– DEAR TOM AND RAY: My fiancee is European, and they all drive stick shifts over there! When I visited, I had to pay more to rent a car with an automatic. It seems to be true everywhere in Europe. Everybody owns a stick-shift car. But why? I thought automatics have become just as energy-efficient as stick shifts. Why does everyone here have an automatic and everyone there have a stick shift? – August

RAY: Your observations are correct, August. In Europe, about 85 percent of cars are sold with stick shifts. Here in America, about 95 percent are sold with automatics. Why?

TOM: Traditionally, gasoline has been much more expensive in Europe. So Europeans have always done everything they possibly can to maximize their gas mileage.

RAY: That included buying the smallest car they could tolerate, forcing their mothers-in-law to run alongside them on the highway to save weight and, traditionally, using a stick shift to improve mileage.

TOM: In America, we’ve never cared much about fuel economy, since gas has always been cheap. We’ve always bought the biggest cars we could afford, and we’ve wanted them to be extensions of our living rooms, with everything automatic, from the transmission to the radio volume, the seat position and the climate control.

RAY: But something strange has happened, and it’ll be interesting to see whether Europeans take note: Automatics are becoming more efficient than stick shifts.

TOM: Early automatics did get worse mileage than their stick-shift counterparts, due to the inherent “slippage” necessary to make an automatic work, and because automatics traditionally had fewer gears than stick shifts (the more gears you have, the easier it is to find the most efficient gear for any given situation).

RAY: But now, while stick shifts come in five- and six-speed varieties, automatics are now coming in six-, seven- and eight-speed varieties. And where built-in “slippage” used to be accepted as the trade-off for living without a clutch, lock-up torque converters and, especially, new “dual clutch automatics” are reducing or even eliminating the slippage altogether.

TOM: So the question is, How long will it take the European culture to catch up with the changes in technology? Given that they just recently stopped referring to us as “the colonies,” I’m guessing the answer will be decades rather than weeks.

RAY: But let us know. Sounds like you’ll be heading over there on a regular basis for the next 40 or 50 years. So drop us a note every once in a while and let us know if you’re seeing any changes.

DEAR TOM AND RAY:

I have a 1993 Subaru Loyale 4-wheel-drive wagon. The transmission-fluid dipstick has broken off the cap. The stem is down the fill tube beyond where I can reach it with a telescoping magnet. I tried to grasp it with a long pair of hemostats, but was unable to get far enough down to grasp it. Tape back-wrapped on a piece of wire was not sticky enough to get it out that way, either. Is the car safe to drive? I purchased a replacement cap/dipstick and can check the level, which is fine. I’m worried that driving it will end up pushing the broken piece into the transmission. Any idea how to remove it, or how much money it will take to have a shop do it? — Ken

RAY: You’re worried about a broken dipstick on a 1993 Loyale, Ken? Isn’t that like worrying about the barnacles on the Andrea Doria?

TOM: Actually, if you have an automatic transmission, you have nothing to worry about, Ken. Since the dipstick’s lateral movement is confined by the tube, the end of the stick is just going to sit there on the bottom of the transmission pan, where it won’t bother anything. There are no gears or anything in that part of the automatic transmission, and the stick can’t go anywhere.

RAY: So if it’s an automatic, just use your new stick to keep an eye on the fluid level, and otherwise forget about it.

TOM: On the other hand, if you have a manual transmission, then you need to remove that thing. There’s nothing BUT gears in a manual transmission, so the stick could get chewed up by the gears and ruin your transmission AND your differential.

RAY: The first thing to try is a more powerful magnet. If you can still see the top of the dipstick, and it’s not wedged in there somehow, a more powerful magnet ought to be able to grab it for you.

TOM: If not, the next step is to have a mechanic remove the tube itself. The dipstick tube usually is just force-fit into the transmission housing, or maybe held in place by a single bolt and a bracket. So if you’re still on speaking terms with any local mechanics, have one of them pull out the tube for you, and then remove the broken piece of dipstick.

RAY: And if worse comes to worst, and the tube gets damaged during removal, you can buy a new tube for very little money. Altogether, including labor, this is probably a $50 repair if you get to it soon. Or a $2,000 repair if you dawdle.

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