I like ya bro, but you lost me on that one. I’ve driven manual plow trucks and automatic plow trucks and automatics were way better in snow.
Probably true. But I’m just driving, not plowing. You already know our conditions around here are that half-plowed and rutted crap where your tires spend 60% of their time on bare pavement and 40% of their time on drifted snow or compacted ice. So, leaving it in 4wd is usually not an option, and we end up driving our 4wd pickups around in 2wd more often than not on snow days. With manual trans in these conditions, I know within a fraction of a second when the rear tires have lost traction, but with automatic it’s almost completely undetectable until the rear starts walking on you.
I always had manual pickups, until buying the current truck in 2017. The following year I had the pleasure of coming around a long sweeping bend in the road, one of those 1/2 mile arcs to turn just 30 degrees, and didn’t even realize the rear had broken loose in a surprise slippery patch, until it started walking around on me. That just won’t happen with manual transmission, if you’re paying attention, as you hear and feel it in the RPM’s change before inertia allows the vehicle to walk any noticeable amount. In manual I’d have let off the gas and seen the vehicle correct, rather than playing the game of steering into the slide at 35 mph that I was having to do in the automatic.
Like Peter said, different strokes for different folks, but I really prefer manual for driving in the type of snow we get around here, especially on heavily-traveled and rutted winding country roads that dominate our area.
Manual transmissions aren’t bulletproof.
Auto’s definitely have higher initial strength, the clutch usually being the weak link on manual gear trains. But auto’s also have more costly and frequent need for repair.
I love the 8HP-90 in my Charger, it’s easily the best auto trans I’ve ever owned. But it’s also a lot less fun than manual. I almost bought a Challenger, a 2-door vehicle at a time when I was still strapping two kids into car seats for every ride, just because it was the only one available with a manual.
