Dear Tom and Ray:

My wife and I are in the market for a new Toyota. My wife insists on getting a manual transmission over an automatic. She believes that automatics are more prone to breakage. What's the deal? Are automatic transmissions more or less reliable? Would we be fools to get an automatic? Please clear up the mystery for us. My wife will listen to you. -- Hal

Ray: It's purely a matter of preference these days, Hal. There's no real economic advantage either way. It just depends on whether you like shifting or whether you'd rather have your right hand free to change the radio stations.

Tom: In terms of costs, it's really a wash. An automatic costs more to buy -- often an extra $800 or $1,000. But it doesn't break any more often than a manual transmission and will usually last the life of the car if driven responsibly. And with today's five-speed automatics, lock-up torque converters and overdrive, they get just about the same gas mileage as cars with manual transmissions.

Ray: Manual transmissions cost less when you buy the car, but they require clutch replacements from time to time at the cost of many hundreds of dollars. How often? It depends on the driver. I have customers who get 125,000 miles out of a clutch.

Tom: And I have a teen-age son who gets about 125 miles out of a clutch.

Ray: So, in terms of overall costs and reliability, it's a wash, Hal. So it's simply a question of whether you want your wife wants to be shifty or shiftless.

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© 2000 by Tom and Ray Magliozzi and Doug Berman Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

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