On Fri, 3 Mar 95 10:21:09 CST <stevie@tekgen.bv.tek.com> said:
>Speaking of automatics, what's the reliability and MPG penalty? Because
>of my wifes shoulder injury I'm considering the automatic. Would hate
>to loose any hard to come by power though!

when i had my 1991 vanagon with automatic (for about a year), my mpg average
was about 18 mpg ... which wasn't too bad considering that the manual gets
about 19.5 average (for 83,000 miles. the 91 auto had 13,000 miles). in town,
it's great (no shifting) but the mpg suffers more: about 16 mpg in town.

don't know about reliability, though. mine seemed to use a bit of tranny oil
every month or so. not very much at all, but since i had never had an
automatic before, i was worried about it. the service folks said it was no
big deal (for the amount it was using). so i don't know.

i was actually impressed with the bus ... but my left foot sure felt funny,
and i'd keep stabbing at air with that foot every time i came up to a stop.
the auto is NOT any speed-demon, and it shifts a little funny if you drive
near a shift point (it'll keep going up, down, up, down) ... so i would either
speed up a couple of mph or slow down to keep the tranny happy.

joel