On Tue, 16 Mar 2004, tabe johnson wrote:

> I prefer the control the manual gives me - if I see a
> hill coming up I can downshift when I want to, and
> when I'm going downhill I can choose a gear based on
> if I want to speed up or slow down.

Just for the record, most automatics can be manually locked into a lower
gear.  I used to do this all the time in my Econoline, because it liked to
"hunt" between gears on long inclines.  Few people ever use this feature,
but it's there.  I taught a friend of mine about it in his Malibu when we
were driving through the mountains.

David Brodbeck, N8SRE
'82 Volkswagen Diesel Westfalia
'86 Volvo 240DL wagon