DI2 Depression.

[OakLeaf]

Well ... since you'd lock an automatic into first or second to climb my lane in snow anyhow, there's really no difference there. (Except that with an automatic, you have to remember to shift down to lock out the automatic upshift, where a manual stays there all by itself. )

But now that my last two cars have been CVT, I don't think I'd want another car with fixed gear ratios no matter how the shifting worked.

@Catrin, Subarus have had that feature for probably ten years? They introduced it right after we bought our last 'Ru, which was an '03. It might have been part of another option package even then, and only later became more standard. I know my mom's car has it. I don't know how common it is in other non-sports cars. But it's still a traditional hydraulic transmission, you just have the option to lock out the automatic shifting and select the gear manually.


As far as maintenance, yeah ... that's a bugaboo from the 1960s. Nowadays as long as you keep your ATF topped off and change it once in a blue moon, you're very unlikely to have problems. Where, when's the last time you bought a used stick shift that DIDN'T have a burned out second-gear syncro?