mlennyma wrote:@matatuman from your experience which is better, a 14 seater manual or automatic 14 seater?
Sorry to hijack matatumans question... If you can then go for a manual. Reason being as follows:
1. first and most important is that you will one day need to sell the matatu. An old manual mat will be off the shelve much faster than an auto mat, and will certainly sell at a much higher price.
2. Consumption for a manual vehicle tends to be slightly better, coupled with better power. Quite a number of automatics become sluggish and suffer loss of power upon aging. Majority of the mats on our route even find a hill like kambiti on the meru-nairobi highway troublesome. Majority of nguruwes (townace/liteace) came as autos but have had their transmission changed to manual.
3. Driving patterns. Sad but the fact of the matter is that our drivers just do not know how to drive automatics. They will rev the mats crazy trying to get the same prformance as manuals, and in an attempt to save on fuel they will coast downhill.
Now to the paradox. My second mat is an auto. and so far so good. I did not have sufficient cash to do a manual so i opted for an auto diesel. Fuel is just higher than the manual by around 200 per day over a distance of around 260 km. So far so good. Im not worried much about resale since im in it for the long haul. I try to be very regular in maintenance and with superior products. Driving patterns... working on it with my driver. Gradual acceleration, stopping the acceleration if he anticipates to brake ahead etc.