While it's true that a person's tranny choice is not indicative of his dirving ability, not being able to drive a stick shift properly (rev match, heel and toe) ceratinly makes one less skilled than one who can.

 

was this a post about who's a better driver?
don't care whos got more skills i just think it's more fun to be able to feather your clutch around a turn and break it loose when you want. not that it's not possible on a tip, it's just different. i respect the my fellow chicktronic drivers as much as most skilless manual guys. but lets face the facts as far as fun factor, it's got to be manual. if you where in high school and got a rent a car for the day to toy around with which would it be stick or auto? i guess people get cars for different reasons.

 

If you're in high school and rent a car for a day to toy around with a chick then it's gotta be an auto (column shift) with bench seats. Your right hand should be on anything but a stick.

 

Why would RUF, a true sports car builder, bother with tip conversions?

I don't know about you guys, I don't feel too sporty when all I do is clutch in and clutch out in traffic on a friday afternoon on 101. My left knee is getting bigger.

I'm going swap tranny with sharky or kirby when they're tired of their gay mobiles.

 

you smartass. it depends on the chick i suppose, but from the little that i can remember some chicks like it when your hand is on your stick. hence the pearl necklace.

 

Because as a small company they need all the $$ that they can get? Why would PAG, a sports car company, build VW trucks and Tip Turbo Cabs?

You will find very few car enthusiasts consider a torque convertor soccer mom friendly slushie-o-matic of any kind a sports car. Telling the car what rpm and what gear you want is part of sports driving.

And the traffic thing, I just don't get it. I have driven on the 101 up north plenty of times in traffic. Like most of the time when we are stuck in traffic on our way to Sears Point on Friday afternoon, and as I said, if you time it right, the clutching action really is no big deal. Heck, the Turbo clutch is soo damn over assisted anyway that it doesn't even bother my half busted left knee. The E36 M3 or the E34 5 series, now those are some stiff clutches.

 

dammnit youy've hit it right on target, thats the reason im giving my wife to let me get a 996TT.. you busted my plan man.. lol ...

no for reals thats what i told her

 

Hi Matt,

I don't understand how a sequential manual gearbox is any different than a tiptronic when it comes to driver "involvement" Both are clutchless and in both systems you change gears with buttons or levers. I am aware of the mechanical difference between the two systems but as far as the driver is concerned, they behave in similar ways. I drove a Maserati Quatroporte the other day, and paddle shifting the sequential gear box was no different than clicking on the steering wheel button on my tiptronic tt. Comparing the two, on manual mode, they are similar. On full auto mode, the sequentital was too jerky and too slow in making the gear changes.

 

Getting stuck in traffic en route to a DE once awhile is no big deal. Getting stuck in traffic 2-4 times a day between home-work-school is a real *****. Clutching/gas/braking on 1st gear for 1-2 hours each day gets old real fast. Not a good commuter choice.

 

Did you read my post about how I drive in LA traffic everyday to work? Think 101, 405, 210, 134, 110. I don't think the 101 up north was any worse than what we have down here. And both my cars are stick shifts, and I really just don't get this traffic thing.

 

Let's just leave it at that. I don't get what's the big deal about clutching in-out at 5mph for 40min either. Do you feel sporty while doing it? I'd rather just tap the brake and save the clutch for saturday mornings.

 

Was Jacobs car the Seal Grey on Grey with GT2 seats and 19 HREs with painted grey spokes that they had to reattach the seat later on in the day? If so, I was on the track towards the end of the day with him and the fast group, and I passed him a few times actually.

I am not here to say that I am a better driver than anyone, just that I think that tiptronic defeats the purpose of owning a sports car, and it makes me cringe when i see a bad *** 996TT and look inside to find those god awful buttons on the steering wheel. The only thing that justifies it imo is if the car is shared by someone that doesnt know how to drive stick (ie, wife) of if you are handicapped in some way that would not allow you to oporate a manual transmission.

 

The difference is night and day comparing an M3 SMG to a 330 Steptronic for example. Because Porsche doesnt offer an SMG trans, this is the best exampe i could conjure. The M3 has 11 different settings of intensity where you can amp the shifting up to 80 millisecond shifts, with perfect heel-toe downshifts everytime. That means no misshifting, no mis revving, just like an F1 car. When you are taking a car to the maximum limits, and want to shave 10ths of a second off your lap time, there is no room for even minimal heel toe errors, or mis-shifting. Hence, why the SMG transmission is best.

With a Tiptronic, or Steptronic (same ****) you do not get the heel-toe downshift, 80 millisecond shifts, nor do you have the ability to put the car in a launch mode to break tires loose off the line for 1/4 mile times. The tiptronic shifts are sloppy, slow, and for me about as boring as watching paint dry on a wall. In fact, if you are to drive the car in the fully automatic mode, vs driving in the "manual" mode, neither mode will yeild performance results on a track, just the illusion of shifting for the driver. The SMG is not the same.

Many high performance sports cars are switching to SMG transmissions. They are the wave of the future, and that is why F1 uses them, Rally Cars, Touring cars, etc.

BTW, for all of you traffic complainers, if you can afford a 996TT, you can afford another car to drive to work. Buy a 5 series, and E class, a Caddy, anything... I drive my 996TT on the 10, 405 and 101 EVERYDAY and it doesnt bother me one bit. I also have a sport clutch that grabs like a mo fo, and there is no play, its on off like a switch and still doesnt bother me at all.

 

Automatic and SMG are the same f##kin' thing. One uses a torque converted and ones uses hydrolics but in principle they are the exact same thing. There can be no degree of which is better when arguing in this cause because they both preform the same duty.

 

You have just demonstrated to us that your arguement no longer means sh*t on this topic by the stink of your ignorance just now. Please refrain from any further comments on this subject because you will only be wasting space on this thread.

You're right, the transmission on a Formula One race car is just the same as a tiptronic