Any kind of offroading is going to stress your auto, your gas mileage will also suffer. I used to have a grand cherokee that i beat offroad it was on 30" tires no lift and had the 4.0L had it for a few months then sold it because the trans started acting funny. I have a stick cherokee now with 32" tires on 3.07 gears and those gears suck offroad but my gas mileage is better than a STOCK auto cherokee, yet mine has a light bar, steel bumper, winch, armor, 32s and 5" of lift.... yet still gets better gas mileage than a stock cherokee, and much better than a lifted one. Theres no doubt about it a stick can get old everyonce in a while, but i think its worth the fact that i get DOUBLE the gas mileage of my friends v8 ZJ on 32s and 3.5" of lift... yes DOUBLE.



As far as performance goes, at least i dont have to worry about burning up my torque convertor b/c my tires are too big or a hill is too steep. Also dont have to worry about dunking my trans. It may be harder to drive offroad, but that is because it requires more SKILL and unless your some ***** who's to lazy to shift gears than you better learn the ropes of the rocks

That said, i dont even run rocks, but with low enough gearing, an ax15 is unstoppable offroad, much more accurate (that is IF your gearing is low enough that you can let out the clutch in 1st gear 4LOW and just crawl), if you got that and you touch the gas, it will go, no torque convertor to burn anything off **** just GOES! plus you can chose any specific gear for the terrain, i had a friend who had 35s on 4.88s and he would use (in 4 low of course) 2nd for crawling, 3rd for regular wheeling and 4th and 5th for cruising/mud/water), then he would use 1st if he had to go like straight up or something rediculous. Very nice way to do it in my opinon...

LONG LIVE THE AX15!!!

 

i agree, i can get it just right to go on the rocks, i just dont like flopping and scratching the **** out of it. thats mainly why i dont do rocks. mud is funner and doesnt break as much stuff (unless you hit buried junk..haha)

 

sooo manuals win just make sure you get a ax15 not an ax5

 

I never seen any auto's burn up their torque converters before.