Autos and Flappy Paddles

hgotsparkle

This is just a general pondering - not something I'm planning on looking into, but if you have an automatic only licence (as I do as I have arthritis in my left knee so clutch work would be painful for me when my knee is bad), can you drive a car with the flappy paddle gears behind the steering wheel? (not sure of the proper name of them, sorry!)

neilmcl

Yes you can.

TonyMMM

You will probably find that most such systems (which have various names depending on manufacturers) have a full automatic setting as an option so you don't need to use the paddles at all if you don't want to.

Lum

As far as I can tell, the deciding factor is whether or not you are required to operate a clutch yourself.

Doesn't matter a jot how it works internally, you aren't required to have a torque converter or anything like that.


Aside: Most car people will know what you mean by flappy paddles, since Clarkson popularised that term.

hgotsparkle

I was thinking the likes of Honda, where they have that i-shift option. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I gaged flappy paddles from looking at pictures of the dash.

Lum

Any system that does the physical work of changing the gears for you, be it a traditional auto, tiptronic, CVT or a automated manual with a silly name like i-shift, DSG, SMG, MSG etc. can be driven with an auto licence.

hgotsparkle

Thanks Lum, that clears it up for me