Why the dislike for CVTs?

[OppositeLocK]

[/QUOTE]

Europe having better drivers is debatable to begin with; it has less to do with transmission choice and to do with training, testing, and licensing. There is also a different regard for rules in general.

I'll keep my fake tips too. It's much rather them not be there at all, but if I have to choose between cleaning DI soot and a "fake," I'll take the fake.

Haha, fake exhaust tips are just below flame decals on the sidewells on a cringe scale.

 

[OppositeLocK]

And I don't get a ****, getting stuck in hours of heavy stop/go traffic blows in a stick, period. Been there when I lived outside of D.C. I enjoy driving a stick, but that part was never fun to me.

I honestly make a game of it that it's way more fun in my manual than my luxury pickup. It's easy on the highway because I'm excellent at crawling. Leave a bit of a gap and you're fine. How do you think big rigs do it?

Only thing that bothers me is taking life away from the clutch but that's it.

 

[TiGeo]

I honestly make a game of it that it's way more fun in my manual than my luxury pickup. It's easy on the highway because I'm excellent at crawling. Leave a bit of a gap and you're fine. How do you think big rigs do it?

Only thing that bothers me is taking life away from the clutch but that's it.

I know the technique well - again, given a choice, I'd still take an auto in those conditions. When I moved to the northern VA/traffic hell-hole in 2000, I had a 4x4 Toyota pickup, stick. I sold it 3 mos. later for a 2000 XJ Cherokee with an auto. Ended up back in a stick a few years later when our son was born in a cost-cutting binge - sold the Cherokee and bought an older Civic coupe/stick for a paid-for commuter. Had a Jetta after that that was a manual then my Focus which is a stick which my teenage son now drives which leaves me back in my Sportswagen with the DSG. The Sportwagen decision was tough, I could have done the 6-speed but went DSG as I knew I would add power/larger turbo etc. which would have required a new clutch, the DSG holds so much more power with no fuss and only required a software tune to get the clamping pressure/shift points sorted for the ECU tune and hardware. Love the wagon.

 

[odie]

Through the years of test drives of different makes and models with C.V.T. I didn't notice any variance from that of 5 or 6 speed automatics .

 

[OppositeLocK]

I know the technique well - again, given a choice, I'd still take an auto in those conditions. When I moved to the northern VA/traffic hell-hole in 2000, I had a 4x4 Toyota pickup, stick. I sold it 3 mos. later for a 2000 XJ Cherokee with an auto. Ended up back in a stick a few years later when our son was born in a cost-cutting binge - sold the Cherokee and bought an older Civic coupe/stick for a paid-for commuter. Had a Jetta after that that was a manual then my Focus which is a stick which my teenage son now drives which leaves me back in my Sportswagen with the DSG. The Sportwagen decision was tough, I could have done the 6-speed but went DSG as I knew I would add power/larger turbo etc. which would have required a new clutch, the DSG holds so much more power with no fuss and only required a software tune to get the clamping pressure/shift points sorted for the ECU tune and hardware. Love the wagon.
View attachment 28065

I respect that.

 

[TiGeo]

I respect that.

I will say that I am v. happy that I was able to pass a manual down to my oldest son/teenager - I'd say he is a far better driver b/c of it. I just taught my middle son that has his permit how to drive it as well but his vehicle is an auto so he will likely not drive one regularly. Hard to find them really, but VW is a great brand if you like manuals. My wife has had her share of sticks so is also part of the club. We're GenXers so driving a stick was somewhat normal in the late '80s when we started driving.

 

[Dragstrip]

Maybe if they make a CVT where you can manually select the gears. Optionally. Would it then be just a two-pedal car, unless they added in the 3rd for the purists?

 

[philipp10]

CVTs drain the souls of men.

and automatics don't? As soon as you throw a fluid coupling (torque converter) in the driveline....there is NO soul.

 

[Skippy722]

and automatics don't? As soon as you throw a fluid coupling (torque converter) in the driveline....there is NO soul.

ZF’s torque converter locks at a pretty low rpm/speed. Gives it that nice direct feeling manuals have.

 

[Rand]

and automatics don't? As soon as you throw a fluid coupling (torque converter) in the driveline....there is NO soul.

some lock up as soon as you are moving and stay locked.

 

[PimTac]

some lock up as soon as you are moving and stay locked.

Yep the Mazda SkyActiv automatic locks up around 5mph.

 

[TiGeo]

and automatics don't? As soon as you throw a fluid coupling (torque converter) in the driveline....there is NO soul.

Oh good...safe with my dual clutch.

 

[walterjay]

Seems like this thread has tun its course

 

[Surestick]

And I don't get a ****, getting stuck in hours of heavy stop/go traffic blows in a stick, period. Been there when I lived outside of D.C. I enjoy driving a stick, but that part was never fun to me.

That's not fun, full stop.
Doing it in a manual only adds a slight increase in workload.

 

[FordMan59]

I bought my first CVT about 1.5 years ago in a 2016 Nissan Versa. I bought the Versa on short notice and hadn't been keeping up with Nissan's problems with the CVT and didn't learn about them until after I'd already bought it. The Versa had been wrecked and has a rebuilt title. When I bought it it had 10K miles. I bought it for $5300. So far I've been satisfied with the CVT but, I'm an old man now and my hot rodding days have been over for years. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned about how well the CVT will hold up but, I figure at the price I got it for if I can get 100K miles out of it without a serious problem I will have got my money's worth out of it. The Versa is now at 24K and has been problem free. I plan to do a transmission drain/fill/filter every 30K miles hoping to keep the CVT happy for years to come. The Versa was including in the last class action so at least I'm covered under warranty till 7yr./84K miles. My biggest complaint with the CVT is that if I have the c/c set on hilly terrain when I start up a steeper hill the rpm's go crazy sometimes jumping from 1.5-4K in a matter of seconds. I've found I can cancel the c/c and feather the gas keeping the speed up and keep rpm's 1-1.5K lower than letting the c/c regulate the speed. I figure that's a lot easier on the transmission too. In the 13.6K miles I've put on the Versa the worst mpg I've had on it was the first tank I ran through it at 42.345 mpg and the best is 54.641 mpg. My overall mpg average since purchase is 48.217 mpg. Each of my last 7 fills the mpg has been 50+ mpg. Most of my driving consists of rural 2 and 4 lane roads in the 40-55 mph range with a little small town driving. I've never had any other car with a standard a/t or manual that would consistently deliver the mileage the CVT does. I'm not a hard core hypermiler either. About the only tricks in my bag are driving slower than the average person, watching traffic conditions ahead of me letting off the gas and coasted when I see traffic ahead of me slowing down and trying to time traffic lights when I'm in town.

 

[odie]

Learned manual with old Beetle . Drove stick off and on for 30+ years . Helps keep you alert . Last manual was a '14 Mirage on a short test drive .

 

[OppositeLocK]

Maybe if they make a CVT where you can manually select the gears. Optionally. Would it then be just a two-pedal car, unless they added in the 3rd for the purists?

There is no point to manually "shifting" a CVT.

A third pedal in an automatic car is about the craziest thing I've heard.

 

[bbhero]

There is no point to manually "shifting" a CVT.

A third pedal in an automatic car is about the craziest thing I've heard.

I can manually shift my CVT... With a shifter in the middle of my car. Obviously no 3rd pedal.

I certainly agree 100 percent... A third pedal in a "automatic" makes no sense.

Though where it actually helps a WHOLE lot... In the mountains... I have driven down from Lover's Leap at 3,300 ft down to 1,500 ft on Rte 58 without hardly having to touch the brake pedal. There are parts of that road where the grade is 11 percent. Which is quite steep in dropping elevation. And I manually shifted my car with the CVT and kept it in lower great and barely touched the brakes. It worked just has well as a old school manual... Like my 1989 Ford Probe 5 speed manual.

I drove that car the 89 Ford Probe in the mountains and because I knew what to do.... I barely had to use my brakes going down those curvy mountain roads. The first time I drove in the mountains at 18 years old and at 12 midnight and obviously pitch dark on one of the curviest roads to drive on in southwest Virginia aka old Rte 600 up and over Mt Whitetop and then over the next mountain which was way, way curvy ... My car was totally in step and never felt crazy going down those mountain roads.

I was very pleased with how well the CVT manual shifting worked in my car. I have used it a good number of times since that time on Rte 58... All over the mountains of Vermont and Western North Carolina and western Virginia. It does work very well to help slow my car down going down mountain roads.

 

[Gasbuggy]

For your standard economy commuter, CVTs make a lot of sense. More fuel efficient and easier to keep a lesser engine in its power band. It can also be extremely smooth. I see no advantages to a slush box auto over a CVT in something like a Corolla, Civic, CRV, Forester. Yes, reliability was a concern at the beginning but that's largely been resolved. Modern CVTs are no less reliable than slush boxes.

I agree for trucks, they shouldn't have CVTs. But I always laugh when people say it's not sporty enough because it has a CVT. You want sporty, get a manual. There's nothing sporty about any automatic tranny.

Some of us will trade .5 mpg for better reliability, the ability to select 2nd gear manually in the snow etc, or on a steep wet hill, mud, wherever...The blah driving experience is terrible. WOT sounds atrocious. Have you seen how slow a 4cyl Accord CVT vs a manual is? Improves performance? In what vehicle is that the case? No modern auto would leave that much of a performance gap, they're often faster than a manual in certain cars.

CVT was a cost saving measure and MPG eeek out.

 

[demarpaint]

I'm a member of a Facebook group dedicated to the Nissan Altima, and there's multiple posts everyday about the CVT in even the newer 2016 and up models. Failures left and right. One of the group admins is a tech at a Nissan dealer, and he said between 1/4-1/3 of his workload is warranty claims on CVT transmissions. He posted a picture a few months ago of two 2019 Altimas and a 2019 Maxima next to each other on lifts in the shop all for CVT issues.

Perhaps Honda and Toyota have better luck with them. I personally have not looked into them enough to find out.

When something has problems early on like the CVT did the bitter taste lingers for those who had the problems, and word spreads fast. Those who learned from the mistakes of others avoid the technology altogether, like I did. Sooner or later it will get ironed out. If Nissan is still having problems in 2019 it appears theirs still needs work. Fortunately for me the vehicles I like don't use CVT transmissions.