Auto-Stick Review

I own a Mazda 6 with auto-stick (can be driven as a stick shift or an automatic).  Today after owning it for two years, I finally had the urge to drive a stick.  No, urge isn't strong enough.  My body ached to become one with the vehicle.  So, I slid the selector over to manual. 

I have driven the 6 in manual mode before, especially right after I got it.  But, it was always out of curiosity or novelty that I did so.

Let me tell you that when you want to drive a stick and want to "be" the car, the auto-stick just doesn't cut it.  There is no clutch and there is no real shifting.  You don't even have to take your foot off of the gas.  Tapping the shifter up or down is really lame.  The car will actually downshif on its own.  I felt more disconnected from the car than anything. 

If the urge is still there tomorrow, I think I may go to the Mazda dealership and test drive a 3 manual.  Sticks suck in traffic but any other time they are driving at its best.  The auto-stick is no substitute.

2004 Mazda6 Wagon Green front left 800

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Cars

Little booths of faux isolation.  A place where the stiffest are seemingly unafraid to pick their noses.  Off key songs are sung loudly as if the vehicle were sound proof.  Why do we feel comfortable being ourselves in these most visible of places?  What security against others do they really offer.  A lady with hair still in curlers argues with husband/boyfriend/son with abandon.  Traveling 70mph down the interstate a man does not have intercourse with a woman.  The windows of our cars draw the curtains in our mind.  A young working mother reaches into the back seat and slaps her child.  Two teenagers smoke a joint at a stoplight.   Never were so many invisible in plain sight. 

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