The answer for the Gal, with Her Husband & 15 year old, and the dispute about working the clutch & transmission, of HER Car, stunk. If there will be error, that should go the the side of prematurely wearing out the part that was meant to be worn out any way. The transmission should not ware out. If it is well maintained, per auto manual instructions, it should last as long as the car it was installed in. That is, unless some ham handed chuckle nut gets at it, barking the dogs, all while saying, never mind those horrible gerrrrrrinding noises. 'taint nothin' to it. Properly shifted, a transmission shouldn't make much more noise that drawing a knife through a stick of warm butter. As I heard it, the She notes that She shifts through neutral, and makes the effort to match the engine speed to the gear being selected, & the car's speed. At that, She's closer to a professional, running a heavy duty rig, floating shifts through the Eaton Fuller 15 speed. (Commercial driver; Yers Truely.) So, as I conclude, I say, clutches are made to wear out. Transmissions are not made to be broken. That is all Carry on.

Don't think wither parent will go to a driving instructor... Their habits are what they are. Whilst listening and driving, i stopped at red light in my 200 Dodge Dakota manual, and proceeded to go on green, starting in second, and shifted through 3,4 to fifth gear without touching the clutch and not hearing any grinding. Wonder if either parent can do that? LOL.

My husband has been working on cars since he was 15 yrs and thinks he knows everything about cars! He is actually very good and almost always comes up with the same answer u guys do! He rebuilt his 1st engine by age 17 and he taught this Bostonian transplant to Houston, TX, how to work on and rebuild engines and transmissions. We love your show and thanks for ya wonderful Boston accents (I have never lost mine) and Boston humor, yaz warm my heart & lift my sports every week!

I was surprised at you lousy answer to Denise, the Episcopal Priest from Maryland, about her '99 Altima. You two are more than old enough to recall when cars did not come with trip odometers. To calculate mileage, you write down the total miles when you fill up, drive, then subtract that number from the odometer reading when empty! You don't need no stinkin' trip odometer, if you have one, use it as you wish, In her case, seh's writing down mileage numbers all the time anyway. BTW, the guy from Twin Peaks CA with the Subaru that smells like buring rubber after a long uphill drive should be back on Stump the Chumps.