Stick?

[Vuk]

What are you talking about? I have never met an American woman who could NOT ride stick!


In all seriousness though, my truck uses manual, and I really have no complaints with it. When it comes to a road care though, I prefer automatic. I drive through town a LOT, and it is always stop and go. It would drive me nuts to be constantly shifting like that. :P I got an old 2000 Ford Taurus, but it is the sportier model (as sporty as a Taurus can possibly get ) and when you even breath on the pedal, that thing moves. It does not just have good excelleration, that thing wastes no time shifting. You burn through the gears like nothing. Sure, it is not a sports car (even though I make it sound like one), and does not even come close to a simple Mustang, but for a 4 door passenger sedan, that thing is pretty sweet. I see no reason for a manual when I have it, because that car shifts itself just fine.

[miotas]

What are you talking about? I have never met an American woman who could NOT ride stick!


In all seriousness though, my truck uses manual, and I really have no complaints with it. When it comes to a road care though, I prefer automatic. I drive through town a LOT, and it is always stop and go. It would drive me nuts to be constantly shifting like that. :P I got an old 2000 Ford Taurus, but it is the sportier model (as sporty as a Taurus can possibly get ) and when you even breath on the pedal, that thing moves. It does not just have good excelleration, that thing wastes no time shifting. You burn through the gears like nothing. Sure, it is not a sports car (even though I make it sound like one), and does not even come close to a simple Mustang, but for a 4 door passenger sedan, that thing is pretty sweet. I see no reason for a manual when I have it, because that car shifts itself just fine.

hehehe "truck"

i can see how it would be a blessing when in heavy traffic, but to do you really find enjoyment in just putting your foot down and letting the car drive itself? I'm afraid i just can't see your side of the argument on this point.

Oh well, each to his own I suppose

[Strike For The South]

Red 86 Ford F-250 long bed. Pa put 300,000 miles on a truck with no A/C or power windows and gear shift that would stick.

I have an automatic but know how to drive a stick (Although I may have forgotten some of the finer points)

[Vuk]

Ford makes the best darned truck in the world. I prefer their cars over any other American made car, and all Euro cars except the Mini. (I have a Mini fetish, that is why)

[Lemur]

Nothing wrong with loving the Mini. If I didn't have two little lemurs, I'd be driving one right now. Unfortunately, I do have to cram two growing children into the vehicle, so a small sedan was as close as I could get to Mini lovin'.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

hehehe "truck"

i can see how it would be a blessing when in heavy traffic, but to do you really find enjoyment in just putting your foot down and letting the car drive itself? I'm afraid i just can't see your side of the argument on this point.

Oh well, each to his own I suppose

I don't have the kind of automatic that steers itself unfortunately.

[Vuk]

Nothing wrong with loving the Mini. If I didn't have two little lemurs, I'd be driving one right now. Unfortunately, I do have to cram two growing children into the vehicle, so a small sedan was as close as I could get to Mini lovin'.

I have never owned or driven a Mini actually, just ridden in one. :P I fell in love with the car though, and as soon as I pay of these loans and get a little money, I am gonna get one. It is pathetic that my dream car is not a Lamborgini or a Ford GT, but a Mini. :P

[Lemur]

Green body with the white top. That's what I'd be cruising in if not for my cursed progeny. And I'd definitely spring for the better stereo. Mmmmm ... I even test-drove one, just to torture myself ....

[miotas]

well i was actually laughing at the fact that you call it a truck but anywho.

while were on dream cars, mine is a 77 TE cortina 4.1L straight 6, drove my cousin's a few years back and i've wanted one ever since, that is a machine it would be a crime to get as an auto. My cousin has 600 hectares with a makeshift racing track and i almost killed myself many a time in that thing, good times, good times.

[Vuk]

Green body with the white top. That's what I'd be cruising in if not for my cursed progeny. And I'd definitely spring for the better stereo. Mmmmm ... I even test-drove one, just to torture myself ....

So am I not the only who has went to the site and eaten my heart out "building" my own dream Mini? :P
I have not test drove one yet, if I did I would probably go do something really dumb and get even deeper into debt. :P

@miotas: The truck I was referring to was a real truck. I have two. One is a gas Ford, and the other is a 87 or 88 (It is a crime that I forget) Sierra 4X4 diesel. It is the first time there was diesel and 4X4 that I know of, so I think it is kind of a classic. It is big, it is mean, and it is tough. :P They do not make trucks like that anymore. That thing can go anywhere and do just about anything. I do not cut down trees like a smart person would, I dig around the roots about a foot under the ground, chop and saw as many off as possible, then either use a come-along or a truck to pull them down. Thus eliminating the need for a nasty stump disposal job, because you use the leverage of the tree to remove the stump. It is a bit slower, but it works and my sexy lawn looks better for it. I was pulling down a massive boxelder with my Sierra, and I mis judged the length, and the top 4 feet of it came crashing down onto the back and cab of the truck. I expected that to crush the cab and shatter the windshield, but instead, it made a tiny dent, and that is all. The thing is perfect for plowing snow too, not even the worst Wisconsin snow stands a chance. :P I really love that truck, but unfortunately everything on it is finally starting to go, so I am not sure how much longer I will have it.
GMC still makes an ok truck, but it is nothing to Ford. Chevy trucks with few exceptions are jokes, and are mediocre at best. Toyota trucks aren't. Dodge makes a mean truck, there is no denying that, but Ford still makes the best out there.

[Strike For The South]

People from Wisconsin driving trucks? LOL LOL LOL

[Vuk]

People from Wisconsin driving trucks? LOL LOL LOL

lol Strike, we like our trucks. WI has a lot of farms, and a large paper and logging industry (at least we used to :P), so there is plenty of need for trucks. My family saves a lot of money by heating with a wood stove, so I have been going into the woods with my father since I was a little kid helping with aquiring firewood. Things have changed a lot, but it is still cheaper to heat with a woodstove, so my brothers still harvest wood with it to this day, and when I am over, I help them. :P (cause nothing is as kewl as sawing down trees and spending all day cutting off brush and hauling it to a pile, then loading logs into the back of a truck, dragging it home, sawing them up more, and splitting them) Cannot do that without a truck unless you like to take lots of long hard walks and get close to nothing done all day. :P We also used to to transport 100s of tons of massive stones from what used to be an old barn. We have went through a few trucks, and these ones have seen their share of work. :P You think the Texans are the only ones who know how to work?

[Strike For The South]

lol Strike, we like our trucks. WI has a lot of farms, and a large paper and logging industry (at least we used to :P), so there is plenty of need for trucks. My family saves a lot of money by heating with a wood stove, so I have been going into the woods with my father since I was a little kid helping with aquiring firewood. Cannot do that without a truck unless you like to take lots of long hard walks and get close to nothing done all day. :P We also used to to transport 100s of tons of massive stones from what used to be an old barn. We have went through a few trucks, and these ones have seen their share of work. :P You think the Texans are the only ones who know how to work?

Yes.

[miotas]

@miotas: The truck I was referring to was a real truck. I have two. One is a gas Ford, and the other is a 87 or 88 (It is a crime that I forget) Sierra 4X4 diesel. It is the first time there was diesel and 4X4 that I know of, so I think it is kind of a classic. It is big, it is mean, and it is tough. :P They do not make trucks like that anymore. That thing can go anywhere and do just about anything. I do not cut down trees like a smart person would, I dig around the roots about a foot under the ground, chop and saw as many off as possible, then either use a come-along or a truck to pull them down. Thus eliminating the need for a nasty stump disposal job, because you use the leverage of the tree to remove the stump. It is a bit slower, but it works and my sexy lawn looks better for it. I was pulling down a massive boxelder with my Sierra, and I mis judged the length, and the top 4 feet of it came crashing down onto the back and cab of the truck. I expected that to crush the cab and shatter the windshield, but instead, it made a tiny dent, and that is all. The thing is perfect for plowing snow too, not even the worst Wisconsin snow stands a chance. :P I really love that truck, but unfortunately everything on it is finally starting to go, so I am not sure how much longer I will have it.
GMC still makes an ok truck, but it is nothing to Ford. Chevy trucks with few exceptions are jokes, and are mediocre at best. Toyota trucks aren't. Dodge makes a mean truck, there is no denying that, but Ford still makes the best out there.

sorry, i just think it's funny when americans call a ute a truck

yeah i know what you mean about old vehicles that just dont quit, my family is full of labourers and car lovers. My pop has a datsun from the sixties which is basically just pieces of rust riveted together, the only reason it passes rego is cause he "knows" someone. the thing almost never breaks down and it goes like the clappers though.

And my nanna(different side of the family) has an old fergie that does absolutely everything, and has been doing so for over 30 years, it can climb a hill like a bloody sheep and hasn't once flipped, and its a godsend if you get bogged. all of my cousins first learnt to drive in it aswell, i knew how to drive it before i was old enough to go to school, i just wasn't tall enough

bloody hell i sound like an old timer don't i? better shuffle off before start talking about the good old days.

[Vuk]

Yes.

lol, haven't met my family Strike. I come from a very hardworking family, and lots of people around where I grew up are very hard working.

EDIT: I think Texans just have big egos.

[Strike For The South]

lol, haven't met my family Strike. I come from a very hardworking family, and lots of people around where I grew up are very hard working.

EDIT: I think Texans just have big egos.

Whatever you say yank.

That's a personal attack...on all three of me

[Vuk]

It is not a personal attack, just an observation.
Sorry Strike, but my family lived below the poverty line when I was growing up. My dad worked three different jobs and myself and all of my brothers and sisters worked outside and in the house as soon as we were old enough to. Life was not easy at all for me growing up, and being in a poor family, wearing the same two pairs of second hand clothes for a year, not having a TV, etc does not really increase the respect you get from people. The only thing I really had to be proud of as a kid was a good family, a good education, and that I knew how to work. I have been working my own way through college, and since my dad died, along with my two sisters, working for my family as well. I think knowing how to work is an important part of who I am, so I find it a little arrogant to hear someone on a message board who for all I know has never done a full days work in his life tell me I do not know how to. :P

[miotas]

there is nothing, in my book, quite as deserving of respect, as a hard days work to feed the family.

we never had things quite as hard as you vuk but my sister has a degenerative muscle disease and just achieving a basic standard of living for her is quite expensive for my dad.

*i should add that he is a labourer

[Vuk]

there is nothing, in my book, quite as deserving of respect, as a hard days work to feed the family.

we never had things quite as hard as you vuk but my sister has a degenerative muscle disease and just achieving a basic standard of living for her is quite expensive for my dad.

My early childhood was pretty hard on my family, because I have 5 siblings, and it is quite hard to support a family that size. When we started getting old enough to hold our own jobs and when my dad found better paying work things got a lot better for us. Not say that we ever became even "well off", things aren't bad.
Kudos to your dad. Is that anything that she can recover from?

EDIT: What does he do?

[miotas]

My early childhood was pretty hard on my family, because I have 5 siblings, and it is quite hard to support a family that size. When we started getting old enough to hold our own jobs and when my dad found better paying work things got a lot better for us. Not say that we ever became even "well off", things aren't bad.
Kudos to your dad. Is that anything that she can recover from?

EDIT: What does he do?

Unfortunately not.

What doesn't he do might be a simpler question, but the majority has been truck driving, recently he got a job out west trucking water for oil rigs(trucking oil was better money but if something happened we would have up **** creek) and now he's kind of a supervisor/plane refuler. That's about half of his working life but about a 10th of his resume , he even raced cars for a bit before i came along, guess that's where the car lovin thing comes from.

[Vuk]

Unfortunately not.

What doesn't he do might be a simpler question, but the majority has been truck driving, recently he got a job out west trucking water for oil rigs(trucking oil was better money but if something happened we would have up **** creek) and now he's kind of a supervisor/plane refuler. That's about half of his working life but about a 10th of his resume , he even raced cars for a bit before i came along, guess that's where the car lovin thing comes from.

LMAO! Boy that sounds like my dad! My dad was a professional driver for most of his life. He worked for the Post Office, a gas company, and trucked for Del Monte to name a few. He did tons of other things in his life though. He was a marksmanship trainer for the police, an avionics technician for the Marine Corps, and even a janitor once. :P lol Work comes and goes in life though I guess.

[miotas]

LMAO! Boy that sounds like my dad! My dad was a professional driver for most of his life. He worked for the Post Office, a gas company, and trucked for Del Monte to name a few. He did tons of other things in his life though. He was a marksmanship trainer for the police, an avionics technician for the Marine Corps, and even a janitor once. :P lol Work comes and goes in life though I guess.

i guess a good bloke's a good bloke no matter where he's from

[Strike For The South]

Do I really need to put smileys after everything?

[PanzerJaeger]

Pickup trucks and are great and all, but it is inconceivable to me that so many people in the US buy them who have no use for them, when for the same money, they could have a sweet car. I mean, some of those big trucks are BMW money. Why would someone purposely choose a vehicle with less handling abilities, less acceleration, less gas mileage, and less feedback for absolutely no reason?

I'm a free market guy and I support people's right to drive whatever cars they like, but it does make me chuckle to see these guys trying to navigate their chromed out, lifted barges through parking lots, slowing to 15MPH around corners for fear of rolling over, and laboring to make it up to speed merging onto the interstate. The funniest thing of all is watching their wives try and climb up into them in skirts. I wonder if the image is worth it...

Of course I feel the same way about the legions of CamCord buyers who spend their money on boring appliances that don't even offer a pretense of style, performance, or interest.

[Strike For The South]

Questioning the pick up truck? Bringing up the BMW?

Does INS know where you are?

[miotas]

lol, yes those american utes are just ridiculous, if any are seen here, and they are few and far between, then it is seen as more as a novelty really, there are much more practical utes here.

of course we have our novelty utes too but they are more like sporty sedans than baby dump trucks

[Lemur]

Just stumbled across an article about the vanishing stick-shift:

In 1980, J.D. Powers and Associates estimates that more than 35% of all cars sold had a stick shift. By 2005, that number had dropped to 6%. Four years later, finding a car with a manual transmission is a big challenge -- you have to go either high end or very low end. 2008 was the last year that any manufacturer of full-size trucks offered a manual transmission. The 2008 Dodge Ram was the last to make manual an option. In 2009, the macho truck propelled by a driver with skill has gone the way of the buggy whip. [...]

It used to be that manual transmissions were lighter, more reliable, easier on gas. Today, that's not necessarily true, according to this report from Progressive Insurance, which favors automatics and says they get slightly better gas mileage than their manual cousins.

[miotas]

It used to be that manual transmissions were lighter, more reliable, easier on gas. Today, that's not necessarily true, according to this report from Progressive Insurance, which favors automatics and says they get slightly better gas mileage than their manual cousins.[/indent]

well maybe if you can afford a brand spanking new car, but most drivers can't, so maybe in 5 - 10 years this will be more relevant.

I'm quite surprised that all trucks have gone off manual in the states, an auto truck is a very rare thing here, although maybe in the city it is different

[CountArach]

In australia the opposite would be quite true, if there are people here who can't drive a manual it's usually because they can't drive at all.

I can't drive manual...

[Raz]

Please, if you want the true authentic manual driving experience, take a spin in the Karl-n-Bertha-mobile.