When I first heard about AC Schnitzer’s new LCD-equipped gear shifter, I thought, wow, this would be useful as the LCD takes the guessing out of what gear the transmission is in. Then I realized, most people that drive a manual don’t think about what they’re doing. They just know what gear they’re in and what gear they’re planning to shift into. Are there really people out there driving and thinking, “My god what gear am I in!”
This makes me think the new gear shifter is just eye candy and nothing more. AC Schnitzer is planning to install the new shifter in its BMWs and MINIs, which are already loaded with eye candy so it makes sense. There is no word on when we will see these appear in new cars or a price tag.
If you drive a manual, you have a pretty good idea of what gear you’re in, and if you don’t, the gears are usually laid out on the knob anyway.
I guess it looks kinda cool. However, I look at that and think, “oh boy, something else on my car that can break”.
You and me both, man. Give me a good, chunky stick and no electronics at all. Until I have an electric car, I want to drive an old school manual.
Agreed. I enjoy driving my manual.
I also think it makes it so I pay a little more attention to what I’m doing, than when I’m driving my wife’s automatic.
“My god what gear am I in!”
LOL. Funny.
That’s not funny, it happens to me all the time. ;)
Actually, sometimes I do forget what gear I’m in, it happens to me because I get distracted. This happens to my girlfriend too, and we booth have been driving manual cars for years.
We both wish we had an indicator on the car’s dash that would tell us what gear we are in. Having the indicator on the actual shifter doesn’t really make much sense because you need to lift your hand to see it.
Just my $0.02
You’ve got to be kidding me!?
What catches my eye is that there dosen’t seem to be an indicator/map/diagram for what direction switches to what gear, only what current gear you are in.
For anybody familiar with a manual this would be useless as it would be reflex, for anyody who is not, this would be useless andincredibly dangerious as they woudlen’t know how to shift to what gear.
Total gimmickry. You don’t need it, and if you did, you wouldn’t want to be looking down at the stick to see what gear you are in.
It happens to me whenever I drive a manual, and heck, sometimes even with manual transmission.
Such an indicator would be great for me.
BUUUT. Why the hell put it on the knob? That’s unpractical (your hand is on the knob most of the time) not to mention DANGEROUS (making you look down, possibly quite often.)
It would make more sense putting the indicator on the dashboard (some automatics have an analog gear indicator, which is a great idea.)
“But if it were on the dashboard,” says AC Schnitzer, “where would the NOVELTY BE?”
*and heck, sometimes even with AUTOMATIC transmission.
I have seen gear knobs which you can buy for any car with features like this, i presume you would have to program in each number as it would be different for all cars.
My M3 has a sequential gearbox (SMG II), and displays the current gear in the instrument console between the speedo and tach. That is useful (you can’t see what gear you are in looking at the shifter position because it’s always in the same position for forward gears).
On my MINI JCW, displaying the current gear on the gear knob is pretty useless since I never look there while driving. And with a manual, even if I don’t know what gear I’m in, I do know what gear I need to be in next & the gear shifter LCD wouldn’t help there either.
Only benefit of this: bragging rights for the bling-happy.