I'm feeling foolish for having put a serious post in this thread...

http://picardfacepalm.com/picard-facepalm.jpg






:rofl2:

someone drives in the "Muff" Mode :bowrofl::bowrofl::bowrofl:

i have no trouble shifting from 1-2. its smoother than a baby's bottom.

if i wanted to click a button to change gears i'd play forza :p

(all statements ending with a :p don't count as :stirthepot:.... :p

my button makes me faster than you old fashioned old people

Yay, let's start another 7AT vs 6MT debate! Or perhaps another Young vs Old debate! Sh*t, I still think we need Miata Doors on this sports car!

dont forget 04.5 year model PWNS ALL!!!! :stirthepot:

Those damn doors ARE bulletproof :driving:

haha, old fashioned? you make it sound like you are a grandpa whos already had enough of the whole 'stick shift' thing that us young hooligans are still caught up in, even though you're like in you're early 20's

On top gear, Clarkson frequently refers to a manual transmission as a 'proper gearbox'.... just saying. obviously, he's driven way more supercars than anyone here, and if he can come back and say that after driving all those cars with Dual Clutch transmissions, he is stating that based on way more perspective than any of us have.

the whole MT/AT thing has been beaten to death so many times, why do you constantly troll every thread where it could conceivably be brought up and talk about how AT is faster and how everyone who drives a 6spd Z probably can't shift smoothly. you make it sound like you've outgrown manual transmissions as some sort of maturity thing, i dont get it. AT is now like... sophisticated or something?

people should get whatever transmission they want, but whenever people ask me what transmission i have in my Z, they always seem excited when i say a 6spd. never had someone in real life be like 'WTF DUDE why did you get that shitty transmission'

:bowrofl:

lol me trolling every thread?

this is actually the first time I went "lol MT sucks"

and taking clarkson serious? While I love top gear I don't take clarkson serious these days, he turned too much into a comedian.

MT and AT is the same thing for me, people think too highly of MT here like its the only way a car should be. I guess it has to do with belgians driving MTs all the time.

if I could I would of gotten a MT but I wasn't going to wait 3 months for the car delivery + paying about 8000 bucks more just so I can go "**** yeah MT".

oh yeah over here people go "huh you got a AT?" then I show the pedals and shift stick and then they are like "kickass"

pedals IS FOR REAL RACING BRO.

pedals?

http://cpei.ca/gallery/2006/sscc/tour.jpg

;)

flappy pedals bro.

for the average american, i think jeff's 370z is harder to drive than vegitto's 370z :D

because americans suck at MT amirite

For me, with very few exceptions, all my vehicles,since 1978-ish, have been MTs. This 370Z has to be in the top three of most difficult to get a smooth feel for. I purchased in July, 2010, and have had numerous stalls...I thought that it was just me. Perhaps not. There are times that I wish I had opted for the AT. I am hoping time, and getting used to it, takes those feelings away.

yep. that's why it makes sense to get a mt here.
suppose i am involved in a car jack. the bad guy probably would not be able to drive away :D

lol

"GIVE ME YOUR CAR (kicks your *** out) **** YEAH (stalls) ****"

:icon18: i think there is some truth to this.

For what it's worth, my Mom and Dad's CTS Cadillac has an automatic tranny. She's 77 and he's 80. The new CTS coupe is available with manual -- probably a marketing ploy to attract actual drivers to the brand.

^^ and for caddy, i think that's a smart move. even if it's just marketing it shows car folks that caddy is changing to a more car-guy car manufacturer.

Interesting

^:iagree:

I just test drove the manual 370z, precisely 30 minutes ago at a Sydney Nissan Dealership. I wouldn't call myself a good manual driver, but in a non-sports car, manuals are a lot easier to drive because of that larger range of engagement. With the 370z, and perhaps other sports cars for that matter, when the clutch has a much narrower range of engagement i.e. the "sweet" spot as most of you will call it. It's indeed a "spot", not a "band".

Perhaps more practice will make you better. As for me, with Sydney's traffic and high numbers of rear-end accidents (particularly by cab drivers :shakes head:) which does not boost my confidence in "mastering" the stick in a 370Z, I will most definitely go with an auto.

This is an old thread, but if the topic is still relevant, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be bumped. So before you forum nerds start posting crap like, "thread necromancy" and etc, at least the person who bumped it did a search instead of creating a new thread.


With that said, I always felt the 370Z was a bit difficult to drive in a smooth fashion. For example, when I'm in my friend's old manual Hyundai Sonata, he could drive that thing as if it were an automatic. No shift jerks or anything. Even when we're on a hill, he can launch it w/o any rollback and still be smooth. It really depends on the car and the driver. I personally drive a bit rough, especially in my Z. So I notice my passenger's head bob from the corner of my eye when I upshift. I try to be smooth, but sometimes it's hard to find that sweet spot clutch engagement point.

http://www.the370z.com/engine-drivet...er-spring.html

getting a lighter spring or simply removing it helps

even so the 1-2 shift is usually pretty rough until the car fully warms up

:iagree:

The "sweet spot" is a lot harder to find-once you do tho, look out! Pure fun after that!
Side note: i killed it before i even got off the dealer lot! Lol!

i found the Nismo to be more difficult to drive than the Roadster: both manuals.

change helper spring. check forsale section and also vendor for sale area.

btw, there are plenty of threads on this...

I agree, I would look into removing the helper spring. This really gave it the normal clutch feel that I was accustomed to. Maybe you can meet up with a local member and you can see for yourself.

I wouldn't say its hard to drive... I would say though it is less forgiving than most of your regular everyday standard transmission cars...

I've come to realize last year the clutch requires more slip than practically any other car I've driven. Otherwise, starts are jerky.

yah it's not too bad if the Z's your only car and drive it daily. it's when you have other MT's. it kinda throws you off the first few miles each time. the Z has a wierd clutch feel until you remove or replace that clutch helper spring.. and on top of that, throttle with latency, light flywheel doesn't help smoothness either especially when new to this car.

after you get the hang of the car, no issue. very smooth.

For me I've only stalled a handful of times in 2k miles, all of them when in the first few weeks of owning it.

So driving the Z isn't too hard, driving it well is. Unless I am ripping and tearing, shifting smoothly is tough. At least for me it is. I either feel like it catches way to early, or I'm giving it to much and it's slipping. I can't ever seem to get the sweet spot for a smooth shift. At high RPM's it's no problem, smooth as butter. Just starting and low RPM's.

:tiphat:
Mind you, I killed the engine 3 times in a 10 minutes city drive with some open roads. The salesman with me who came from a BMW, Audi & Mitsubishi dealerships in the past i.e. he knows how to drive a manual sports car, kindly suggested he drove back to the Nissan dealership. Never felt so embarrased in a test drive before:icon14:

Load up the revs before letting off the clutch on Zs. It's really the best way.

this thread is funny

"Low" torque + gear ratio + long useless travel + short engagement = kind of spongy and difficult to use at first. the first 2 poins in that equation are the most important to me, and thats why I think its so hard on the low end and so smoooooth on the high end. Plus, and maybe this is just me, the fact that the gas peddle is attached to the ground and the clutch is "hanging" affects me a little. I'm coming from a car where all 3 were "hanging", much easier to toe them. Gettin used to it hough, and I'm sure you will too :D

The 350Z and like it the 370Z are more difficult to drive than any other stick shift car I've owned, and I've owned a bunch. It's absolutely possible to drive them smoothly with practice, but requires far more "getting used to" than nearly any other car I've ever driven.

Has NOTHING to do with the power level and everything to do with the clutch. I've driven cars with much more HP than the Z that were still far easier to drive.

Thats what I was suggesting, that high horsepower/torque is easier to drive MT because it takes less harmony between gas and clutch release, that extra power gets you where you need to be within the RPM range without "manually" putting your feet there. If that makes any sense...:ugh2:

I owned an '07 350Z Roadster, then a MazdaSpeed3, and now have an '09 370Z Coupe. Shifting the Roadster and the MS3 was very smooth. The 370Z takes a little more effort to get a smooth shift especially going from 1st to 2nd, that's if you don't have the Synchro Rev Match tranny available in the Sport Package. I've found it to be much smoother if you get the RPMs up to at least 3k in first gear before shifting into 2nd. I have driven M/T cars my entire life (58 years old) and you can't compare a smaller engine car with the Z to begin with. Personally, I like that you have to work a little bit to get a smooth shift in the 370Z and you have to focus a little bit more when you drive it. That's what owning a sports car should be all about. If that's not your cup of tea, I suggest buying a Toyota Corola or Honda Civic with M/T. I'm sure that shifts very smoothly. As for me, I wouldn't want the 370Z to be any different in the way it shifts.

My experience with the Z isn't that it's hard to drive but rather that frequent stops were annoying, since the shifter and clutch both seem to be on an on/off switch. Very notchy when trying to put it in first and very tiresome to move a couple feet at a time with the clutch.

I never stalled it though.