Tears over gears

Last week’s piece on the Consumer Reports auto edition has kicked off a related annual event: the enduring argument about the age old “manual vs. auto” transmission issue.

Ok…so it’s largely guy stuff. I said the argument is enduring. Not universal.

That definitive guy stuff tome, “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche,” weighed in for the auto trans set. “Real men are secure enough to have their gears shifted for them,” it said.

Maybe so, but real men might not have been on Saipan trying to troubleshoot a transmission problem. Out here, simplicity has its virtues. Even a knucklehead like me can remove and replace a manual, or replace a clutch and the associated pieces, but when it comes to an automatic, my eyes glaze over. A woe some of my pals have had. A woe, consequently, I’ve only suffered vicariously, since I remain in the four-on-the-floor camp.

Saipan is largely truck turf. After all, you can’t fit 10 cases of Budweiser, five lawn chairs, and 12 Garapan working girls in the back seat of a Honda. Go ahead, just try it. Oh, you already have. See what I mean? The girls get cranky and the beer, warm.

So a truck it is. Manual transmissions just seem to go with trucks. Some prefer them for towing. I prefer them so I can feel more in control when I get hopelessly mired at Lau Lau beach, while my Tahitian made-out for her day off at the beach-looks on in disgust. I’ll invariably fiddle with things and rock the truck back and forth…just to kill time until some good Samaritan in a Toyota rescues me.

Which is a nice gesture but I’m losing face in front of the maid who thinks “Ford” is English for “stuck.”

So much for my problems. As for the experts-oh, them-it’s claimed that automatic transmissions actually promote mechanical longevity for vehicles, since the engines are presumably kept happier and within certain limits. Oh, bulderdash. These experts simply think the rest of us vehicular civvies are too inept to do the shifting the way the shifting needs doing. Besides, I’ve had auto transmissions strand me, but never-yet, anyway-manuals. Maybe that’s not a scientific study, but it’s evidence enough for me.

And it’s evidence enough for my wallet. I’m too much of a cheap Charlie-mang kuriput-to throw a grand or so extra at the car dealer so I can drive in style. Style? If I wanted style would I look this way in my Saipan Tribune picture? Thanks, but I’ll shift the gears myself, and save the money.

And this is just the beginning of the automotive Genie I uncorked last week on the car topic. Even bucolic old Saipan is married to the infernal combustion engine-just look at Middle Road at 4:30 p.m. Come to think of it, if you’re a pedestrian, don’t look at it-just avoid it entirely.

Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. “Ed4Saipan@yahoo.com”