Understanding Your Transmission, Part 2: Automatic Transmissions

If you haven’t read my entry on manual transmissions, you may want to give that a brief glance, as it provides some useful background information on the basic ideas behind an automotive transmission. Some of these basic principles are shared by both automatic and manual transmissions. For example, both use different gear ratios to keep [...]

Driving Manual Transmission

I was, I’ll confess, a reluctant driver. The process of learning to drive seemed like a lot of stress for not that much reward (especially as I was pretty convinced that I’d never have a car of my own.) However, my mother, sick of driving me around, dragged me to the DMV on the day [...]

Understanding Your Transmission, Part 1: Manual or Standard Transmissions

What is a transmission? The transmission transfers power from the engine to the wheels. Basically, by using gears and a device called a clutch, the transmission converts the spinning energy of the engine into torque, expressed as  the force exerted on the road by the tires. You need a transmission in part because every engine [...]