question was pretty hard for me to answer because I am a huge fan of manuals. My insane car-buying habits have meant that there were times in which I owned the automatic version and the manual version of the same car at the same time. Being able to compare both transmission options within minutes of each other is shocking.
In one of these cases, I owned a 2012 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI DSG and a 2010 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI six-speed manual at the same time. Both cars had the same options, the same engine, and the same interiors. The only difference was in color and gearbox. The 2012 was fine! VW’s DSG is lightning quick, and when it works right, it’s something that works smoothly in the background that you never have to think about.
On the other hand, the 2010, despite being pretty much the same car, felt far more engaging to drive just because of the change in transmission. It was awesome. I’ve even once gotten the chance to drive a Smart Fortwo with a real five-speed manual, and it was so good that I bet Smart haters would be complimenting the little city car.
But is that going to be the case with every vehicle?
I think if there’s a vehicle that maybe had been made worse with a manual transmission, it could be a heavy-duty pickup truck built in the past two decades or so. I’ve once driven an older manual Super Duty, and while it was so cool to row my own in a heavy work vehicle, the clutch was a heavy unit. I could imagine my left foot getting really tired rowing gears while towing a trailer, or inching the truck along in dense city traffic.
But I also get why old manual diesel trucks are legendary. Automatic truck transmissions often sucked back then, no matter which brand they came from, so a manual was pretty much the best shot at stellar longevity. Also, manuals are still really cool! But were these trucks actually better to drive? The last manual-equipped heavy-duty pickup in America was the Ram, and that hasn’t had a manual since 2018.
If I had to give a wild answer to this question, it would be a diesel-mechanical locomotive with a manual transmission, which is a thing!
Pete piping in real quick. I can’t recall if it was the vanilla-spec Ford Focus or Fiesta that I’m thinking of, but I test-drove both circa 2013, each with a stick as well as the automatics. One if not both of them (definitely the Focus, I think) was done no favors by its manual gearbox. The throws were long and imprecise, and it just didn’t feel good. On top of that, the ratios were wack. I recall a very low (numerically high) first gear, and then a huge jump to second, a minor tooth-change for third, and then a too-tall fourth gear and another short hop to the fuel-economy-optimized fifth gear. Or something like that – but for sure, it was a lot of extra work for no extra fun. The autos, on the other hand, seemed to have reasonable ratios and responded with crisp-enough shifts and hesitation-free downshifts when I matted the pedal. Not thrilling, but not frustrating.
How about you? Is there a car, truck, SUV, or other vehicle that was made worse with a manual transmission?
Top graphic image: Ford
The last Subaru Forester with a stick, whatever year that was. When I was a service advisor at Subaru, it was the single car I dreaded coming in. There was only me and another advisor out of the 20+ non-technicians in the service department that wouldn’t consistently stall them. The engine just didn’t have enough torque to smoothly get the car moving. You could tell that the stick was not given the same R&D dollars as the CVT
I haven’t driven anything that was made *worse* by a manual transmission, but my 02 Mustang GT made me a slightly less ardent believer in the “manuals or nothing” ethos.
It’s the 5-speed, and though it shifts pretty smoothly now that I flushed the transmission and put the proper amount of fluid in it, the throws are a bit long and the shifter is always at such an odd-looking angle. Least forgiveable, though, is the cable-operated clutch. It is very heavy, and gets tiring in traffic. And come on, my old 1980 Datsun 210 had a hydraulic clutch.
Anywho, I still think the stick is better for sheer control of those rear wheels, but I have a greater understanding for those that chose the auto.
I don’t think I drove any manual Cobalts, but don’t expect it to be any different from the ION – the standard 2.2/2.4 Ecotecs were much better suited to the 4-speed auto. The manual was balky, tons of rev hang before it was cool, whatever the pedals were connected to was a guessing game. These traits were present in the 2.2/5MT VUE but somehow it wasn’t so bad, maybe because it was expected in the taller, heavier VUE.
Ghosn-era FWD Nissans – 5MT Altima was ropey and vague with either motor, 6MT 5th gen Maxima tended to bind. They may have improved it later on, but as I recall the reviews of the 6MT on 4th gen Altimas were kinda meh.
2022 Jeep Wrangler JL. I was looking for a second “fun” car this spring so I test drove a beautiful, dark green 4-door JL with about 40K miles. It had the worst shifting manual I’ve ever used. Clutch pedal went straight to the floor with minimal feel, and getting the clutch to eventually engage after shifting was a herky-jerky mess no matter how much you finessed it. Maybe the previous owner trashed the clutch, but I’ve heard since then that the newer JL manuals are garbage. Recently rented a 2025 JL with an automatic and it was great. I also test drove a 2017 JK with 100K+ miles and that manual was way better than I expected, so I’m not sure why Jeep put a crappier transmission in the JL.
A little more general comment: Any of the old “3 on the tree” manuals! Have you ever tried to drive one of those? Give me the automatic version any day (if it existed). Most of you all are probably too young to have encountered any of these, but it was a whole other skill set.
You’re not wrong. All of the linkage required to make it work results in a floppy, loosey-goosey feel that doesn’t inspire confidence. This is a great answer that covers a lot of old vehicles.
My mom (with small 4 kids) use to have to cary a small sledge hammer in the 66 dodge van for when the linkage froze up. Her life was hard.
Yes everything from full sized vans, 1 ton trucks to saab sonnets. Column shifting sucks.
It’s definitely not a setup for sportiness, but I love me a column shift. It’s so different I find it endlessly entertaining. I actually had a three-on-the-tree AMC Pacer and I adored that car.
My 1983 RN38 Hilux. I loved the truck, loved driving the truck, but the stock transmission was flawed. The earlier L52 side-loader transmissions had a weak input bearing known to grenade over time, which happened to me. I ended up having one rebuilt with a housing clearanced for the larger input bearing from the W56 transmission, then it shifted like butter and had the brawn to back it.
The 1993-1994 Subaru Impreza with the 2WD 5-speed manual transmission had reliability issues. Same car with AWD or with the automatic did not. So it’s a flip of a coin whether the manual made this series of Impreza better or worse.
For the AWD cars, the first-gen 4EAT automatic transmission was reliable but…interesting…to drive. It had several different shift maps, and none of them shifted 1-2-3-4 like a normal car. If you put it in ‘D’ like most cars, the standard map skipped 1st and then went 2-4-3-3Lock-4-4Lock, with all of the shifts happening early enough to make the car feel gutless. Most of the time you couldn’t use first gear unless manually selecting it, which also locked the center diff (good offroad, annoying in parking lots). Selecting second locked the trans into just second gear (occasionally useful). Selecting third gave somewhat normal shifting (still skipped first, just not as often) without feeling so gutless, and was the option recommended in the owners manual for most driving. If wanting to go highway speed, their recommendation was to accelerate to speed with third selected and then select ‘D’ to enable fourth gear only after reaching speed.
So what is ‘D’ for, if not for driving the car? Supposedly the weird shifting map performed better in that year’s EPA testing. So they set that up as the default, and then told their customers not to use it (for those few that actually read the owners manual). Later 4EAT generations shift like any normal 4-speed, so I guess they eventually abandoned whatever gains this strategy offered.
Given the quirks, the AWD manual is definitely my preferred option out of the three. But the 2WD manual might be the worst, when factoring in the longevity issues.
I mean there’s no universe where this one is GOOD but the Chevrolet/Daewoo/Suzuki Opera/Lacetti/Reno had a profoundly awful manual transmission that made a not great car very bad. It was extremely vague, floppy, and poorly geared.
I mean the car would have been improved with a manual transmission that was actually good but the one I drove had a transmission so bad that the car was nearly undrivable. And this was new, on the lot, not an old one that was run hard and put away wet.
Is this the same Lacetti they featured in Top Gear for a bunch of years?
It is! Well the one I test drove was the Canadian model, so an Optra. I managed to slip “reasonably priced car” into the conversation.
It’s… Not a good car. The Suzuki Liana (or Aerio at my local dealer) was alright though.
Contractor I worked for building suburbs in college in the early 2000s had a whole fleet of 10th gen F-150s which I think he got in 2 batches because they were about 50/50 on a few options like vinyl/cloth and stick/auto. While the manual wasn’t really worse it added absolutely nothing to the driving experience.
Haha yeah – those things were a PAIN to emission test on a dyno. You were supposed to use second gear for the entire test (15 and 25 mph portions, each lasting up to 60 seconds. You had a mile an hour tolerance each way and had an RPM limitation you had to stay in so you couldnt theoretically rev the engine to superheat a marginal catalytic converter.
There was such a big difference between first and second gear to get it to run the test you either had to run the 15 in first gear which would put the rpm right at the limitation or lug the crap out of it in 2nd while trying to keep the rpm above minimum and not exceeding 16.0 mph.
When I was getting my inspection license at the local community college – 3 guys failed because they couldnt complete a test on the final exam which included one of these trucks the school had.
The worst? An aircraft tug from the 1940’s. You don’t know pain until you try to move a fully loaded BAC 111 across the airfield.
My dad bought a 6 speed Challenger and that gearbox is dogshit. Not sure if it’s always the case or the aftermarket short throw but that thing is so imprecise it requires you to slow down your shifts and feels terrible to drive.
The first gen Crosstrek with the crappy 5-speed. I was shocked when I had a CVT as a service loaner and found it to be a much better match for the anemic 2.0L. I assume the 6 speed on the 2nd gen cars, with it’s taller top gear and much more closely spaced 1st and 2nd was a big improvement.
Reliability was bad on sticks in trucks too. My dad’s pickup had a note to never use 5th if towing or otherwise loaded up a hill. They were known for eating 5th if too much torque was applied. Later diesels ate clutches despite lower output than the automatic.
I’ll add that jaguar was known to be a bad stick back in the day. (Before Ford). American toughness was great but shifting was more dumptruck than car.
I know its isolated, but my FIL has a 2002 Ram 2500 6 speed manual with 180K on it, towed a 30 foot 5th wheel for a couple years and is still on the original clutch which shows no issues. I’m sure it’ll go eventually but that truck is a beast.
The issue seems to be driving it like a car. Drove a ram a few times towing and the owner told me to never use the gas and clutch at the same time. Idle was all thats needed for a loaded trailer.
Hey, is this the same XT6wagon from that orange board? If not, sorry – if so, LOL
Saab 9-5s: I’ve driven both manual and auto versions, and the auto is surprisingly the better drive. I’ve read that the current gen Alfa Guilia offers a manual in Europe but that they aren’t great.
I hear the IS300 manual was agricultural, but have yet to find one to confirm.
In my case my 2009 Ford Ranger, maybe the transmission is going bad but sometimes it will be so hard to put it on first gear that I have to start in second gear and then back to first and it will engage smoothly. Another day it could be the Reverse that I have to fight on.
A dragging clutch will cause this symptom. Maybe try bleeding the clutch hydraulics?
Haven’t driven a newer one but I’ll assume its 80s tech instead of modern. 1st had minimal synchronization and was largely a stop only thing. 2nd then 1st at a stop is a synchronization thing. Try replacing fluid as it helps STi with issues. Too many replace synchros first.
I did a fluid replacement myself, the one it had was not even red anymore. It kind of helped at first but then the issue just keep happening.
learned to drive manual in an 89 and owned a 99 myself and never experienced these issues.
One of the most disappointing test drives I’ve had was a Jaguar F-Type S with a manual. I’ve never driven the automatic version, but the shifter was rubbery and vague to the point I couldn’t tell if gears were actually engaged, and the clutch didn’t engage where the pedal changed force, and was possibly the worst manual I’ve ever driven, including old-style VW Golf rental cars in South Africa. The shifter was also so close to the dash that I kept hitting the hazards shifting into 3rd.
I’ll be sitting this one out.
Mercedes… COTD above.
Oh I get it, and in general, I’m on the same page.
But would you want a 60’s Cadillac with a manual? Sure, it’s novel, but it kind of runs against the car’s grain. Same for any big, poofy boat, Lincoln, Buick, etc. Smaller cars like the CTS, Regal, or Lincoln LS with a manual are great, though. Just not for Town Cars, DeVilles, or Electras.
While the manual trans didn’t make the experience worse, having one in the ’80s Ford Taurus MT5 and Ford Aerostar I drove with a stick sure didn’t make them any better.
Pete: Regarding the Focus/Fiesta: Yes, the manual might have been worse to drive, but at least they didn’t blow up before 80k miles due to the Powershift transmission
I owned both Fiestas and the manual was a bit better experience even with the odd ratios. But I got used to it pretty quick and could get the most out of the powerband while the Powershift had a mind of its own (although it never let me down)
I feel like most peoples’ takes will be considered controversial here because there’s always someone who likes the manual version better, but I’ll throw a vote in…
…for the Chevy Corvair.
I’ve had two. The first was a ’63 Convertible with a 4-speed. It never ran. I ended up having to part it out. But IMHO, the longer the shift linkage has the run, the less fun things get.
Also, my second Corvair, a 1965 convertible with a Powerglide, was a much more fun conversation piece. The shifter in the ’65 was a tiny little t-handle in the middle of the dashboard and there was no Park, just RNDL. Plus the Powerglide was easy to maintain and rebuild.
supposedly, most Mercedes cars are worse with the manual than the automatic. They just stopped making them last year, but they could’ve stopped 30 years ago and nobody would care LOL