Flappy paddle gears

eth0

Do you hate them? Never had a chance to use myself but does anyone here think they're any good? I know that shagger Clarkson hates them but I wouldn't take too much notice of him

Nissan doctor

Depends entirely on what car your talking about...some are rubbish, some are fantastic.

The only ones from the latest generation of that I've tried is on a Nissan GTR and together with the DCT where excellent. They still don't feel right for normal road use though.

Owen

Clarkson hated them on one or two cars, he loved them in others. He's never really been describing the actual paddles more the transmission connected to them.

I've had 3 cars with Paddles, they're great fun even if the gearbox is crap. You always feel like it's the 90's again and you're playing Virtua Racer in the arcade.

Bearcat

Bet you didn't know the Honda jazz has a flappy paddles in the auto version. Driving my mother in laws while searching for a new motor.....it's actually a hoot to drive and works well with an asphyxiated engine. Why Honda would put this system in the jazz I ve no idea as grannies and the like are the usual suspects driving these and will never use it. Nice car to buzz around city but open road, forget it.

Back on thread

R.O.R

Driven a few cars with the paddles, most recently a few 520d's with the Sport Auto box. They work, then you just leave them alone and let it work as a full auto.

I suspect most people with them, on non high performance car, only use them very occasionally, and just let the car pootle about as a full auto.

The Tyre Dude

Drove a Ferrari 360 recently with them, did not really see the point and the shifts were not as quick as I expected. It certainly would not be a deciding factor.

whippet

i had flappy paddle on my GTI ... at first I was always using them, but after a while the novelty wears off and day to day you'd never use them.

The car had enough grunt in economy, auto mode for just about all overtaking moves.

However, with no wife or child in the car on quite country roads it was an absolute hoot.

I also drove an XKR (track prepared) on a track with flappy paddles and it wasn't all that inspiring. It took a while to get used to the timing right at the rev limit, you'd shift up and it was actually noticeable the lag for the next cog.

SouperComputer

Connected to a slushbox (tiptronic etc) = Fail
Connected to a dog ring box or DSG = Win