Hmmph...

[Strategic Retreat]

Considerations about cultural bias and peer pressure aside (hereabout, even today, the drivers of a car with automatic gearbox are those who miss or can't use their right arm or left leg), or dearth of choice (some cars pretty much only have one kind of gear, so it's that... or another kind of car), I personally only once drove an automatic and the experience baffled me beyond description... I just, more than once, had the urge to shift, but couldn't, and had to rely on hoping the thing would do it sooner than my patience ran out... and it didn't happen. The admittedly (and fortunately) short experience only reinforced my conviction that is something not for me (beside that it just costs too much, even if compared to an optional six gears sports box). The only person in my family who owned an automatic car was my late uncle that in the 80ies bought a Jaguar XJS in England, where he had an import-export of peeled tomatoes, but we ALL know Englishmen are odd people so nothing new under the sun.

Your mother tried unsuccessfully to use a manual shift car most likely because no one bothered to teach her HOW to use it, and she herself never thought to learn either. I remember the first time I used my father's old FIAT 127, and even with all the cultural background I had, the very first time I tried, I did a poor job of it. In the end it's a matter of learning how to use CORRECTLY the clutch (and the handbrake in hill starting) and to choose when to shift and in which direction, listening to the engine's revs (someone looks to the revs counter... IF a revs counter is contemplated in the dashboard... but I strongly advise against this practice, as it distract from the MORE IMPORTANT duty... which is looking at where you're going)... and I can say that if I, of all people, learned it in a half a hour, everyone can in even less, if he or she wants. With time it becomes a second nature and you must not even think about it anymore, you just do it.

This said, I can see and even considered often, in the years, the merits of an automatic in traffic jams... the problem though remains that outside very congested city streets, automatic is... pretty much unnecessary. Letting a mechanical gizmo (or computerized one, in modern cars) decide for you if and when to shift is not always a good idea, and most of the time a waste of petrol too, and using the stick manually to select gears in the automatic cars because the mechanical or computerized servo makes a mess of it pretty much defies the having to pay more to have the automatic gearbox in the first place.

That is not to say that if you really want an automatic you shouldn't get one. Tastes are a personal matter that should never be discussed... it's just that... well, unless you cannot do otherwise for reasons explained above, as someone else has already said, it pretty much takes away the fun of driving.

Talk with your mom, tell her you'll get the instructions in properly using a manual gearbox she never did and ask her to give you the benefit of the doubt. If your mom is a reasonable person, she'll see reasons.

[Craig.]

I drive an auto beemer. yes in the UK. I live in a city, and do mostly motorway driving inbetween, I wouldn't contemplate an manual. Simply have no use for it. I'm either sat at 5 to 30mph or at 70+ either way I am not using the gearbox to any effect that would warrent a manual. 
By the same token I am a left foot braker. manual or auto, it was something I picked up very quickly, and my driving instructor absolutely hated it. Driving manuals it became almost a dance going from brake to clutch with the left foot and then the right coming over to cover the brake and also blip the throttle on downshifts, with the auto though, its left foot glued to the brake and right to the throttle pedal. Some people get the impression you might hit the gas when you want to go for the brake, but its never happend, and I have found the reaction time to braking is much quicker.

[Strategic Retreat]

You know Craig, reading your message I had the most peculiar mirage of Jeremy Clarkson reading your words and then commenting about your driving habits (and if you know him and his point of view... ouch... just ouch).

No offense intended at any level. It is I that should get off the excessive use of Top Gear.

As about your habit to brake with the left foot... just be careful around corners, especially WET corners, and absolutely BE CAREFUL, even in straight as an arrow roadways, with a rear wheel drive car (had I had such an habit on my old BMW... I would be one of those sleeping the eternal rest right now, instead of being here annoying you ). Know that your habit would be ground for immediate driving license annulment here in Italy (they would just make confetti of your license in your face on the spot, should they discover it), so take care and remember it if you ever come hereabout and want to drive EVEN an automatic... :-/

[Craig.]

Can you explain why they would take your license away from you for that??
As for beemers in the wet, its not the brake pedal I need to worry about its the shouty pedal on the right thats the offender.  Found that more than a couple of times while looking at oncoming traffic through the side windows.

[Strategic Retreat]

Can you explain why they would take your license away from you for that??

It's the law. I did not make it. I only acknowledge it. :-/


[quote]As for beemers in the wet, its not the brake pedal I need to worry about its the shouty pedal on the right thats the offender.

[expat]

[quote]Can you explain why they would take your license away from you for that??
As for beemers in the wet, its not the brake pedal I need to worry about its the shouty pedal on the right thats the offender.

[hyperpep111]

Huh!!! Unlucky you. my dad let me drive his car when i was 7. don't worry we had a large compound and he would sit in the passenger seat as we used to drive our manual car round trees and learn throttle control. Ah. good times Good times. that was 6 years ago and we didn't have to worry about oil prices . And age is just a number

[Strategic Retreat]

Last winter, on a open country road that was four inches of compact snow I found myself all on my own, so I turned of the DSC (I am also a BMW driver) and gave the "loud pedal" a press. The car did an impersonation of a drunk Lee Evans trying to dance as I first went towards a large ditch and then a five metre drop to a lower field on the other side. I soiled myself several times in a very short period of time and decided that I was not being big or clever. After I managed to turn on the seat heating and the PDC I finally stabbed the correct button to turn the DSC back on. The brakes did their own thing and I found the car once again travelling in a strait line down the road..................all be in the opposite direction

Ah, the lovely character of a BMW... much less pronounced on todays ones than like in my old and mourned 318i registered December 1984, where you had to keep the tail from wagging at times... and there was no traction control nor anti-lock brakes on it too... actually there wasn't a lot beside the sole electrically controlled external left rear mirror... but it had a ventilation so powerful that in summer you could do without air conditioning with windows close shut, if only for the forward seats occupants...

Wheels alignment and tires health were critical and always looked after... only the engine, not used to today's 95 octanes petrol suffered a lot, if the throttle was used with liberality... and in fact it died on me, that horrible, horrible rainy April 2010...

Now I must make due with my father's FIAT Punto Multijet... oh, how the mighty have fallen...

[expat]

Last winter, on a open country road that was four inches of compact snow I found myself all on my own, so I turned of the DSC (I am also a BMW driver) and gave the "loud pedal" a press. The car did an impersonation of a drunk Lee Evans trying to dance as I first went towards a large ditch and then a five metre drop to a lower field on the other side. I soiled myself several times in a very short period of time and decided that I was not being big or clever. After I managed to turn on the seat heating and the PDC I finally stabbed the correct button to turn the DSC back on. The brakes did their own thing and I found the car once again travelling in a strait line down the road..................all be in the opposite direction

Ah, the lovely character of a BMW... much less pronounced on todays ones than like in my old and mourned 318i registered December 1984, where you had to keep the tail from wagging at times... and there was no traction control nor anti-lock brakes on it too... actually there wasn't a lot beside the sole electrically controlled external left rear mirror... but it had a ventilation so powerful that in summer you could do without air conditioning with windows close shut, if only for the forward seats occupants...

Wheels alignment and tires health were critical and always looked after... only the engine, not used to today's 95 octanes petrol suffered a lot, if the throttle was used with liberality... and in fact it died on me, that horrible, horrible rainy April 2010...

Now I must make due with my father's FIAT Punto Multijet... oh, how the mighty have fallen...

Well, I have been a BMW driver since 1993 and never looked back. Front wheel drive.........The work of a PC save the gay whale, tree hugging devil 

Matt

[Craig.]

SR. It was a trick I actually learnt in Karts and have used for over 6 years in my road car without ever having an issue. Dunno how a country can make a law for which foot you use on which pedal, but hey ho you learn something new every day lol.

Matt, my 3 series has no TC, and my ABS is rattling like a bb in a tin can these days. add in its the compact 1995 model which has no weight over the rear wheels, it provides some of the best driving ever 90% of the time, but the other week when I drove round a local road that had just had roadworks done on it, I about filled my trousers, had been raining the whole day, so that mixed with the oils in the tarmac, turned onto the road, the front end went light and in the good old words of Martin brundle, it understeered like a cross channel ferry, then after gathering that, went to pull away the backend decided even with barely 2000 on the rpm's that it wanted to arrive before the front. 

[expat]

SR. Dunno how a country can make a law for which foot you use on which pedal, but hey ho you learn something new every day lol.

More to the point, unless you are driving , how would you prove it

And even with all the electronics, my 5 could still do with a half hundred weight of spuds in the boot during the snowy season here on the North German Plain

Matt

[beaky]

What is your mother's reasoning against?

Matt

She's afraid I don't know how to drive it, since when she was my age she borrowed her friends car and repeatedly hit a city bus because she couldn't figure out how to take it out of gear...