Who still drives a stick in 2025?

[MapleLeafFarmer]

75 year old stick still running strong.
I doubt any of my hst, powershift, hydrostatic transmissions will still be running in 75 years.

 

[Engineer42]

Says the guy who's never replaced a clutch?!?

Like scootr, I seemed to go through them faster when I was young. Conversely, I think my wife's last manual car had close to 150k miles on the original clutch when we sold it, still holding strong.

I remember when the clutch went out on my last Chevy 1500, I had a broken shoulder, and so was unable to do the job myself. I took it to a local garage who had a very good reputation, but a year later it failed again. This time I pulled it apart myself and found a damaged pilot bearing in the rear of the crank shaft. You guys know the one.

I pulled it out and took it with me to the parts store, where the parts guy told me it was the factory original, easily identified because GM changed the bearing style just a year or two after my truck was built. Long story short, the mechanic I had paid for my clutch job tried to remove the original bearing, and his puller must have failed him. So he just left the original in there, but now damaged from his puller deforming it a bit. Of course it failed again within a year.

So yes, manuals are usually more trouble-free, but not always!

shoulda took him a piece of bread

 

[ultrarunner]

From the insurance company's perspective, yes. But it seems a lot of these cars go to auction and get picked up by DIY guys who repair them quite successfully, when the cost of labor and time sourcing second-hand parts is taken out of the equation.

They mostly go to wrecking yards and eventually the crusher…

Emission testing going back to year model 1976 has had a chilling effect on the value of my two 1976 cars…

If they were 75 year model and smog exempt folks would be lined up to buy… 1976 no interest except guys from out of state and then when they figure flying out to inspect and transport back it’s no deal…

Wasn’t always like this… for years vehicles older than 25 years exempt and then 30 years exempt and 20 years ago froze the exemption to 1975 or older…

 

[WinterDeere]

They mostly go to wrecking yards and eventually the crusher…

Emission testing going back to year model 1976 has had a chilling effect on the value of my two 1976 cars…

I guess this must vary locally. Here there is no emissions testing on vehicles built before 1984. Also, any car driven less than 5k miles per year is exempt, no matter the age.

PA counties farther from Philly have no emissions testing at all, on any vehicles.

 

[ultrarunner]

I guess this must vary locally. Here there is no emissions testing on vehicles built before 1984. Also, any car driven less than 5k miles per year is exempt, no matter the age.

PA counties farther from Philly have no emissions testing at all, on any vehicles.

More than a few of my car friends move to old car friendly Nevada and Oregon

At least they are no longer adding emission equipment back to 1955.

 

[kozal01]

Had several manual vehicles in the past, I no longer do and I don’t miss them.

 

[ultrarunner]

Sometimes the difference between stick and auto on the same model is night and day…

My Samurai is 5 spd with transfer case hi-lo…

I drove one with an auto and never could I go off-road with the auto like I do with the stick.

 

[Oaktree]

Those old simple to repair 1970s vehicles needed engine overhauls at about 100k miles and were pretty much junk by the high 100k+ miles.

Probably not a big issue in your part of the world, but here in the northeast most anything pre-1990s was very prone to rust. German & Scandanavian vehicles were the best, Japanese the worst and U.S. makes occupying a wide swath in the middle.

 

[WinterDeere]

Probably not a big issue in your part of the world, but here in the northeast most anything pre-1990s was very prone to rust. German & Scandanavian vehicles were the best, Japanese the worst and U.S. makes occupying a wide swath in the middle.

I think the national comparisons varied a lot by year, as well. The 78/79 Fords rusted so fast, you could almost hear it happening. I've heard some blame Ford switching from American to Mexican steel at the time, but I think it's more likely that new environmental reg's had forced them to stop using some of the more effective rust-preventative treatments on the back side of their door and fender panels, right around that time.

As to the Japanese cars, the late 70's and early 80's Datsuns rusted so fast, that I don't think I ever saw one off a dealer's lot, without rust holes along the bottom edge of every door. I think their reputation became so damaged by this, that this is the primary reason they started re-badging most models with the Nissan name a few years later. And it seems like, despite being the same cars coming off the same production lines, they must have solved their materials problems pretty well about that time, as the Nissans did not rust anywhere nearly as bad as the Datsuns.

I've only had to condemn and junk two vehicles due to rust in my life, and one was a 1984 Volvo that was scrapped before it's 14th birthday. I've also seen some pretty badly rusted Saabs that weren't very old, so I'm not sure the Scandanavian cars were exempt.

 

[masseyrider]

GM pickups rotted like crazy from the mid70s into the early 80s.
My father bought a new 1977 3/4 ton Gm Sierra Grande in the Fall of 76.
I came home from delivering some fruit and as I closed the door aboot 2-3 inches of the bottom fell off.
It didn't even have 30,000 miles. He didn't even have it a full 3 years at that point.