Will I ever get rid of my feelings of loss for stick shift?

Made a deal with the wife and we sold our BMW three series convertible with autro trans and a Boxster S with a six speed and bought a 996 with tip Tronic. Haven't driven it enough yet to tell. Love power and handling of the 911 but still looking for a stick shift toy. Will I ever get used to a clutchless vehicle? Anybody else have a problem with switching to automatic and a 996 from a prior manual trans car?

If you're a fan of a stick then it'll be a tough transition for you. This is the same argument 991 Turbo and GT3 owners are having now. Probably depends on what you use the car for. Daily driving then it may not bother you, if you're looking for fun or driver involvement you'll find yourself missing the 6-speed.

It'll be like loosing a limb......the fantom pain will always be there.

Drove autos for 20 years after losing my '86 RX-7 to childbirth. I always longed for a manual. Finally got a Civic Si. Now, we're an all manual family. Well, except for the airport beater... TC

Stick all the way, even as a DD in Toronto traffic. You will miss it. Both my DD and 996 are sticks, and my DD is an SUV (unfortunately not a Cayenne GTS). I am not sure why an automatic would be preferred as a DD as 99% of the time the clutch and shifting is done almost subconsciously IMO. I miss my stick when I travel and need to rent something, my left foot does not know what to do with all the spare time.

I think I could give up manual shift for a PDK transmission with paddles, but not for tiptronic... Though I understand the spouse compromise.

One tip and one 6 speed. Loved tip in traffic. Took me a little while to adjust to 6 speed. Like it now but could have stayed with tip. Couldn't find the right one. Tip is 964. I moved and traffic less of an issue.

Stick all the way. The problem with automatic no matter how fast and how smart it is, you never know what gear it's going to put you in. Always an unknown.

Tip, manual, PDK are all fine by me. Have driven a manual since I was 15 yrs old, it's second nature and holds no mystique for me.

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But in a tip you do know which gear you are going to put it in!

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But that defeats the purpose of an automatic. I suppose you can drive it like a clutch-less stick shift.

Drove a 2013 Boxster S with PDK last week... I must say that the PDK could be very enticing...

Two years ago, I grabbed an absolutely pristine 993 Cab Tip...this car was cherry. Had the car shipped to me from across the country. I knew the first time I sat behind the wheel that I wouldn't have it for long. It was gone three months later. Felt like I needed a skirt on when it drove it. Perfect car otherwise!

Tip-no, pdk-maybe, manual-definitly. Even though the pdk is amazing i personally still love the feeling of total control when driving a car with 3 pedals. Op unfortunatly you will miss the manual trans soon.

For the OP: Just stick it (LOL)!

I sold a '90 Corvette stick and acquired an '05 Thunderbird mainly because of my wife's loathing the 'Vette on trips. T'bird was a great touring car, but I sure missed the stick. It makes one part of the mechanism. A required feature of the base '04 911 I acquired this winter was that stick! I'm back in love. Had a problem on my first road trip: at highway speeds the Carrera was pulling 'way too many revs. After five miles I sorted out I had it in 4th gear. My other car is a '62 Corvette with the revered T10 four-speed. I had to retrain myself to rowing those two extra Porsche gears.

I was stickless for about a year and a half, and never stopped missing the manual, so I finally bought another DD with a stick.

All our cars are manuals except my Cayenne thats my DD, I do like the Cayenne but I'm getting pretty bored of driving an Auto and have started looking for a manual sedan to replace it with so in my case, No. not even with 3 other manual cars to drive.

Due to a very long commute and my C4S requiring and engine rebuild I am driving a auto Cayenne now and really wish it was stick. Man that be nice if I could have the wife drive stick and never had an auto. It's boring and putting it manual mode is not even exciting and actually even if it could respond quicker I'd have no real urge to shift it in manual mode full time. I shift it manually when I require it to be in the right gear like when I am by myself having a bit of fun without the wife there to blast me for driving it so aggressively.

The manual is going the way of the dodo, so you might as well just get used to it. Eventually, the "manual" option will just consist of a placebo shift **** that isn't connected to anything.

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Hate to say it and I hope it's a long way off but I think the day will come that if one really wants a manual they're going to have to find an older, used car with one. If that car is a sports car there will probably be high demand for it. The masses will drive autos/PDKs. The small, subset of manual tranny lovers will be fighting over the few remaining enthusiast cars that are left.

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As is the ability to DIY your maintenance and repairs. Which is why I may never own a Porsche newer than a 997. After seeing the 991 YouTube video where they detail the work required to reach the air filter, including removal of the rear bumper cover, I decided that it likely won't ever be the car for me. As to the OP, yes you will forever miss it. I had a Maserati Coupe with the F1 gearbox and hated it, I drove my RX8 far more often because it was more involving with a true stick. I had a fantastic Audi S8 that I loved except for the automatic, had a manual transmission swap been more of a plug and play affair I would still have that car. For me, nothing matches the involvement and total control of having a true manual gearbox. Shifting correctly = me. Shifting smoothly = me. Total control = me. Every other option puts a computer between me and the car, I don't like submitting commands to a computer for approval before action is taken.

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But that's the point of a tip, its manual selectable or automatic; the point of a performance car to me is to drive it as quickly as I can and enjoy doing so. In a decent car: manual, tip or PDK does that for me without my hormones getting in the way. Perhaps you jus:t need a skirt F1 and LMP1 are "clutchless" sequential gearboxes (hormones not included) and that's where we're all going in the near future.

I have no problem owning and driving an automatic in any type of vehicle other than a sports car. There I want a stick. If they stop making sports cars with sticks, I'll stop driving sports cars. And yes I have driven PDK, in fact several. And yes I can paddle-shift it quicker than with a manual. And no I don't give a flying fk, I'm not racing with anyone or comparing track stats.

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I think that a tip can perform as well as a manual, PDK or "clutchless sequential" can certainly perform better...bearing in mind that I have zero issues with driving a manual myself I would like someone to explain exactly what they think that the advantages are.

Reading this thread, I feel very fortunate to have a wife who prefers a manual transmission.

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It's more involving and more fun. There's no quantitative advantage to a manual, most F1 or PDK gearboxes shift faster and get equal or better MPG. But in those cases you are controlling a computer, not a transmission. I shift the way I want to shift because I am shifting, not a computer. And if I nail the heel/toe downshift before a corner it's because of me, not a computer. I drive sports cars for fun, and don't give a damn about shifting in milliseconds and times at the Nurburgring.

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You are probably right, sad to say, but there is absolutely something timeless about a stick. Like large breasts, they never go out of style.

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Or there will be nothing but a button.

If you even see a clip of a modern F1 driver take an older manual gearbox F1 out for a spin.....watch the $hit eating grin on his face when they get out of the car. You don't see that when they drive a PDK F1 car.

Once we cant buy manuals, I will have my collection of older manuals and anything new will be in the form of 2 wheels.

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Reminds me of how a Ken doll looks when you remove his pants.

I just love the heel toe action and also being able to go from 6th to 3rd directly on the highway to give it that "turbo boost" feeling since my car lacks actual turbo's, lol. Can't exactly do that with the tip.

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Can't do that 'coz we don't have a 6th , but in auto providing that it won't overrev the engine, a quick jab of throttle will drop you from 5th to 3rd and in tip a double tap on the button will achieve the same thing.

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Put them in a race situation in the same manual F1 and the grin will be gone! You think there was no $hit eating grin on Vettel's face while he was burning doughnuts after F1 races? Put me in a 1970 Fiat Dino or a 2003 C4S and you will see an ear to ear grin but it has absolutely nothing to do with the transmission.

Mcbit.....I see you don't and never will understand what it means so there is no point explaining it anymore.

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Or not, depending on whether or not a specific set of parameters are met in the computer. But I can put mine in whatever gear I want, without asking permission first.

as a previous poster said,,when they stop making manual transmission for sport cars,i will stop driving sport cars..automatic transmissions have no feel and they are boring,,if these new breed of f1 drivers drove a manual car on the race,the races won't be getting so boring,you watch the races and is no longer about the drivers is all about the cars.

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I agree.

Started this thread and now my 2001 Carrera C2 Cabrio with tipTronic is for sale. Just bought an O2 Carrera C4 Cabrio with stick

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LOL! Guess you answered that question for yourself pretty quickly!

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It will take about 3 seconds though.

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lol, true and if you're like me, your thinking it didn't work and keep pressing it. I also hate counting clicks and while busy focusing on driving don't know what gear I actually am in, unlike with manual you don't really need know since you find out by feel when shifting anyways and can choose what ever gear you want to go into right away.

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Exactly and without any delay. Milliseconds count when you're trying to pass douchebags hogging the left lane not letting you in front.

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Wonderful, I'm the one who's just as happy driving all three transmissions and I'm the one who doesn't understand. There are people here telling everyone what a tip won't when it's pretty obvious that they have no idea what it will do. Hey, the only thing it won't let me do is over-rev the motor. Tim, I have great respect for the majority of your posts...but a double tap accompanied by foot down will achieve the change in under half a second. Takes a bit longer on a down shift under braking, but it's very predictable. I'm not denigrating manuals, I have around 4 million miles in them and still enjoy driving them; but, please, don't believe that you cannot be at one with a tip.

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If I can't shift my own gears without a money shift, I really don't deserve to be driving anything. This is obviously different strokes for different folks. I've had an F1 gearbox in a Maserati and hated it, there's no direct connection and I hated looking at a display to see gear selection vs simply feeling shifter location. I had a fantastic Audi S8 with a tiptronic gearbox, and while it was great for an automatic......it was still an automatic. The tip is nowhere near as fast as the F1 gearbox at shifting manually, at the core it is still a torque converter automatic gearbox.