How reliable are the Subaru CVTs?

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Having a component of your own design manufactured by another company is VERY common. In this day and age it is ALL about the COST of manufacturing a component. If a company can have a component produced for less by an outside supplier, they WILL farm it out.
I would highly doubt that you will see JATCO marked on any part of Subaru's transmission.
 
Originally Posted By: wag123
Actually, this whole CVT transmission thing involves a complicated web of different companies.
Subaru HAS manufactured their own CVTs, but only for mini-micro cars, beginning with the Justy in 1984. In the early 2000's FHI (Subaru) formed a 50/50 partnership in a CVT transmission joint venture with, you guessed it, JATCO. JATCO is jointly owned by Nissan (and Renault, because Renault owns controlling interest in Nissan), Mitsubishi, and Suzuki. So, FHI is actually partnered with ALL of these other companies. This joint venture was specifically set up to share technology, engineer, develop, manufacture, and market CVT automatic transmissions. So, looking at it this way, one can say that Subaru does actually manufacture their own CVTs. But, the jointly owned Japanese manufacturing facility only supplies CVTs for the mini-micro cars sold in that part of the world. The larger CVTs used here are manufactured in a JATCO plant in Mexico, but it is a CVT design that is unique to Subaru. So, in a round about way, I guess one could say that Subaru manufactures their own CVT by virtue of the fact that they are partnered with JATCO.
To top it all off, Toyota owns 19% of Subaru (which, by Japanese standards, gives Toyota controlling interest). Aisin Seiki (Toyotas transmission supplier) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota. And, Toyota is occupying half of Subaru's Indiana assembly plant, building Camrys.
All of these Japanese companies form tangled webs of partnerships, joint ventures, part ownerships, and cooperative agreements that would be considered illegal in the USA. It is all VERY confusing.


Yes, I can see where you are coming from. The chain is not very clear.
 
I have to say that CVT's have improved in every way in the last 10 years. The early Murano CVT was no more reliable than an odyssey or caravan tranny. Or an early 4 speed auto. I still know more than a few people who had more than 100k on that first gent CVT doing soccer mom and weekend trailer pulling duty.

I only know 1 person who's murano CVT failed, and Nissan replaced it at 95k miles under warranty. I know another person who has close to 200k on a first gen murano with the OE CVT.

Our first Audi CVT lasted 12k miles, the replacement was fine.

Based on 04-06 CVT's I would never consider one, but...

Today's CVT's are much more reliable, and in some cases are more pleasant to drive than a traditional auto. The latest Nissan and Subaru offerings are great - especially compared to the early ones and the alternatives.

My concern is no longer drivability or reliability under normal use, my remaining concern is the same as my concern for many autos - being able to abuse it daily without it cooking itself. I don't expect to ever be doing amateur road racing in a CVT car, or an 8 or 9 speed auto car.
 
It's really too bad that Subaru is having these issues with the engines burning oil. The CVT is iffy. I really think that Subaru has the competition beat minus their questionable long term reliability.
 
not all burn oil. Its pretty random some are bad(1qt/1500) some are using nothing, most are in the middle somewhere.
 
who cares who made the CVT, by design it will grenade and be far too cost prohibitive to replace. If you dont believe me try your hand at a Saturn Vue or Ford Freestyle.
 
Originally Posted By: cptbarkey
who cares who made the CVT, by design it will grenade and be far too cost prohibitive to replace. If you dont believe me try your hand at a Saturn Vue or Ford Freestyle.


Or the thousands of Rogues, Muranos, Altimas that have experienced CVT failure early on.
 
Originally Posted By: cptbarkey
who cares who made the CVT, by design it will grenade and be far too cost prohibitive to replace. If you dont believe me try your hand at a Saturn Vue or Ford Freestyle.


I hear you, but how is that not the same as a present day 6,7,8 speed automatic grenading?

The way they switch things around today and the fact most can't be worked on, only completely replaced means repair costs can exceed the vehicle's value, regardless of what type of automagic trans it has.
 
Originally Posted By: JTK
Originally Posted By: cptbarkey
who cares who made the CVT, by design it will grenade and be far too cost prohibitive to replace. If you dont believe me try your hand at a Saturn Vue or Ford Freestyle.


I hear you, but how is that not the same as a present day 6,7,8 speed automatic grenading?

The way they switch things around today and the fact most can't be worked on, only completely replaced means repair costs can exceed the vehicle's value, regardless of what type of automagic trans it has.


The only problem is that the 8 speeds are too new to get much data on failures.

But with folks like Bentley and Jaguar using the well known ZF 8 speed in 500++ hp vehicles they may prove to be quite reliable in 'ordinary' cars. You will NEVER see a CVT used in a high torque application. So 'many-speed' slushboxes will rule, as it is the only way to get the desired ratio spread.

People said the exact same things about 4 speed OD slushboxes decades ago...
 
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: JTK
Originally Posted By: cptbarkey
who cares who made the CVT, by design it will grenade and be far too cost prohibitive to replace. If you dont believe me try your hand at a Saturn Vue or Ford Freestyle.


I hear you, but how is that not the same as a present day 6,7,8 speed automatic grenading?

The way they switch things around today and the fact most can't be worked on, only completely replaced means repair costs can exceed the vehicle's value, regardless of what type of automagic trans it has.


The only problem is that the 8 speeds are too new to get much data on failures.

But with folks like Bentley and Jaguar using the well known ZF 8 speed in 500++ hp vehicles they may prove to be quite reliable in 'ordinary' cars. You will NEVER see a CVT used in a high torque application. So 'many-speed' slushboxes will rule, as it is the only way to get the desired ratio spread.

People said the exact same things about 4 speed OD slushboxes decades ago...


There were a lot of problems with the 4 speed OD boxes, too. Chrysler and Ford had a lot of problems with their 4 speed OD transmissions - both FWD and RWD versions.
 
The CVT in my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid had to be replaced after 45000 km. The replacent was getting stiff when I sold it at 300000 km.
 
Originally Posted By: cb450sc
The CVT in my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid had to be replaced after 45000 km. The replacent was getting stiff when I sold it at 300000 km.


the civic CVT prices seems to be a nice exception to the rule, i've seen the transmissions go for ~$300 on Ebay.
 
I think the CVT overall gets a bad rap. I've mostly been a MT guy, but moving to the hills 7 years ago forced that change.

As for longevity, I'm only at 8k miles on my '14 Impreza, so I can't speak to that. I think it's interesting to drive, but you have to have some discipline... it doesn't take much to wind up the RPMs.

In my own personal comparisons to other ATs, I think the CVT wins, because the 5 or 6 speed ATs seem like they are constantly hunting for the right gear. Lots of downshifting and upshifting, especially on hills. Can be a touch annoying.
 
Does anybody have any actual failure rates for CVTs sold in the last five or so years? Are they really that prone to failure?
 
From what I know, a friend's Murano got the CVT replaced at 80k despite doing everything by the book knowing that CVT is unreliable.

Honda's Civic GX before 2006 was also CVT, and for this reason a huge discount in used market because of its failure rate. In 2006 and later they change back to a regular automatic and all is well.
 
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8


People said the exact same things about 4 speed OD slushboxes decades ago...


And the term "700R4" will strike a shudder into many of us for the rest of our lives... :)

Things do go in cycles. Diesel power is just coming out of an upheaval due to emission controls that was eerily similar to the convulsion gasoline engine designs went through when catcons were mandated in 1975. I can still hear the sound of Chevy trucks hissing down the highway after the pellet catcons disintegrated and the debris plugged the spark arrestor in the tailpipe tip.

So I really have to laugh when people say all CVTs suck and will fail by design. They're actually proving out REALLY reliable in the past few years. And I don't doubt that the high-gear-count automatics will also be reliable. 6-speeds have been common for almost 14 years now (including the ones like the 545RFE that only use 6 of the 6 gears under ordinary conditions) so upping the count to 8 or 9 isn't a big deal.
 
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
^^^Yessir, and look for the new 10 speed due out from the joint Ford/GM development team... coming soon to a pickup near you!


Its the only way they're going to meet efficiency mandates: get more ratios in the gearbox so you can use a much smaller engine and run it closer to max output all the time. The 8-speed ZF is a big part of how the 3.6L Pentastar hauls the Ram 1500 around virtually as well as the 4.7 v8 with the 5-of-6 speed used to (better under some speed/load conditions, a little worse under others so I hear).

Design-wise, its just replicating planetary sets and clutch packs to add more ratios in the "ladder." There's got to be a point of diminishing returns, I would think, and honestly I'm surprised it wasn't at around 6-8 forward gears.
 
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