When I took my Malibu in for service, the advisor asked if I wanted to change the transmission fluid. I asked something along the lines of "isn't it supposed to be lifetime? and he answered along the lines of what you said.
How to drive CVT
- Thread starter tshephard
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Yeah, I hate that car. It was a family hand me down. Has the turning radius of a cruise ship. LOL Doesn't even have a cabin air filter.
But, was I a rough patch, and needed some wheels. Healing up from back surgery, again. Once that's healed, I'll change the fluid and filter, then do some spill and fills to get he muck out. Useless car, 2 door with 4 bucket seats. Runs well though. I'll give it some TLC when I get better. Don't use it much, I'm retired. Gonna need it to get back and forth to Physical Therapy. Easy to work on. Has that 4cyl in it. Plenty of room under the hood
But, was I a rough patch, and needed some wheels. Healing up from back surgery, again. Once that's healed, I'll change the fluid and filter, then do some spill and fills to get he muck out. Useless car, 2 door with 4 bucket seats. Runs well though. I'll give it some TLC when I get better. Don't use it much, I'm retired. Gonna need it to get back and forth to Physical Therapy. Easy to work on. Has that 4cyl in it. Plenty of room under the hoodOn a Prius, the throttle isn't directly connected to the engine. It's more like a suggestion from the the driver about how fast you want the car to go. The computer makes all the decisions regarding the throttle body position, as the engine load varies relative to the amount of acceleration depending on how much energy the ECU decides to take from the traction battery at any particular time.
As was mentioned before, the CVT in a Prius operates entirely differently than "normal" CVT transmissions and has no chains or or belts. They are very robust and rarely wear out before the car does.
To prevent excess engine wear, treat it the same as any ICE vehicle and drive it gently at first when the engine is cold to give it a chance to warm up before doing any heavy accelerating.
As was mentioned before, the CVT in a Prius operates entirely differently than "normal" CVT transmissions and has no chains or or belts. They are very robust and rarely wear out before the car does.
To prevent excess engine wear, treat it the same as any ICE vehicle and drive it gently at first when the engine is cold to give it a chance to warm up before doing any heavy accelerating.
They do, have had at least 9 Honda CVTs, always serviced by a Honda Certified Master Technician who has consistently reccomended driving them normally, NEVER shifting from forward to reverse (or the opposite) unless COMPLETELY stopped and a spill-n-fill using ONLY genuine Honda fluid at 30k intervals. Have never had an issue following this advice.That's fantastic news ! 2 Toyo trannys that don't need service. Somebody tell Honda how to build a tranny
Double clutching like you should and no granny shifting. If you live your life a quarter mile at a time, that is
I’m in that camp and change my fluid once a year. So far so good. But, my niece through marriage proved this theory wrong. She went to Penn state, so lots of hot highway cruises the the hills from northern Ohio in a 2017 Altima. @150k I serviced her cvt (never touched). What came out resembled a neglected diesel oil change, I was in shock that not only did the cvt shift well, it drove as nice as one of my new well maintained cvts. Two drain and fills later and the fluid was clear. A pan drop reveled next to no fuzz on the magnets. Meanwhile, not long ago, a cvt may grenade at low miles. This was over a year ago and it still runs like a Swiss watch. My 07 murano is probably still running a college kid around @ over 300k. A trusted mechanic for Nissan says that cvt failures are a rare occurrence compared to 10 yrs ago, and they’ve strangely tuned them to run hotter to burn off condensation. Common sense would say to service now more than ever.
" I want my TTC !!! " ( Tansmission Torque Converter ) Get it ? I want my MTV....from the 80's commercials ? HaHaHa No ? Anybody ? Ah, oh well. I hear crickets
**** that is so cool, kind of want a prius now.
There are thousands and thousands of Prius cabs that get driven with 80%+ throttle everywhere for 3-4-500k miles, and not too many transmission failures. 40% throttle to your desired speed would be fine. I tend to run the Outback at about 25% throttle to 95km/h just to avoid fake gear shifts and maximize efficiency, but I assume a Prius doesn't simulate shifts?
Never drove a Prius. Gotta ask a California BITOG person
The best reason to be steady on the throttle is to keep the engine from cutting in and out and driving you crazy with noise.
Only advice I could give that's not covered is to be somewhat hard on the brakes once in a while to keep the slider pins free and rust off the rotors. You can even kick it into neutral to avoid regenerative braking.
Only advice I could give that's not covered is to be somewhat hard on the brakes once in a while to keep the slider pins free and rust off the rotors. You can even kick it into neutral to avoid regenerative braking.
How one drives a Toyota hybrid eCVT certainly does matter.
I've owned 4 Priuses, and now a 2021 Rav4 hybrid, and between these I've logged over 250k miles. How one drives such cars can produce very, very different MPG.
The best way to eek out the highest MPG is counter-intuitive, and would not work for gas-only cars:
From a red light, accelerate to cruising speed quickly; doing so slowly will lower your MPG. Once at cruising speed, release the accelerator for half a second to signal the hybrid system to enter maximum MPG mode, then maintain that speed. Anticipate what is happening in front of you; red light, then lay off the gas ASAP...applying brakes will regenerate the traction battery. In short, driving a hybrid slowly, especially getting up to speed slowly, will lower MPG.
This is not true, at least regarding Toyota hybrid models, present to going back 10 years. Being "steady on the throttle" defeats the hybrid system's task of eeking out the best mileage, and it can prevent the computer from giving you the best MPG. And no, the cutting in and out of the gas engine is not loud and barely perceptible. This normal behavior should not be defeated by the driver. Why drive a hybrid if you are going to cancel out its computer logic?
Just drive it. The Toyota hybrid transaxles have proven to be very reliable and durable. So many of them get abused as Ubers and taxis and still keep on ticking.
While you are correct OP was concerned about longevity not mpg.
The Prius eCVT has more in common with anvils than it does any other transmission out there. Driven for mpg or in anger.
Don't overthink it. Drive the car like you'd normally drive any other car but be religious with the CVT recommended maintenance.
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