Hey I want to buy spacestar, should I buy the automatic or manual?

[yujinius]

.2 is a 20% difference between 1.0 and 1.2

Go to local dealership and test drive both models. Then you will know if it has enough power for your needs. If you want to save money buy the smallest engine that will still meet your daily needs.

If you are an impatient person that likes to accelerate rapidly you probably wont want the 1.0

Also consider how long you will keep the car. If you normally sell the car before 100k miles then the CVT transmission should last that long. If you want to take the car to over 200k miles than I would forget about the CVT.

I have the manual and live in a very traffic congested city. Shifting from Neutral to 1st and 2nd and neutral over and over again (in heavy traffic) is a mild irritation but it is not the end of the world.

When you consider that in the past our Grandparents drove cars with manual transmission and no power steering that is why I say the guys complaining about shifting gears in gridlock traffic are complaining about something that is really only a mild irritation.

If you are an impatient person that likes to accelerate rapidly i woudn't go for the CVT also, it sucks at rapid accelerations

[mister2]

It belongs to a new class that's called supermini. Drove one (Space Star) for 2 weeks in Italy. Great car for the city and tight, fast and twisty roads. Being a rental we of course got the no-rills model, with 5-sp manual. That was a joy to drive. for the city and curvy roads. Not for the autostrada or any kind of highway where I always had to get out of the way.

What type of use did you have in mind for the car? That would make a big difference in your choice, I imagine.

[7milesout]

Probably a little late there mister. Interesting to be able to rent a 5 speed car in Italy. I doubt you could find a manual trans rental car in the U.S., at least at the major car rental companies. Maybe could find them on Turo though.

[Nifty_Biscuit]

On this lovely note, what is the best way to learn to drive manual? I come from a line of non-stick pushers myself, and I would not want to attempt to learn on a real car. You know, in the (likely) event that I nuke the transmission. Would you suggest a manual mirage to someone who has never driven a manual? Where can someone practice such things?

[Mark]

On this lovely note, what is the best way to learn to drive manual? I come from a line of non-stick pushers myself, and I would not want to attempt to learn on a real car. You know, in the (likely) event that I nuke the transmission. Would you suggest a manual mirage to someone who has never driven a manual? Where can someone practice such things?

Watch some YouTube clips on driving a manual & decide if it's something you want to do. I started letting out a clutch in 3rd grade with a Farmall H. Driving vehicles just came natural after that, but that was over 50 years ago.

[7milesout]

in the (likely) event that I nuke the transmission.

You very likely won't harm the transmission. The clutch will bear the brunt of it. And I doubt you'd blow a clutch. Just depends on how much pressure you put on yourself to learn it in a day. I don't care what a video tells you, I'm going to "try" to attach a picture of a graph I made that describes what your feet is doing during the course of operating a clutch from a dead stop. Because compared to using a clutch to get a car going from a dead stop, using the clutch in all other events is very simple.

I only started making this graph, and put about 5 minutes in it. It is not perfect. And I will describe what the graph means below. This graphed line is only representative of getting a car going from a stop.



The x-axis (bottom line) is road speed. Not accurate but will do for this explanation.
The y-axis (left vertical line) is % of clutch pedal travel. 0% is clutch pedal to the floor. 100% is clutch pedal at the top, ideally with no foot on the clutch pedal.

The blue line indicates that at first, lifting your foot off the pedal, you will feel nothing and the car will not roll.

But at some point, maybe 20% of the pedal travel, you will start to "feel" engagement, and the vehicle will creep.

An experienced user will engage even more clutch, for example up to 25% (or so, could be more, depends on clutch wear, cable setting, etc). The car will creep and slowly gain speed and more or less, you hold your foot on the clutch steady at this point and allow the vehicle speed to sort of creep up.

And then there is a speed at which you instinctively know you can begin to feed more clutch engagement without risk of stalling the engine.

That's about it, except there *could be an engine rpm line added. I didn't do that (at least not yet) because I wasn't going to spend much time on this, as it was just my mind wondering what such a graph would look like. And because I was afraid it would make the graph confusing.

However, the engine rpm for an experienced clutch user is fairly low, as little above idle as can be controlled and still allow a smooth transition.

I (and Mark probably as well), can have our clutches 100% engaged by the time my rear tires reach where my front tires had been stopped. That is, if no one is behind me and I'm in no hurry. A clutch will last 2 or 3 marriages when used in such a way!

[Fummins]

https://www.google.com/search?q=texa...WFudWFsKAA;mv:[[33.2307085,-95.285034],[29.5341399,-98.0933926]];tbs:lrf:!1m4!1u3!2m2!3m1!1e1!1m4!1u2!2m2!2m1!1e1! 2m1!1e2!2m1!1e3!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:14

[klroger]

I started letting out a clutch in 3rd grade with a Farmall H. Driving vehicles just came natural after that, but that was over 50 years ago.

Hey Mark, My Grandfather also had a Farmall H, a row crop that as a kid I was sent to use & help him... My father had 2 cylinder JD's with the hand clutch. The Farmall was sooo much easier to drive, especially if you were trying to back a wagon of grain into the Barn beside the Thrashing machine...No Power Steering, just all the power your arms could put into it... Good Times. I miss them...

[7milesout]

Hey Mark, My Grandfather also had a Farmall H, a row crop that as a kid I was sent to use & help him... My father had 2 cylinder JD's with the hand clutch. The Farmall was sooo much easier to drive, especially if you were trying to back a wagon of grain into the Barn beside the Thrashing machine...No Power Steering, just all the power your arms could put into it... Good Times. I miss them...

In what years were these times? I'm curious. I had an uncle who had a farm and had various tractors. I never operated any of them. That was in the 70's and 80's.

[klroger]

In what years were these times? I'm curious. I had an uncle who had a farm and had various tractors. I never operated any of them. That was in the 70's and 80's.

They would have been early / mid 70's into the 80''s or so as well. Our family always kept the old stuff going as long as possible. That's probably why I still have my VW. Keeping old stuff going runs in the family...