Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 13:20:02 -0500 From: "The Malt Hound" nospamedu> wrote in message news:abpeu0dbc22b2uouv2dps1mpoitn43hfm6nospamcom... > Why, oh, why would anyone buy a Saab with auto? Why not? If you are driving in a heavily congested metropolitan area it is far more convenient to drive an automatic. I hate to burst your bubble, but a SAAB is not exactly a "Performance" auto. I don't see the big deal for why one *has* to be had with a manual. Incidentally, I think the SAAB implementation of a manual transmission is among the poorest I have driven, specifically the NG900s and 9-3s. The pedals (clutch and brake) are too close together and offset toward the center of the car such that one has to sit skewed in the drivers seat to operate them. The shifters are pure garbage, even when new. Floppy, vague, blah. OTOH, the auto transmissions used in SAABs are pretty much status quo for all euro sedans. Contrary to all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about them, they are actually quite reliable and provide reasonable performance. One advantage of an automatic when coupled with a turbo engine is that once you get the boost up you can just keep your right foot into it and never have to come down off boost to shift. In all of the newer SAABs the boost gets dumped as soon as it senses the clutch being depressed. Plus there is a programmed lag in the fly-by-wire accelerator which is intended to produce lower emissions. It makes shifting one of these cars during spirited acceleration a jerky affair. > > Why would anyone who buys an auto trans complain about performance? Perfomance is primarily a measure of the engine (acceleration) and suspension (handling), not so much the transmission. But I have no evidence that suggests that performance suffers when the same engine is coupled to an automatic. -Fred W PS - 3 of my 6 current cars have manual transmissions.
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