Toyota Supra Pairs Stop-Start With A Stick Shift - It Feels So Weird

Toyota’s Supra is the first vehicle this veteran tester has ever driven that has auto stop-start paired with a manual transmission. The combo leaves you feeling uncomfortable. 

If you are reading this story, I’ll bet I can list three things about you:

1. You Love the Toyota Supra.
2. You like to drive a stick-shifted manual transmission.
3. You don't like auto stop-start.

As the former owner of a stick-shifted Toyota Supra, I’m with you on numbers one and two, but I have a confession. Auto stop-start normally does not bother me. My daily driver has it, and I almost never shut it off. In test vehicles I am fortunate to receive, I also don't often disable the stop-start feature. There are rare exceptions, but I kind of like the car to be quiet when I sit at a light. I value the dollar - what’s left of it - and prefer not to waste gas. However, the Supra I recently tested gave me the heebie jeebies when I drove it with auto stop-start. If you are a stick-shift six-sigma level nine ninja like me, you’ll understand why. 

Anyone who drives a stick knows that when you come to a stop, and you have properly placed the transmission in neutral, the car will glide to a stop and remain running at idle. However, if you forget to shift out of gear for some reason, the car will buck and shudder and then cough to a rough stop. Once you sense the car beginning that process, you instantly jam the clutch to the floor out of instinct. This prevents the car from shutting off roughly, and you can then pull or push the gear shift to neutral. 

When you have auto stop-start in a manual car, the car starts to shut off just before the vehicle is stationary, which triggers that knee-jerk reaction to push in the clutch quickly. This happens EVERY TIME you stop the Supra. Overcoming this instinct takes more than a week (that’s how long we had the pleasure of testing the Supra.)

This leads me to now join the weird club of auto writers who write stories saying that auto stop-start is not a good technology. Which I am unhappy about. I much prefer to be in the group that says, "why are we not using hybrid and/or electric propulsion in every car?" With those technologies, one doesn’t need auto stop-start, since the powertrain doesn’t run when it stops or slows anyway. 

Luckily (sort of) for Supra owners, there is an override switch to turn off the auto stop-start, and will you look at that! It’s directly next to the stick. It's almost like some person at the Toyota design center knew this pairing was an abomination and wanted to do their part to make it tolerable. Sadly, the switch resets with each restart of the car. 

You won't find many folks who love rear-drive Toyota sports cars more than I do. Every review I write about them is a downright love letter. However, having owned a stick-shift Yodas and many other cars with sticks, I’m now saddled with this instinct to jam the clutch every time I glide to a stop and the 2024 Supra starts to shut off. Tell me what you think in the comments. Should this pairing have ever happened?
 

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John Goreham is an experienced New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work at our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ Grammarly grammar and punctuation software when proofreading.  

2024 Toyota stick shift image by John Goreham