If ya don't mind the drive to the Antelope Valley or your dealer can contact Rally Chevrolet in Palmdale, they have a black on black SS with auto and sun-roof. I sat in it while I ordered an '09 with 5-speed. It's got 31 test driven miles on it.

 

There is a bit of a difference, pretty much everything. The LT is rated at 149hp 152tq. The SS is 260/260. There is a huge difference, suspension wise too, everything wise. IMO after driving and SS you don't want anything less.

If you like driving for more then going from point A to point B, hold out and get an 5 speed, not saying auto's can't be fun, but it won't ever be more fun than a manual. Again, IMO.

 

I'm debating the choice of automatic vs. manual for a 2009 SS Panel. The auto will have the remote start feature, the manual will have the limited slip feature....am I right? Somewhere in here I stumbled onto a link for an after market limited slip for the auto. Has anybody put one in? I'm getting older (50) so my driving style has mellowed a little bit. I'm leaning toward the auto choice, but still undecided. How much performance will I lose?

 

I have the auto cause I can't drive a stick and in Dallas stop-n-go traffic a stick is not beneficial.

 

A4 because my other car is an M6. Call me weird, but I don't see SS as a real performance car. Neither the A4 or M5 are real fast, so buy what ever makes you happy.

 

SS not a real performance car? With just a tune you are looking at around 320hp. If that's not a performance I don't know what is.

It may not be your typical 2 door performance coupe with a V8, but it certainly has a performance aspect to it.

 

I drove and auto because that was the only one on the lot. Then I made them find a 5-speed and that is what I bought. IMO this car should only come with a 5-speed.

 

Yep, but GM couldn’t afford to do that,…………they would only sell 10 cars!

 

Do you have a dyno plot of this 'tune'? I would like to see the power under the curve, but my guess is most of the power gain is on the top end between 3500 and 6300. Nice for dyno queen's but not that useful for the daily driver.

Don't get me wrong, the 2.0L in the SS is a very cool engine with a very high hp/ci (efficient) coefficient. The whole car is awful darn cool, just not a super performance machine. I drove both the M5 and A4, with the M5 being a little more fun because of the available LSD. If I could get the LSD in the A4, that would be perfect.

Happy motoring!

 

Well, the stick is awesome but I got the auto because I wanted the remote start feature. Plus the only Black SS around these parts was an auto and I wanted Black and I wanted it now :-)

Either way, you can't lose.