• Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    Wife owns an automatic, it’s fantastic for when you’re stuck in traffic, but GOD does it make shitty decisions. Of course it cannot anticipate whether or not you’re going to be climbing a slope, so it goes up a gear, but then when it struggles to climb it has to immediately go back down a gear, but you lost all speed already and it’s raining and you can’t pick up traction again so you slide back down the slope and try again. It’s also only really effective for the most tranquil driving, and it has a huuuuuuge inertia when accelerating, like a good half second of not obeying your pedaling, which is 1.frustrating and 2.dangerous in situations where you have to get out of the way urgently. So, would only recommend for old people or people frequently stuck in traffic. The technology has ways to go still

    • prayer@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Check your owners manual to see if you have a button to disable “overdrive”, it’s for adverse conditions such as uphill or downhill, off-road or rainy, etc. It prevents the shifting up too early and gives each gear more range to operate in. By default it’s on because it saves fuel, and they make the button hard to find sometimes.

    • MintyFresh@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I drove one of the first semi trucks with an automatic transmission, and that thing was dangerous. It would pop me out of gear going down hill, thank fuck the brakes held out. The reverse gear could either roll the rig back at 10 inches per hour, or 10mph, and not much in-between.

      Was nice being able to sip a coffee through traffic tho

      • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        That must have been a while ago, I assume trucks got auto transmissions before consumer cars ?

        • MintyFresh@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          No, much later. Transmissions in trucks work differently and have to withstand so much more stress. Wasn’t till the early 00’s that anyone got serious about them.

          They’ve been around since the 50’s, but only became widespread in 2010ish. I think Volvo started offering the first production model auto trucks in 06.