Stupid person of the year award.

To give a little history here: I haven't driven my STI since September when I got a pickup. This is entirely because I am cheap and my company pays for gas on the pickup. Anyway, yesterday I finally decided to take my car out of the garage and go for a road trip with it. Unfortunately I never unplugged the battery and the security system killed it after 4 months of no charging. So yesterday morning I went to the store to buy a trickle charger / booster kit. Lucky for me a got a $139 charger for $40. keep in mind my car was in the garage and standard booster cables wont work.

So I take the booster kit. Plug it in, attach it to the battery. Turn the ignition. Nothing.. Fuck. So now I am thinking to myself I really fucked the battery. well, I had to leave for the day but when Came home I pulled the battery out of the car, brought it inside tested it (it showed 4v so it should recieve a charge). I set the charger to 2amps on trickle charge. By morning it was charged (12.7 volts)

Time to put it in the car connect it. Turn the ignition. Nothing. Fuck. The battery must be fucked. Called BCAA to have them come and replace the battery. The guy comes. Tests the voltage. 12.7v It's good. Tests the Amperage 315 it's good. Ok, start the car. Nothing...


Guy says, "it's a Standard right?"


That's the end of my post.
Fucking shoot me. The best part is. I jus finished with a rally driving session with a 2009 STI yesterday afternoon:
http://www.dirtfish.com/

Clutch switch FTW!!!

Haha, driving an auto for a long time will do that to a person.

SAVE THE MANUALS!

Yey!

Tailhappy wrote:SAVE THE MANUALS!

AGREED!

I at times try to accept a good automatic. When I shop for cars I try NOT to be biased against them, especially the ones that allow more of a manual style shifting but I can't get past my desire to row my own gears. My (late) older brother biased me towards being a manual fan. He despised automatics and it rubbed off on me. When I'm driving my manual gearboxed car I just feel more connected with it.

Clutch interlock of more modern cars can throw a driver off for a moment when trying to start one until you clue it you need to depress the clutch peddle. It has probably happened to most if not all of us

I also prefer a good row-your-own, and I'd always buy one over any automatic, if it were down to that; but I don't have any problem with flappy paddles as long as it's a good transmission--i.e. one that can shift faster than even a professional race driver... I just can't bring myself to be like "Manual or nothing!" or "anything without a clutch pedal is not a real car!" That's just unreasonable.

you don't really see people call manuals "standard" too much, but it's kind of annoying when you do.

also, my tow truck guy experience was just as dumb if not worse. when i still had the 318, the guy was telling me it was a fwd car and i basically had to tell him that bmw has never made a fwd car (not that i've ever heard of anyway) and i even showed him the engine so he could see it wasnt mounted transversely. what a frickin noob.

Turbojett wrote:I also prefer a good row-your-own, and I'd always buy one over any automatic, if it were down to that; but I don't have any problem with flappy paddles as long as it's a good transmission--i.e. one that can shift faster than even a professional race driver... I just can't bring myself to be like "Manual or nothing!" or "anything without a clutch pedal is not a real car!" That's just unreasonable.

I'd rather a flappy paddle car, if it were a good one, but my price point seems to stray toward older models that have a standard manual transmission.
There are a few cars I'd rather have a manual than automatic, and vice versa. And to be honest I didn't know my current car was even available with this drivetrain configuration.

Forget the flaps. Three pedals or bust.

Best of both (three?) worlds for me. Easy to drive on long commute to work, and full control for playtime at the track, if I were to go. Plus better mileage if driven properly.

Ideally id like to have a v6 accord coupe with paddle shifters for a dd and a super fast 3 pedalled car for the weekends.

I haven't had an automatic since 1998 when I got my CRX, and the previous automatic car was just my mom's old car that I drove in high school.

I drive so many cars now, i think i'm pretty much immune to confusion with the gear shift.

Fiero
Tundra
Samurai
Fiat
Sorento
Optima
Santa Fe

And believe it or not the only one on that list that i have never driven a manual verison of is a Tundra.

flappy padels suck. you need to use both hands for them. fuck that shit.