Posted on 01/03/2008 6:35:58 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is anoble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain.
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
*snort*
Where are you getting these?
We can go out in a parking lot somewhere and let you drive the Ranger awhile if you just want to remember.
I don’t mind a stick anywhere but in Seattle or Tacoma, where you have to stop on hills.
A forwarder sent them to me.
I’m not an email forwarder, but I guess I don’t mind spamming the hobbit hole with some of the funnier ones ;~)
Could we? I don’t know how much I’ll remember, though! But for a thousand bucks, more or less...I really would like to know if I’m capable of handing a stick...
How do they do in traffic like we have at the end of the day here, with lots of speeding up and slowing down?
I love the *idea* of driving a manual, but I’m kinda skeered...
I love, love, love my manual. But I don’t deal with much real stop and go traffic and it’s not nearly as fun in that, mostly because it’s a pain to keep going 1st-2nd-neutral-stop all the time. It gets wonderful gas mileage and I like the extra control it gives me.
How busy is the traffic around the dealer? See if they’ll let you test drive the stick.
It’s not ~bad~ to have a manual for stop and go on level ground, you’re just busier than you would be with an automatic.
It’s only stopping and starting on hills that bothers me, because invariably, another car is right on my back bumper. Little cars are sometimes easy to start on hills because the e brake is between the two front seats and you can put the e-brake on and ease it off as you go... With the Ranger, it’s a foot pedal with a release under the dash, and I’ve never got the hang of doing that.
Our traffic isn’t *quite* stop and go...just usually slows to a crawl at a bottleneck and then speeds back up. Not quite inching, unless there’s an accident or something.
I think I’d be too nervous about test driving a stick, which is a disadvantage, I guess. But it just seems like it’d be a lot more fun to drive a stick if I got so I could do it. And I think a manual is more likely to last a long time without issues and big maintenance costs.
Bah! I mock Jen for using that ebrake on hills. That is cheating.
Actually, I’ve never had an automatic transmission fail, And it would likely be the last thing to fail on a new vehicle... but I have had to replace the clutch at least once on most of the manuals I’ve had, and that can be a several hundred dollar job.
Go do the parking lot thing with Hair’s truck. After that (I assume it is not so shiny new) the new car will be easy.
I would not feel too bad about relearning on a new car if you get a little practice. It comes back fast, like riding a bike. Just challenge yourself to get really good at it. You bike a lot so I a betting your feet will be tuned up for it fast (good calf development).
true, but for the price difference you can probably a afford to do that once.
It’s not cheating at all. Seattle ain’t Ohio ;~). It sure as heck beats ending up in the lap of the guy behind me :~)
Also a good consideration...
Heh...one of the two cars I’m lookin’ at has a sort of manual automatic transmission. It’s an automatic, but you *can* switch it manually - not a clutch, but with buttons, basically. Inneresting.
Thing is, I drove manual for...oh...about two months. Then I bought the Corolla and I haven’t used one since.
So I’m wondering how much will just come back.
I have had gaps in my driving of sticks usually 3-5 years and never had much trouble picking it up. That is longer, sure, but it comes back.
It’s not just a long gap...it’s that I never firmly, definitely learned to begin with.
But it still seems like it could be worth a try. Mebbe.
Try the truck and then you will know. It will probably be a lot harder than the car do don’t let it scare you off if it you don’t get it instantly.
close enough!
SPAM!
Take Hair’s car out a bit Saturday and decide. It took me about two weeks in my car to go from total n00b to pretty confident. I stalled out a bit, got stuck twice (couldn’t shift into first for whatever reason. I was incompetent), that’s it.
And do test drive the car, you need to know if it feels right. My clutch was so sensitive, it was a little harder to learn on than some.
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