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- 2003 Mazdaspeed Protege 1660, 2004 Winning Blue RX8, 2005 Mazda6
Honda has been using CVTs for almost two decades now........
AWD system comparison
- Thread starter Kedis82ZE8
- Start date
Honda has been using CVTs for almost two decades now........
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- CX5 Akera 2.2 Diesel
Indeed.
Google "Jazz Judder" or "Fit judder" and you will find out just how much trouble they can be.
My wife's Honda Jazz (Our Aussie name for the Fit) had its CVT secondary clutch replaced due to this. It's good now but took a year of messing around with Hondas attempts to fix it before it was replaced. And the special Honda transmission oil they insist you use must be gold infused, it is so damn expensive!
Driving her Honda with the CVT is not in any way shape or form a dynamic experience. Those CVT's make the driving experience like marshmallow. Awful.
I don't think there is such a car, though clutch drop launch method on a manual could significantly improve 0-60 time and is not possible on an automatic.
It would be more fair to compare rolling start 5-60. In practice, however, manual drivers often fumble with gear changes and/or have slower reaction time in everyday scenarios.
Regarding fuel-economy, well, if you could only drive on a set speed, never accelerate to that speed and never go above or below, then yeah, manual with 1 gear would be optimal, where that speed also happens to be where the engine RPM is most frugal ... or if you accelerate once and stop only when you end the experiment. However, when you need to drive in different speeds and stop and accelerate multiple times, than CVT would be more efficient.
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- 2003 Mazdaspeed Protege 1660, 2004 Winning Blue RX8, 2005 Mazda6
The cars here in the states equipped with CVTs had only start clutch issues in the early cars, but the cars of mid-2000's weren't affected, at least not to my knowledge. The fact that the Honda even made an attempt to repair a CVT at the dealer level blows my mind. Having been in this industry 15 years now, currently a service manager for a dealership, OEM's NEVER make repairs, but rather replace the defective unit and ship the failed unit back to the manufacturer for inspection and potentially repair. Everything is modulated now and they don't even want ''factory trained'' technicians opening them up. I was a service manager for an independent European shop for 6 years and ran into quite a few failures of Mini and Audi units and NO ONE would touch them for repair. I just R&R'd them. I've been out of dealing with vehicles equipped with CVTs for 3+ years now, but I'd say that's not likely changed. As of last year, Jasper Engines & Transmissions, still does not remanufacture CVTs. There may be those who do now, but I'm unsure.
Concerning the OEM CVT fluid, I don't remember it being that expensive and it only held, what, 3-4 quarts? And it's due, what, 30,000 miles? So, you spend $30 (I looked and it's priced the same as DW1 at about $8/qt) annually on transmission service? That doesn't seem like an excessive expense to me on such a critical component..
I don't think I ever said 0-60. 5-60 times are slower and 1/4mi trap speeds are lower by 2-3MPH compared to manuals. The CVT's loose quite a bit of power.
My mom's 2015 CVT outback (rated at 33MPG hwy) which struggles to break 25MPG on drives where my CX-5 effortlessly gets 35 must have not gotten the memo
I stand behind my point that current CVT's (especially those that can handle some torque) have such high internal/pumping losses that they do not outperform manual transmissions and even some advanced automatics.
I don't think I ever said 0-60. 5-60 times are slower and 1/4mi trap speeds are lower by 2-3MPH compared to manuals. The CVT's loose quite a bit of power.
My mom's 2015 CVT outback (rated at 33MPG hwy) which struggles to break 25MPG on drives where my CX-5 effortlessly gets 35 must have not gotten the memo
I stand behind my point that current CVT's (especially those that can handle some torque) have such high internal/pumping losses that they do not outperform manual transmissions and even some advanced automatics.
You said 'faster'
Well, again, it depends on how it is launched. Manual can be launched in ways no sane owner will repeat and which can't really be duplicated with (any) auto.
But even, so, some CVTs do launch slower than manuals, especially off the line.
This is a more representative of civic fuel economy then what you posted.
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- San Antonio, Texas
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- '15 CX-5 Miata AWD
The cvt mirage gets higher mpgs and is slower as well. I've noticed the people getting 45-50mpg in their fuelly are using manuals though.
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- CX5 Akera 2.2 Diesel
You said Honda has been using CVT's for 20 years - my example simply illustrated that even 10 years ago (wife's Jazz is 2007) they still couldn't get it right. Nissan had similar problems even after that.
The Honda attempt to "fix" their dodgy CVT was to drain the transmission oil and replace it with their premium CVT oil. They insisted on doing this twice before the engine and transmission were pulled and the secondary clutch part replaced. The good thing was that they did this after normal warranty had expired as an "extended warranty program", though that's probably due to liability for a "known bad" product that should have simply been recalled and fixed under warranty anyway.
And 12 months after that, the car was due a big main 80,000km service which in the ordinary line of things would have included draining and replacing the CVT transmission oil - which I told them to blow out their a ------ because it had only just been done, and they wanted $250 extra to do it.
Now that's what I call excessive. I don't care what you say it costs for the special grade CVT Honda oil there, but the charge to drain and replace it here, was clearly excessive.
None of which changes anything - those Honda CVT's destroyed the cars character and made for a most droll driving experience.
I recently drove a Subaru Liberty 2.5 with their CVT and it seemed much more lively than the Honda, almost like a proper auto. Looking at this class of car for my son. We are also looking at the Mazda 6 and it's "normal" auto box is still a better driving experience than the Suby.
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
They were banned from F1 in 1993.
You won't find a CVT quicker than a manual because the launch is pretty darn all important for 0-60 and 1/4 mile times, and the manual can be launched at any rpm you choose, and will have lower parasitic losses compared to the CVT. Comparing a manual "tuned like a race car" (which is what you get when C&D drag races one) to a CVT "tuned for daily driving" is not at ALL a fair comparison.
You also won't find an automatic faster than a manual in "lower powered vehicles", either. But automatics dominate drag racing.
Why do you think GM has gone to a 10-speed automatic for their faster cars? I mean...really. A TEN SPEED!? I bet if they could get a CVT to handle it, it would be quicker...
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- RDX Aspec Adv.
Okay, let's talk about traditional automatics. Ford's Taurus and Crown Vic in the 90's and early 2000's comes to mind.
So automatics must suck. They break all the time.
...or maybe they have progressed since then, and those aren't the only brands offered...?
CVT technology has work to do still, but as you have noted, it's also DOING that work. I never said it was ready for prime time in every guise. but it will be one day, and it is the future. Just like Dodge's push-button shifting was the future...just not right then...in the 80's. Now look at Ferrari and the like...
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- 2003 Mazdaspeed Protege 1660, 2004 Winning Blue RX8, 2005 Mazda6
I'd really like the Honda OEM part number for the "premium" fluid. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL There is only ONE part number from Honda for their OEM fluid for that vehicle in question and Honda didn't come out with a different CVT fluid until the past couple of years for the new CVTs, so I call bulls*** on that. And to my knowledge, the two are not interchangeable...
I read that the Subie has a good CVT in it. Motor Trend got 8.8 0-60 on a 2015 CVT Subie Legacy and 7.9 0-60 on a 6-speed auto 2016 Mazda6 (19-inch wheels). They also recorded lateral grip of .83 for the AWD subie and .82 for the FWD Mazda which was sort of weird? The subie had better braking 108 vs 126 ft from 60 thanks to AWD and the fact that Mazda's narrow 19s didn't help
Dude the Mazda6 is a fun car for an NA Automatic. Just needs lighter wheels- :
- CX5 Akera 2.2 Diesel
Mate I don't give 2 squirts of cat piss what you think. It's what the dealer told us.
I went back and checked my records again. This was all some 4 years ago.
We were told by the Honda dealer that reason a CVT flush is so expensive is because they use 8 litres of CVT fluid and pump it through the transmission. They said the flush is better than draining it out and changing it, a normal empty n refill takes only 4 litres of the oil.
And when the juddering problem first happened they told us that Honda had a new spec version of the CV transmission oil out that they had to use to try to solve the problem before eventually replacing the secondary clutch when the problem recurred about 8 months later. You will no doubt be shocked that I didn't ask them for the part number. Silly me.
When we took the car in for its 90k km service, the quoted costs were as follows:
- service - $256
- fluid flush $301 (supposedly with a discount from the normal charge)
That's it for me on this issue.
We're in Portland as well. High in the west hills. We got 14 inches with much higher drifts. I have to say ours handled the snow very well. We're most worried about the very long and steep hill into our neighborhood--especially downhill! It did great.
