I think its mainly because people now days are more interested in screwing around with stuff they shouldn't be while driving. Hard to smoke a cig, drink coffee, read the paper and shift. The old timers learned on manuals and drove manuals for years. Now a lot of people never drove a manual and don't know how. Manuals are popular in small cars, I see a lot of them around.

For plowing snow a manual is better IMO. Will last longer and faster from forward to reverse, which you do a lot when plowing. Backing up a trailer with a manual is no problem I do it alot. Just got to coordinated thats all.

My next vehicle will probably be a ranger or tacoma and more than likely a manual. I'm not too lazy to shift gears so a grand or so in my pocket looks good. I also have lost confidence in Fords ability to make a decent auto tranny in a midsize vehicle after the loads of problems I've had with 4spd and 5spd autos in Explorers.

 

So people who don't prefer manuals are lazy?

 

I think some people are too lazy or just plain don't know how. What you prefer is what you prefer. Sorry if I offended someone. I have and auto truck and a manual truck. Sometimes it nice to have a manual sometimes its nice to have an auto. In stock form I have never really been happy with an auto. Needs tuning to suit me.

I will say also I think dealer stock has a lot to do with demand. I have heard people try to find a manual truck to test drive and couldn't find one. So they gave up and bought an auto. When I bought my SD I prefered the 6spd but couldn't find one to drive or at dealers. Found a deal on an auto SD I couldn't pass up so I now own it.

 

I love a manual ,but if you live in the city or commute into a city, they are terrible !! If you live in the country, they are great, you have so much more control of your vehicle. At this time, it seems like a custom order to have a 6 speed in your F250. Thank god they still have manual hubs in the 4x4.

 

My truck has manual hubs. My dad had problems on both his SDs with the ESOF so I prefered manual. ESOF does come in very handy though.

 

Well, if we want to keep the manaul option we just have to buy more of them. Not only are we getting an F-100, the same plateform is to spur off a new true off road bronco with removable top and soild axles front and rear with hose out flooring. The current ranger has been saved untill 2011 when an all new world ranger takes the stage in 2012. It will be the same size as the current ranger if not a tad smaller to stay a true compact and will be 4 cylinder based, with crewcab and 4wd option. The engine choices are rumored to be 4 cylinder gas and diesel, but no V-6. I at least hope you can get a manual in it. I heard you won't be able to get a manual in the super duty much longer.

 

Ken, was looking through the Atlanta craigslist this afternoon poking around for Ranger parts, and noticed there were two links for 1966 F-100's.

One is in Canton, right down the road from me,

URL Cherokee Auto Group Llc: Ford F100 Details for 5995

the other is in Gainesville:
1966 Ford F100 for CHRISTMAS
for 3500 muy rougher...

There were two more listed for more $$ and the ads were two and three weeks old.

tom

 

So far I've found nothing that meets my requirements:

FE big block V8 in very good condition
automatic transmission
body and interior in good shape, not requiring thousands to restore
short bed
grill in great condition (finding a good grill without forking out big bucks is hard)

I'm patient and I'll buy it when the right one comes along.

 

And I can't see having an auto in a truck. I know I'm in the minority, but I know of at least a couple of other guys who like me actually have trouble driving automatics, especially at slow speeds (I usually put my clutch foot on the brake and feather it like a clutch while gunning the engine). The only time I've bought a truck with an automatic was to replace it with a manual and I don't see myself ever buying a new truck if I can't get it with the transmission I want.

 

Question... when was the last time you bought a new truck? The automatics on the new trucks, with a locking torque converter have none of the mileage disadvantages they had in the past, plus they have more towing capacity than the manuals do (especially from a launch due to torque converter torque multiplication).

 

I wouldn't buy a new vehicle with an automatic but I've driven some recent automatics for various reasons and found them all to be profoundly irritating (06 E250, 02 Dodge 3/4T van, 07 GMC 1T, various cars). I know that car and light truck automatics have had lockup TCs, overdrive gears, and shared computers with EFI engines for about 20 years but none of those things address my problem: I need the clutch feedback and shifting action to be comfortable operating the vehicle. I drove nothing but farm machinery and heavy trucks until I was about 16 (even the TC equipped equipment had a clutch pedal that disengaged the transmission). By the time I got behind the wheel of something with a car style automatic I was so used to low speed control with the clutch and accelerating and decelerating with manual gear changes that I couldn't and still can't adapt to not doing those things. In short, if someone could make an automatic that was 20% more efficient than a manual and more robust (hah!) I'd still not want to buy a vehicle with it because of my driving habits.

I have other requirements in a truck that that I'd pay a lot of money for that also preclude the automatic: I like to be able to pop start my vehicles if I need to, I try to minimize the number of assemblies in a vehicle that I can't work on the internals of myself, when plowing I can put the clutch in and rev the engine to get more hydraulic flow, and aside from heavy truck automatics I have yet to encounter an automatic light truck that's really been worked hard and not been through one, if not two or three replacement transmissions (which calls into question the higher towing capacities). This I agree is changing - Ford is much better at making things now than they were 20 years ago and yes, I know that some of the newer manuals require some fancy tools to preload when reassembling (but they can be improvised).

I'm not saying everyone should adopt my preferences, but I strongly disagree with anyone claiming that an automatic is better for truck use in the general case.

 

I have a 63 F100 and a 77 F100

 

The situation around here may be different from those of other places but i think may be similar to some. Around here it seems that the people who can afford new vehicles want an automatic. The people who prefer manuals cant afford new vehicles so they buy older ones with manual trannies. If this holds true for other places then maybe that could be why manual transmissions arent a want for new vehicles. just a thought.

 

I've known alot of people with trucks that have been worked to the bone with autos that never had a tranny.....my 95 had the original tranny at 190,000 miles when I sold it, and I beat the snot out of that truck...I know a guy who has 340,000 miles on his 1 ton with a powerstroke, original transmission....on the flip side i know of at least 3 people who had mid 90's trucks with manuals that all had the tranny's rebuilt/replaced numerous times.... Maybe it comes down to you can't teach an old dog new tricks......but i don't think its the new tricks that are the problem

 

has anyone heard any news about the rumored F-100 lately?