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Comment by lapcat | Hacker News Reader

There's nothing worse than getting stuck in traffic going up a slick hill in a Midwest winter with a manual transmission. Your car goes backward!

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In an old manual transmission, that's true. Modern cars have anti roll back systems. But also, use the hand brake.

Modern cars have automatic transmission where we don’t have to deal with archaic problems.

They are also incredibly frustrating to drive unless they have a massive engine with plenty of torque.

Honestly, how have automatics gotten worse in the past ten years?

Thank the EPA.

I remember my 2007 bmw 335i had that, but my current car, 2008 audi a5 does not hold when clutch in on a hill.

Do most manual transmission cars now do this?

Pretty much anything that’s equipped with stability control (requires hardware to actuate brakes)

My 2007 Mazda 3 has an anti rollback system! It doubles as a parking brake.

You can also heel-toe it, but that takes significant practice.

On the Ranger you learned to perfect the heel- toe within a few thousand miles .

The funnest was uphill on snow from a dead stop with no weight on the bed. Luckily my truck had 4x4

I've burned my clutch so much doing that, now I put the 4x4 into "granny" low, and just quickly move from brake to gas and drop the clutch. It rolls back only a couple inches. But I really should put more effort into the heel-toe.

My Ranger had a foot emergency break

Hand brake?

Can't you use the clutch and foot brake smoothly enough to take off on a hill? Even a slippery one? Hand in your manual transmission driver's licence!

[Tidbit: where I live drivers are issued with different licences for manual and automatic cars. You have to pass the test in a manual car for that licence, otherwise you can only drive automatic cars.]

My 1987-ish Subaru RX Turbo had a hill-holder manual, and I think the company had been making them for a number of years even before that. Major confidence boost for a high school kid living in the hills, and learning to drive in that fragile, overly complicated used car he could barely afford to insure let alone wreck.

Shiet,

I used to drive a manual 5L Mustang in the depth of the Edmonton winter. There was definitely one hill going into the city where if the traffic stopped (due to there being a pedestrian crossing right at the top for some reason) it was definitely time to start praying to the old gods and the new.

One time, after a particularly snowy night I drove into downtown and after making a right turn the car had its belly get stuck on a bunch of snow. But, indeed having a manual transmission did save me there as I switched into 3rd and got the car out that way after a couple tries.

Fun times.

Please don’t take this as an insult but I’m originally from Edmonton and complaining pedestrians as if pedestrians and not traffic is what causes traffic, as you drive your 5.0 into Edmonton from presumably the suburbs, is the most Edmontonian thing I’ve heard in a while. And then you one-upped yourself because bragging about driving in the snow is the third most popular past-time in Edmonton (after making fun of Toronto for not having 500 snowplows at the ready for a once in 10 year snow storm and making fun of Vancouverites for not being able to drive in snow even though they have to drive on ice/hills and not on snow/flat).

My particular complaint about that hill and the pedestrian crossing is that it’s right at the edge, where as moving it back a couple of feet would give cars from down below a buffer. Oh and the real cause of traffic on that hill was the endless construction. But I’m sure you know that trope too lol

But anyway, I’m now in the Bay Area and my third most popular past time now is making fun of people suddenly and violently forgetting how to drive the moment there is a single drop of water falling from the sky.

I had a Saab 900 Turbo with manual. There was a fairly steep hill coated with wet ice. I was able to feather my way up the hill without too much drama. Unstudded snow tires. It did have the benefit of having 60% of the weight over the drive wheels.

What a great car that was. Complete beast in the winter.

It’s a skill, to be sure. Heel-toe that gas and brake, with the parking brake to back you up.

I've driven a manual for many years, and I never got this complaint. I always found it perfectly straightforward to get moving on a steep uphill with just a little clutch control. Maybe you roll backwards a few inches if you're a little slow, but so what? Despite appearances, you're never actually that close to anything.

I take it you live somewhere with ample parking lots? I definitely don't miss the dance of clutch, handbrake, and gas whilst trying to parallel park in a spot I would barely fit into on a hill.

I think you missed the part where the hill is covered with snow and/or ice, and there's another car directly on your tail, because the majority automatic drivers aren't expecting rollback.

Get snow tires, and put some sandbags or other weight in the trunk.

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