Itinerant Air-Cooled

What do folks think?

Damn, I miss Mike. He knew all about 'em. Sorry my post isn't at all helpful, but I just had to stop and remember our friend for just a minute.

Edit: A potentially helpful thought just occurred. Doesn't our friend Don (aka vwlover77) have an autostick convertible? Perhaps he'll chime in.

People I've known who have them like them. Test drove one once. Funky.


neal

I had a buddy that had one when they first came out. I've always thought they were kind of neat. A little quirky but so are spare tire powered windshield washers.

I recall that I had the misfortune to own an 'autostick' at one time. I have tried to erase the memory of that experience as much as possible. The car was a total dog to drive, and was in the shop more than out. I had to almost pay someone to take it away in order to be rid of it.

Just one person's experience. Take it for what it's worth. Personally, I would run away.

Tim

I am thinking of taking a look at one up in Battleground on Wednesday. Anyone want to ride shotgun? Would be an evening thing.

Let me know what time. You're almost to Amboy.


neal

Neal,

Will do - PM me a number? Looking like Thursday evening "if it isn't sold by then" the guy said.

M

Looking forward to it.


neal

Didn't get it, bummer it wasn't closer to you though Neal it was fun to drive in a "that's weird" kind of way. Not a bad little bug, 15 minutes with Colin and the carb would even probably be set to rights. Very nice guy, he has a potential buyer with a history with autosticks, so it is better off going to them I think. I suspect if you get used to it is is probably fine.

The hunt continues!

I've only test driven an autostick once.

Well, there was that youthful evening some decades ago that found me at the helm of someone else's autostick beetle. Sheesh, it was probably fairly new then.

But relatively speaking, only maybe five years ago, giving an autostick ghia that was for sale a test drive built my impressions. Slow off the line. No chance to play Mario Andrette like you can with four gears. But I only had a short time with it. For sure a cruiser. Less chance for silliness that can get you into trouble. That may not be a bad thing.


neal

My first car, a '72 Super Beetle, was an auto-stick when I purchased it. It was fun to drive, and the auto-stick system was mechanically pretty sound (well, as far as my 18-year-old self was aware). But it eventually developed that electrical gremlin where that electrical switch in the stickshift didn't make reliable contact, so the clutch wouldn't actuate, and it suddenly became much less fun to drive. Nightmare, really.

I remember replacing the contact button in the stickshift and trying to adjust it optimally, but I could never get it back to where it would shift reliably. I eventually swapped it for a standard manual transmission. The mechanic I got the standard from made out like a bandit: I paid him $175 for the privilege of giving him all the auto-stick parts in exchange for all the bits I would need for the manual shift.

Yeah... Autosticks are weird. I've worked on and driven a couple. I can say for a fact that the 1300 in my Ghia would smoke the paint off the autostick 1600 ghia I've driven.

They are an odd design, truly an "Automatic Standard", with basically the same design as the usual vw 4spd and clutch, only with three forward gears and a torque converter in place of a flywheel, and a solenoid actuated vacuum diaphragm in place of a clutch cable. Simple and strong, but with plenty of strange quirks (such as the ATF pump running in tandem with the engine oil pump, with low hanging metal lines running from the rear of the engine to the trans begging to snag on something or rust through.)

Maybe it's just that I'm used to a real stick, but I find them more challenging to drive than one. If you don't time the shifter movement and gas pedal movements just right they get cranky, and if you adjust the clutch solenoid enough to avoid this, the clutch burns out fairly quickly. And no, you don't want to change a clutch in one.

DjEep wrote:Yeah... Autosticks are weird. I've worked on and driven a couple. I can say for a fact that the 1300 in my Ghia would smoke the paint off the autostick 1600 ghia I've driven.

They are an odd design, truly an "Automatic Standard", with basically the same design as the usual vw 4spd and clutch, only with three forward gears and a torque converter in place of a flywheel, and a solenoid actuated vacuum diaphragm in place of a clutch cable. Simple and strong, but with plenty of strange quirks (such as the ATF pump running in tandem with the engine oil pump, with low hanging metal lines running from the rear of the engine to the trans begging to snag on something or rust through.)

Maybe it's just that I'm used to a real stick, but I find them more challenging to drive than one. If you don't time the shifter movement and gas pedal movements just right they get cranky, and if you adjust the clutch solenoid enough to avoid this, the clutch burns out fairly quickly. And no, you don't want to change a clutch in one.

Bookwus had a sweet AutoStick bug. If you run through the gears, it was reasonably quick.
You *can* double-touch with an AutoStick (parallels double-clutching in a manual).

How did I miss this thread until now? Yes, I do have a '71 Autostick Super Convertible, and have owned it since 1990. I have to admit the Autostick seemed like a negative when I was looking to buy the car, but now that I've lived with it, I have grown to like it. It's actually perfect for relaxed cruising around town with the top down. On the highway, it seems to sap the power and MPG a bit, but it's tolerable. In fact, I just drove it 250 total highway miles yesterday taking my oldest daughter back to college.

I've never had any problems with the Autostick system.