My 83.5 Water-cooled Westy is an automatic.  I have a love/hate relationship
with it.

Driving - It is nice that I don't have to shift (especially in traffic), but
it does rob me of power.

Reliability - I have 160,000 miles on the van with no transmission repairs.
So with decent maintenance they seem to be very reliable.

- Mark Rissman
83.5 Westy

My questions for the list: Are the automatics worth considering? Do they
significantly slow an already velocity-challenged vehicle? Is the
mediocre gas mileage made even more so by not shifting for myself? How
much of the "fun factor" is detracted by the automatic? How reliable is
the automatic vs. the manual (with it's known 3rd/4th gear problem, it's
probably better!)? In general, do the automatics make sense?