Do you prefer Manual or Automatic transmission cars?

I drive an auto at the moment and I think they both have their good and bad points. They're about even.

I love auto's in long distance driving where you get fed up pretty quickly. The same goes for in towns and cities where there is lots of stopping and starting. They're just so easy and relaxed to drive. Also I've found they tend to pull away and get up to speed faster where as people trying to change up the gears are left standing.

Manuals are more fun to drive and you feel as if you have a lot more control. They're also much easier to maintain and have less go wrong with them. Autos have a terrible reputation for going wrong badly and expensively which I have discovered to my cost recently, where as the same problem in a manual would hardly be a problem at all!

Overall I guess if you buy a new auto then it will be great but older models are probably best avoided.

Personally, I prefer automatics. I have had 5 manual cars, all good. Then I started to do alot of motorway driving. I changed to an automatic manual, and although I kept going to change gear I soon got the hang of it! I loved the automatic, yes it is the lazy option but there is no stiff clutch to battle with, highly unlikely to stall on a hill and its an all round easy drive as I think its economical.

I now have a semi-automatic. Most of the time I drive it in automatic, again because of the easy factor. If I feel that I need to change up or down a gear I just switch to manual-easy! It really is a personal preference thing, I hate auto to start with and now (particularly since I have bad wrists and hands) I love it!

If your asking cos your learning, Id learn in a manual, so you always have the option :-D

Manual.

I've owned 5 cars so far and 3 were manual and 2 were auto.

I like manual better because they get better gas mileage and because they are more fun to drive.

Even if i had a lot of money and didn't care about gas mileage, i would still prefer a manual.

The only exception is those times when i am stuck in long traffic jams and if the car has a stiff clutch. If i had to commute every day in horrible traffic, i'd probably own an automatic as my commute car, to avoid the 5000 pedal pushes a day.

I say when you want to go off roading, I would do automatic. Everything else is manual.

Is just that, with offroading, you will be on uneven terrains and everything you release the clutch, you will start rolling whichever way, automatics are more precise when you start rolling since the car takes away some of the control from the driver.

Stick shift is more fun on road. Some people complain about being stuck in traffic and constantly shifting. But if you drive stick long enough, it doesn't bother you.

Unfortunately all the high end sport cars are converting over to auto because it shifts faster than humans like the GT-R and Evo X. But you lose the driving experience.

Automatic as long as it has a good gearbox preferably twin clutch like VW DSG or BMW DCT. Torque converters are for slow comfy driving and gas guzzling lumps of pig iron and a manual would beat them hands down.

I have an 7speed Auto with double clutch and it is faster than the manual version and more economical. It also allows manual gear changes through either the gearstick or paddles.

I prefer automatic, but manual is so much more fun. Since most of my driving time is spent stopping and going in busy traffic, the pedals can be annoying for a manual. I would learn manual so you have options and you would know how to drive everything on the road.

That depends. I live and work in a country where hills are very common. Even though I am also living and working in a rural area, the country where I am is so overpopulated that the traffic flow is more densed than in Australia or North America, especially when you go into a small town. If you live in North America on flat lands, Australia, or South Africa, driving manual is better (but not inthe big cities). If you are in South Korea, drive automatic.

Manual all the way. Had one 4 speed and one 5 speed. You do have more control over the car and better gas mileage. Plus if the battery dies, bump start! always works.

I used to like 4-speeds more, but I could change a clutch easily on a rear wheel drive. Now, so many are front wheel drive and changing a clutch on them is too big a hassle so my preference has changed to automatic.

Manual; Can't bump-start automatics.