Another issue with manual transmission that others have not mentioned is the annoyance as a passenger. I can understand the joy for the driver but as a passenger, I always find it quite annoying in older cars. In fact, I would probably cancel my Lyft/Uber ride if I knew the coming car is a manual.
Manual transmission, no matter how old, is only annoying if the driver doesn't know how to drive it. It's less likely in the US, but with European taxi drivers, it's much less noticeable than an automatic transmission.
Exactly. The ride is completely smooth with a skilled manual transmission driver, much smoother than with an automatic. The small maneuvers of parking, in particular, are smoother with the skilled use of a manual transmission: parallel parking, backing into a spot and adjusting the position, and such.
