Tried a modern manual trans for the first time...

I've been daily driving my manual '98 v6 taco for a bit over a year now after learning manual a few years ago (in an old vw bug), so I had only at the time driven two manual vehicles ever. I can shift just fine and it's all perfectly smooth, if I'm mindful.

Yesterday, a friend of my brother's friends came over with his new(er) Volkswagen Golf GTI and let me take it for a spin. The shifting was sooooo smooth, I probably could've blew on the shifter to go into third. I've heard others on this forum describe their shifting as "smooth" before, but I had never experienced such a difference.

Is this simply the difference between 20 years of auto-part evolution, or should I investigate?

 

Idk, I've had cars where if I was careful and timed it perfectly, I could shift through most gear without using the clutch. Not that I did it often, lol
Then again, I grew up in an age where automatic transmissions were an expensive upgrade..

 

The gti has a great gearbox smooth as butter .miss my 2008 fun car . Tacoma is complete trash it’s clunky… still better than the auto lol

 

No idea, but I'd like to drive one to see for myself.

 

Whaaat?

I find it super smooth. When i drive my truck, you can barely feel gear shifts.


You guys never drove a 4spd 1990 F150? I guess not

 

Tacoma isn't clunky. You want clunky? This is clunky.

 

Yep. Sounds about right.

A lot of folks up here in NA seem to be super spoiled nowdays.

 

My 1986 Mazda B2000 with 375k shifted smoother than my Taco. What I've learned with the Taco is you have to have a supple wrist technique to get semi-smooth shifts.

 

Everything is relative.

 

Manual trans were the best in the 90’s before drive by wire throttles. Trucks were always clunky. Best one I’ve driven is a 95 Corvette. Gears 1-3 are semi straight cut, and that whine makes you feel like you’re in a race car

 

Man, it was so easy to rev match on my 2007 Mazda B4000, almost always perfect rev matching. Really miss that cable throttle.

My taco was the first drive by wore vehicle i ever owned. It was one of first things i noticed, throttle response wasnt that great. Premium SFOB tune almost fixed that though.

 

My first vehicle was 1990 Mazda b2200, was a great truck!

Completely gutless, whopping 95HP but i was in high school and couldn't care less haha.

 

Lol, yes, actually an 86 straight 6, 4 speed, and first gear is like 1/2 gear, nothing like howling down the freeway at 65 with no 5th gear

To the Op: Don’t like your old manual transmission? Sell it and get a Jetta

 

Haha yes.

We did brake stands in 2nd gear. That I6 4.9 was a beast!

 

I grew up in rural Alaska. First car was a early 80s MT Subaru it had a lever you could pull to engage 4x4. My next Subaru had a stick and push button 4x4. Then came that first 22re. I was fucking hooked. When Toyota came out with that square light, and at the time amazing independent front suspension!!!! I was in heaven.


The funny thing is. I'm still hooked. Don't get me wrong my g3 taco is better at everything. But I just dropped my kiddo off at school in the 91. I love the way it ticks and smells like gas on a cold morning start. I love hearing the tick slowly go away as oil moves around the motor.

My 6th grader could drive this truck to school and parallel park it. If Colorado would allow it.

 

I had a 2010 Tacoma 6M and don't recall the shifting to be particularly rough. Funny that I just traded a 2021 VW GTI 6M for a 2023 Tacoma, yesterday. The GTI was my son's car but he is a musician and needed something bigger to haul his gear so we let him take our 2018 Tacoma OR 4x4 in Inferno. I liked driving the GTI, great, fun little car but the wife can't drive a manual and I have another car as my DD so it mostly had been sitting in the driveway. My wife had "gifter's remorse" for letting our son take her beloved "Orange Taco" so I swapped the GTI for a lightly used 2023 OR 4x4 in Magnetic......she's happy again.

 

My old '88 GMC K2500 had the sm465 in it ( granny gear 1st gear and 3 more after that, no OD) it was a clunky, howling beast of a transmission. Over the summer I changed engines as well as changing to the NV4500. ( granny gear 1st gear plus a .75 O.D. ) This one shifts slightly better but it's still a HD transmission. The manuals in the Tacos are nice compared to those dinosaurs.

 

I had to keep the sifter boot loose and have a long screwdriver in the gremlin in case the linkage got out of whack. The car had the GF in tears learning to drive a clutch. She learned real good, though I did have to put in a new clutch (and fix the linkage). lol

 

The two best transmissions I drove [owned] was my 75 280z and my Miata. Snick snick, snick. Truck transmissions have more mass moving so they'll never be as smooth as a lightweight car transmission.

[and that ford ATF for transmissions really does make a difference.

 

Probably more of a difference between a truck and a car. A 1988 Honda Accord had a pretty sweet 5 speed. My 2016 Mazda has a silky 6 speed. I don't have a stick on this Tacoma (wish I did) but from what I read it isn't the smoothest.

I've had more manuals than autos. Ford Ranger, Mitsu Eclipse, F150, Corolla, Tacoma, Mazda 6....and I've been disappointed in just about every auto trans i've settled for. Like my current Tacoma.