First the good news I wanted to share. After checking out several “toads” I believe that I have finally got a prince of a wagon, one of those rare one owner cars that come with a dealer stamped book for maintenance service for every single service. The car also checked out very well on the used car inspection and the couple of very minor things that needed attention were done. This car joins my other wagon, the 1980 DL. My daughter will usually be driving this except if I need it for out of town driving. The big switch for me on this car is that it is an automatic. I have driven manual transmission pretty much exclusively for decades, I prefer mamnual and to me it is very easy and I really feel in control of the car. I did drive the new car over the holidays including a few hours on the freeway. The car is great, however because I am not used to automatic it seemed less “nippy” than my other car when accelerating from a stop or merging into freeway traffic but that is probably because I am not using it properly. Now here is the really “dumb” question. How do I utilize the gears on the automatic appropriately for the best operation of the car, when and how do I shift to the lower gears, and in particular when and how do I use the “fourth gear disengage” button on the lefthandside of the shifter knob? So far I have just used reverse, drive, and park! I want to drive this car well and keep the transmission in good running order and not do anything to it that would shorten its life. I love my old manual transmission car, but I also need to feel as at home in the 92 automatic!
Thanks for reading this, and any advice you can give me