Well, if I made one mistake, it would be that you miss gears with SMT, but in reality, it's rather impossible to miss a gear... (but still possible to forget which one you're in if you're not careful)

As for being slower than regular manual... You obviously didn't read up on why SMTs are put into nearly all race cars... (You win races by saving time)

As for the rev matching, I don't think that is standard in SMT, but rather an electronic system added to the SMT as a feature... SMT does stand for Sequential Manual Transmission which has nothing to do with rev matching... It just means a bunch of gears lined up in order...

The ONLY advantage to a H pattern shift is that it lets you skip a gear and THIS is why heel toe is mainly used... If you brake hard enough, you can downshift without gasing with the car still being stable... But when you're doing 2 or 3 gears, it becomes a rather large difference in revs to keep the tires rolling steadily...

The only difference in the mechanics of SMT is the way it selects gears, where the H pattern has teeth and slots to lock it's transmission, the SMT has a rotation drum which locks in it's gears.. The drum has grooves in it which the fork rides in...

A SMT is really more worthy on a race car simply because you really can forget what gear you're going in a road car if you didn't have the H to feel for... Since you get a lot of stop and go in a road car vs an ever rolling race car, your gear shifting can go form 4th to N once you see a red light... And crusing around in 4th you do forget sometimes if it's 3rd in a SMT...

To each their own though, you can never rip a H pattern shifter away from me since I learned how to drive a stick... Even though I do miss gears and grind a bit, theres just no feeling of a 4 - 2 done prefectly to make a turn really really smooth...

 

I guess no one makes a SMT with a 3rd pedal so I guess it does have to rev match =P

That right there would drive me nuts!! That'll bring out too much left foot brakers!!

 

Uh, I'm only talking about the Toyota SMT. I know no other - sorry.

Anything I mentioned regarding the SMT is the one on the Toyota MR2 Spyder. It may be a unique setup -- in fact I know it's pretty unique.

You're right, sometimes you don't know what gear you're in. It doesn't bother me pretty much. If you lose track and driving really slow like in a parking lot - it doesn't really matter if you're in 2nd or 3rd gear. If too high, then just downshift.

If driving faster and you want to be always at the ready, you will have to downshift - that would be a good thing. You have to pay attention to the engine and the revs. It is a manual, so you can't just hit the gas and expect it to be at the optimum gear.

Like I said though -- I have no other SMT experience except the Toyota SMT. As far as I know, there is only one car with it... And I personally would take a good look at whatever new car Toyota puts it in.

I am pre-sold :D you might say. It doesn't bother me what others' opinion is on it -- like I said, many people prefer the feel of the regular manual (I think I described them as purists ).

 

Dude, don't worry -- there is no SMT in the tC. :D


...I think I'm gonna take pics of my xA soon - that'll be cool.