I know I’m supposed to be off today for Yom Kippur, but it’s technically the night before, so I think if nobody rats me out to any clergypeople or their authorized agents, then I’m probably okay. And that’s good, because we need to do another episode of Prove Me Wrong! As you know, this is important. This time, we need to talk about paddle shifters, commonly found on a wide variety of vehicles you can buy today. They’ve been around for a while now; in fact, I’d say they may be the most common and yet least-used controls in a car, because, let’s be honest: aside from playing around with them every now and then, nobody really uses these things.
Now, I’m not talking about genuine racing cars with transmissions that will only shift with paddles – I mean the sort of paddle shifters that actuate semi-manual gear selection on otherwise automatic transmissions in mainstream, mass-market passenger cars. It’s quite likely you, the devastatingly sexy person reading this right now on the deck of your pleasure-helicopter, have a car with such paddles.
My theory is that people with cars that have optional-use paddle shifters use them for about, oh, 12 minutes per month in the first few months they own the car, and then after the initial novelty has worn off, they forget about them. Maybe, maybe, your fingers will graze them on a boring drive and you’ll remember they exist, and you’ll have fun for a few minutes downshifting and getting the car to rev really high and feeling that pull of torque, and then you’ll have to pay attention to your next turn or whatever and you’ll forget about those paddles for months. Maybe years.
On just about everything modern with paddle shifters, the automatic transmission left to handle the job itself shifts better than you can, for acceleration, for efficiency, for whatever. The act of paddle shifting isn’t nearly as satisfying as using an genuine manual transmission anyway, and people learn that pretty quickly.
So what’s the point?
[Editor’s Note: On vehicles with good transmissions that do what you want them to, I tend to agree with JT, here: paddles don’t see much use. The ZF eight-speed auto that’s seemingly in every car these days usually puts the driver in the gear they want if the transmission is properly calibrated. I think people are more likely to click a “sport mode” button that ensures the transmission behaves a certain way than they are to use the paddles. Though, on transmissions that don’t behave how you want them to, a paddle might help you, for example, hold a lower gear on a steep incline/decline.
I think, on a fun sports car like an E92 M3, paddles can be fun, but on most other cars, they tend to be forgotten, as JT argues here. Center tunnel-mounted slap-stick “manumatic” shifters, though (you know, the shifters that you push or pull to change gears)? I think those are even less frequently used — again, unless the transmission isn’t doing what it needs to do, like downshifting up a grade or holding that gear. -DT]
Maybe you’ll argue with me. Maybe you’ll say I just don’t understand the pure, visceral joy one gets from those flappy paddles. But I kinda doubt it. Is there anyone, anywhere who routinely, consistently, uses paddle shifters exclusively on their daily drives? I think you’re more likely to find a Corvair-driving toucan with a fondness for the large-scale works of Abstract Expressionist Franz Kline.
I’m not even going to say that paddle shifters are dumb or useless or anything like that. I don’t need to. Because it just doesn’t matter if they are or not, because nobody ever really uses them enough to care.
So there.
I’d say this is pretty accurate.
My wife’s car is a GTi with VWs dual clutch auto. I don’t think she has ever once used them.
I’ll use them for highway passing and occasionally to fuck around. The gearbox is so well calibrated though that it you don’t even need to down shift for engine braking down hill. It does that itself.
I think people (like us) would use them more often if they were more satisfying (the VW are plastic paddles without much click), were mounted on the dash (on the wheel works for an F1 car with one turn from lock to lock but not on a hatchback) and if there was a driving mode were they weren’t optional.
For that last point: where you could somehow select the mode for them and could only turn it off by putting the car into park or something. Being able to turn it on and off with a flick of the shift knob makes it too easy to be lazy.
Paddles are just the electronically controlled transmission version of the ‘L’ in an old mechanical ‘PRNDL’ shifter. They matter/get used with the same efficacy as any other low gear lockout, with added ‘sport’ credentials to sell to Suzy Crossover so they haven’t given up quite as hard on fun in their CVT Eclipse Cross.
When I was a porter at a BMW dealership I would mess with them for shiggles in the cars with big engines. In a Hyundai Santa Fe? Yeah, no.
I think you need to be more specific, since “flappy paddles” are everywhere now. If they’re on a slushbox or CVT then they’re almost pointless. If it’s a proper DSG with a computer-operated clutch, then I’d use them all the time. I have a six-speed stick right now, and I’d be looking for something like a VW or and Audi with a real sequential gearbox if/when I have to replace it. I’ve always driven stick, but as I get older using the clutch pedal becomes more uncomfortable.
Shout out for use of the Gordon-Keeble badge.
I noticed the badge but figured it was a Torch creation. Now I’m down the rabbit hole of Gordon-Keeble. Dammit, Autopain (and the vast base of nearly useless knowledge the readers/commenters bring)!
I never use any self-shifting mechanism on any automatic I drive. Usually it’ll upshift/downshift itself when I don’t want it to, negating the entire purpose. When slowing down, I’ll clutch in to coast a little, select my gear, then clutch out and gas it, with these manumatic contraptions, it’s always in gear, so it’ll engine brake when I don’t need it to, then it shifts on its own and AARRGGGHHH, PISSES ME OFFFFFFFF!
You won’t get an argument out of me. My car doesn’t have paddle shifters, but it does have the fake “manual mode” console shifter and a so-called “sport” mode — both of which I had completely forgotten about until I read this article.
I tried the manual mode once and didn’t particularly enjoy it. Since I never had the opportunity to learn to drive a manual transmission car, I didn’t really know what I was doing, though I’m fairly confident that the car is programmed in such a way that’ll prevent me from doing too much damage to the engine and transmission regardless of how ineptly I shift. Still, I wasn’t that impressed.
“Sport” mode was similarly underwhelming. Nearest I can tell, it did little more than just make the engine sound a little louder, and I haven’t used it since.
I suspect that automatic drivers couldn’t care less for the manual mode feature. And manual enthusiasts are probably unimpressed by the “fake” manual’s attempts to simulate the real thing.
For slushboxes I just leave them in automatic 99% of the time so it doesn’t matter. Makes too little difference to go into manual mode except in some downhill situations.
Back when I had a DSG-equipped car (Jetta wagon) I’d almost always be on manual mode but it turned out the paddles were these flimsy plastic little things that had no satisfaction to them. Call me superficial but I missed the satisfying metallic clunk of the paddles in my Thrustmaster gaming steering wheel. So I just used the stick for DSG shifting.
I’m sure that fancy expensive PDK/DSG cars got the proper treatment to make their paddle use be satisfying but I haven’t had the chance to try any of those.
I like the idea of using them to downshift to feel cool when passing someone, but on the other hand they never work fast enough to actually make you feel cool.
I’d be curious how much this feature adds to the manufacturer’s cost.
I never had paddle shifters, but I used that semi-manual shifter on the shifter semi-frequently, especially on my previous XC90. I wish it had paddle shifters since there were times I preferred to hold gear or downshift sooner to get out of a situation with more control than just mashing the accelerator.
100% of the time I drive the Brabus Fortwo (451) because the gearbox is slightly less dreadful in manual mode compared to self-shift.
I have the slapstick and yeah, used it a few times the first month and notta lotta after that
I do use them. My little Fit needs help passing on two lane roads, and sometimes passing on Interstates in the mountains. Good for merging too.
A few weeks ago I drove my wife’s Crosstrek down Independence Pass here in Colorado and I used the paddles so I didn’t have to ride the brakes all the way down. This is the only time I have really used them. I also spent the whole drive wishing I was in my Miata with the roof down.
I wish our grain cart tractor had them, now that John Deere has seen fit to switch everything to a +/- control stick instead of being able to move directly to the gear I want. That’s an annoying amount of time with one hand away from the wheel to go from 2nd to load the truck to 15th to get back to the combine.
I’d love to hear more about a 15 speed grain cart tractor.
It’s a John Deere 8235R that’s pulling a grain cart this time of year. 16 forward gears, but a bit dangerous to go that fast in the field. 15th over bean stubble, 13 or 14th over corn, depending on how well they were stomped down.
It brings a new degree of excitement to “slow car fast” when you’re having an internal debate over hitting 15mph, or if that’s just too much speed to be safe.
The only time I consistently used my paddle shifters is to help slow down on icy/snowy roads for engine braking vs brakes. Probably doesn’t make much difference really but it makes me feel more in control of car at precarious times.
I don’t own a car with flappy paddles but I did just rent a Camaro in Kauai that had them, and I did use them, purely to downshift for engine braking down a mountain road. That said, when I was finished with engine braking and wanted to go back to normal “automatic” mode, I couldn’t figure out how, so I had to grab the floor shifter and move it from auto mode to manual mode and back to auto again. Meaning if the manual mode downshift function was part of the floor shifter (as it is in my wife’s Mazda CX-9) instead of forcing me to use the paddles, I never would have touched the paddles.
Actually, looking at the owner’s manual just now, the floor shifter can be used to manually up/downshift (dunno how I missed that). So I totally could have avoided using the paddles.
I hit them by accident a couple times when driving my dad’s Chrysler 300. Didn’t even know it had them until I did it the first time. After I realized they were there, I played around with them once, then never bothered with them again.
One thing I do like is an overdrive on/off toggle on the lever. That’s about all I ever do as far as manually shifting an automatic goes, for hills mainly, and a button is more convenient than a separate “D” position.
I use them constantly while moving slowly through the anus known as 695 traffic(20 miles spent on 695, each way). Whether in it was in my MkV GTi or more recently, my old man’s 2019 Mazda 3(there was a manual ford focus in between them). Definitely use it to downshift more than anything, but constantly find myself fiddling with them.
100% agree, paddle shifts are an item I would never ask for when deciding which options to include in a new car purchase.
Why add complexity that will fail 10 miles after the warranty expires?
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Not that a new car purchase is in my future – but same goes for used cars; two otherwise identical vehicles, one with paddles and one without, the non-paddle version is the one to get.
I live in the mountains. I use them because even good autos tend to sometimes upshift too early when going uphill, and holding a lower gear is nice when going downhill, especially when the weather is bad.
I have a Subaru Outback with the CVT. The paddle shifters on my car get a TON of use in the mountains.
Subaru did a pretty solid job on letting the CVT behave like a 6-MT when it comes to manually downshifting a few gears to control speed on a descent.
I use them in town once in a while – highways, mostly – when I need to drop some speed / increase the following distance but don’t feel like it’s worth moving a foot over to the brakes.
Wife has a Outback with the CVT. She’s never used the paddles, and neither have I. We’re not in the mountains though.
Otherwise I agree, they did a nice job on making the CVT feel normal.
Same here. Both my Saab 9-3 Aero and my Accord Coupe V6 have paddles/buttons on the steering wheel, and I use them exactly once every time I go out to run an errand.. When I am coming back home, my 600 foot long driveway is up to a 25 degree climb in places, and I want the transmission to stay in first, not try to upshift to second.
Can’t argue for them. We’ve had paddles and the console bump versions. I used them once. My kid asked what they did and he didn’t like the rough shift compared to letting the auto handle it.
Aloft in my pleasure-helicopter, reading this article, I did recall that my Mustang does indeed have the paddle shifters, and I did recall a handful of times I’ve used them (slowing when cruising downhill, or when coming upon that moron doing 53 in the passing lane and not wanting to smash my brakes), but for normal driving? Nah. I wish I had a manual, but alas, my Lenore is an automatic; however, she does just fine making up her own mind for standard southern California driving.
That’s ok. Paddle shifters give you the option to do the shifting when it is fun (which is rarely) and just drive most of the time.
I use them to shift up sooner for fuel economy reasons. That’s it. I used them when I first got my 2014 Mazda3 2.5L, but the novelty wore off quickly.