Autos autos everywhere

[cseven]

I'm interested in a nearly new 330i sport touring or new shape 530 sport touring. I need the tourer space (dog) and love rear wheel drive so the choice is a bit of a no brainer. The problem is every car sold has the auto option. Now maybe I'm missing something here but why the hell do people purchase a great engine and chassis combination and ruin the whole thing wasting there cash on a auto box. Just dobn't get it, lots of audi s4's etc are specked with the manual so maybe I'll have to go down this route?

[slippydiff]

My guess is a lot of these cars are used for city driving hence the user friendly slushboxes.
I have a 330 D Sport Auto and would never consider going back to using a manual for everyday use, lazy ? probably If you really feel the need to change gear you can use the Steptronic function, but IMHO the novelty wears off pretty quickly and you end up leaving it in D.

[dcb]

cseven said:

The problem is every car sold has the auto option. Now maybe I'm missing something here

You are.

Try it and see.

Best auto box I've ever tried and there's the manual
override if you want it.

I strongly suspect that except for the 3 mpg or so it costs,
I'd ever go back to a manual.

[derin100]

I live in a very rural location...open roads all the time, never encounter traffic jams etc but even I wouldn't seriously consider a manual as a daily driver anymore against a 'steptronic'! For me now, (IMHO) it almost seems pointless to have a manual as a daily driver. Ok, I'm fortunate in having two fully manual, more sporting cars if I really feel like a more 'hands-on' drive but I don't want to do that anything like all the time! 'Steptronic' does give you a semi-manual anyway...but to be honest, as someone else has already said, I've found that after a while I've hardly ever used it! In normal day-to-day drive the options of 'normal' and 'sport' modes in automatic seem more than adequate to me.

I guess it just comes down to personal preference in the end? But on the plus side for you...though I'm not absolutely sure...you may find that if you find a manual car to suit it might be cheaper than its 'steptronic' equivalent because the 'steptronics' are more in demand? I dunno?

Good luck with the search though.