lol i lived in Charlotte, NC for 4 years and Chapel Hill, NC for a year and I know exactly what you mean...im back in so cal finally hehe

 

True true about automatic.. although it's not so bad. I found that I could control RPMs to a certain level. Like when you push the gas, you can feel the response of the engine. If the engine is barely responding, you know that a little more gas will push it into a lower gear. So if you don't want to downshift, you keep it around that threshold point. Then once downshifted, there's also another certain level at which you know that it's about to upshift...

So all in all, driving auto isn't so bad for me, once I started feeling the gas pedal and how it plays with the auto tranny.

 

A group at Arizona P5'ers and 1 Californian just did a mountain drive this past sunday in northern AZ.. Out of the 5 of us that went four were sticks.

Patrick had the auto stick (because of San Diego trafic).
He didn't have problems against any of the sticks. Well none of us could keep up with ZZooomms MSP if he didn't want us to.

Anyway. It doesn't matter what you get. Life is a trade off.

Get want you want, its your car.

 

Life is definitely a trade off and the 405 sucks during rush hour with a stick. My GF has an Audi A4 with a manumatic. It's really not bad, but I hate the way you have to shift before you hit redline in order to get it to shift at redline. The reaction time really makes you feel disconnected to the car. The only "manumatics" that are really worth a **** are the BMW M3/Toyota MR2-style SMGs.

Obviously your friend could "hang" with you in his manuamatic. The point is that due to driveline loss, an Auto P5 pulls 0-60 in about 10.5 seconds vs. a stick that can do it in 8.8 seconds. That's nearly 2 seconds! Serious power loss. Try drag racing your friend and see who wins!

 

I drove sport-matic for 2 weeks before I got my 5-speed. It was great for an automatic, but I enjoy my car alot more. I don't think anyone is lame for opting for an automatic, given everyone has different circumatances. But arguing that the sport-matic performs as well or better than a manual is lame. Power loss through the torque convertor during acceleration is awful for most 4 cyl engines. Automatics work OK for larger displacement, but that's another story.

 

Yeah, when I figure out how to pull a rotary engine swap in my P5 the auto will be sitting pretty.

 

ive wanted to do that for a while...though i would like to drop it in the back and then do a mid-engine rear wheel drive car and convert the front to a trunk but that would cost...well A LOT