If I was in the UK, it might not be so bad. However, I’m a young adult in the US, and there are not readily available reliable cars common in manual transmissions. For instance, my current car is a 2002 Honda Accord, one of the most reliable vehicles one can get. Except that damn automatic transmission that seems to be made out of glass… and the only way I can switch that to a manual? Find one of 5% of models Honda made that can hook up directly to my transmission, swap everything out, and call it a day. A roughly $6,000 job for parts at the moment.
So I buy a new car, right? Well, since I’d be looking for something much more recent, what kind of cars have options for manual made in the last 10 years? Mostly luxury or muscle cars, or large off-roading vehicles like Jeeps. There are options, I could get another Accord with a manual, but finding one? So far in all of my searches, they just don’t appear in the results.
Considering that 96% of Americans drive automatics, and only 13% of all models of vehicles even offer the option of being manual in the states, and 80% of manual cars produced today being imported into Asia or Europe markets, it really does go to show just how limited buying a manual vehicle in the US is, especially when you live in a more rural area like I do.