Originally Posted by wstar

In particular, aside from (beginner-mode, imho) tracking my 7AT, I also come from a background of driving a stick (6-speed LS1, in a '99 Trans Am actually) for about a decade before I switched to the 7AT. My shifting necessity/habits haven't changed at all: I drive my 7AT in M-mode always, so I'm always picking my gear like I was used to doing driving manual.

To me, the main downside of crappy/traditional autos is just not being able to tell the car what gear you want to be in. The car *cannot know* what the appropriate gear is. A traditional auto only really has 3 inputs to its gear selection algorithm: RPM, Accel Pedal Position, and Current Speed. None of those account for all of the other factors that go into a manual gearing decision, most of which have to do with seeing/knowing what's on the road in front of you and knowing what you plan to do about it.

With an AT like our 7AT though, that factor's gone. You get to control the gearing all the time. And in that rare sacrilegious moment when you decide you just have to eat a burger in the car while driving somewhere, or let some chick drive your drunk *** home, you can flip it to D and act like a grandma.

All in all, I love the 7AT. As jnaut said: get a cooler on it before doing anything serious. Also, ignore the fact that the Service Manual says the fluid doesn't need to be replaced for life. I'd replace it every 20K miles or so on the street, or more often tracking.

It's not perfect, it's not a DSG/PDK -type thing, but for the price range it's a damn fine compromise and performs well IMHO.