Originally Posted by kurtz

it isn't that the manual shift in the 2is sucks. *Yes it does - bigtime

it's that it's not a manual shift. At all. *In function, no. But in design, yes. Thus the paddles.

It's a top gear limiter. That's all it does. *Understood

it can fool you into thinking it's you doing any shifting under certain circumstances, but it's not. Ever. *Understood

it really is not significantly better than a column shifted automatic, because it's still, always, 100% fully automatic. *Yes it is....a good deal better, but still pretty disappointing, lexus.

Moving the stick from d to s-4 is, for all practical purposes, doing exactly the same thing that clicking the "od off" button did on a 1986 tercel. Limiting your fully automatic transmission to only the non-od gears. *Of course

folks who keep using the paddles or stick thinking they're shifting the car seem to not understand this though.

Originally Posted by replica

*no, it's us folks that want a manual in this car that are determined to have some involvement in controlling the gear selection....thus, not just putting it in 'd' like my wife does. I use the 'manual' shift function more than most, and probably more than lexus expects. But again, it's a pretty lame attempt by lexus to make their sports sedan sporty. I expect that the 3rd gen is will be better in that regard.