this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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The transmission doesn't control the air conditioner
My 98 automatic truck has 3 knobs. Fan speed, temperature, and source (head, feet, both, etc.).
Sorry, no, I meant that as an analogy. The image OP posted referred to a hand fan as the "manual" version of air conditioning, but I disagree.
I see that.
I'm still curious about why you don't think that the "automatic" is good, though.
In my MT AC I can pick max cold, max hot, or somewhere in the middle by mixing cold and hot.
The AT AC can do max cold, max hot, and then gives you numbers for the middle.
If I want my MT AC truck to be middle temperature, I have to crank the heat until it gets hot and then manually turn down the temperature until I'm comfortable at half.
If I got into an AT AC truck then I could just set the temperature to half and it will automatically crank the heat until it gets hot and then automatically turn down the temperature until I'm comfortable at half.
Other than AT AC having more stuff to break and higher cost of repair. AT AC gives you the same temperature experience without you having to turn the knob multiple times. It automatically does it for you.
Because getting from max hot to max cold means pressing a button up or down for each degree. And there is lag between the car temp sensor detecting the current temp and the change in air temp and fan speed. On top of all that, the human body doesn't have a thermostat. What feels comfortable depends on your internal body temp, humidity, how sunny it is, what activities you've just done or will do, what you're wearing, and how many other people are in the car. This information cannot be summarized in a single number. It doesn't give you what you want automatically, and you need to tweak it up and down anyway.
Instinctively, you know exactly whether you want hot or cold air and how strong you want it to blow. I could either turn two knobs to get exactly what I want, or I could press buttons to guess at the temperature that is going to trick the automated systen into giving me what I want without knowing if I will need to make additional adjustments later. Worse still, making adjustments means taking my eyes off the road to see what number I've put into the system. This problem is compounded exponentially if the car has a touch screen and I need to navigate menus to adjust the AC.
The worst part about it is that it's entirely unnecessary. The knobs worked fine. Some older cars has sliders ir buttons, but knobs seemed to be the thing everyone liked, and the automated system didn't improve on that. You still have to adjust the air, but the interface to make adjustments is objectively worse.
They were making an analogy that fit better than OP, not actually suggesting air con was affected by what kind of gearbox your car has.