My little Nissan Versa is back in the shop. Recently they changed the clutch and damaged a gasket. It developed a small transmission fluid leak. It was supposed to be a fairly quick job but as we all know that’s not the way things turn out sometimes.
The replacement gasket they were sent is actually for an automatic transmission. When I checked in on them they were frantically trying to locate the correct part. None of their suppliers had it on hand. Since my car is taking up one of their bays I’m sure they’ll get something overnighted if they can find it.
There aren’t a lot of stick shift cars in the US anymore. They are much more popular in Europe. Back in the 70s there were a lot of imported small cars with stick shift. There used to be a big difference in fuel economy and that was everything. Automatic transmissions are now a lot more efficient than they used to be.
I went with a stick shift as the Versas at the time had pretty doggy CVT transmissions. It’s basically the same type as the transmission on a motor scooter. While they’ve gotten better I’m still not a fan of the type-unless it’s on a scooter or a snowmobile. Cars -not so much.
There are high performance cars that have manual transmissions. A skilled driver can get a lot more zip out of a manual gearbox. As for my little economy car the performance, while not a race car, is much better than the automatic.
At any rate, I’m back to waiting for parts. They have to out there somewhere.
-Sixbears
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