Quote:
Originally Posted by CVTCivic
I think it's the best decision to go with a 5 speed MT. I think it's more fuel efficient than any automatic transmission and you'll safe a lot of money on maintenance costs (many automatic transmissions need oil/fluid ever other year).
Nissan had some problems with their CVTs from Jatco, but that was a long time ago. I don't know how it's these days. I'm reading a lot through some Honda forums and the CVTs of these days seem very durable and reliable. When there is failure, it's mostly due to neglect and abuse (racing and brake-boosting, not the stuff we Hypermilers use to do a lot). It's important to change the CVT fluid, but that's also important on any other automatic transmission as well.
For anyone who is curious, here you can see how the CVT of a Civic keeps the RMPs.
Normal acceleration in a city situation:
https://youtu.be/fIkoOWz3yVA
Slow highway speed coasting:
https://youtu.be/oJM7JqxiNFU |
Yup I wondered how the CVT would hold up in my application since sometimes I have a heavy foot. Also, to make things worse, my engine is significantly stronger than the Civic HX D17A6 engine that transmission is paired with here in America. It comes paired with a D17A (basically a D17A2) in Japan in the Civic Ferio but I have a D17A and it's making about 20-30 HP over stock, so I'm not sure how well that would hold up.
These 7th gen Civic 5 speeds seem to be pretty reliable from what I can find. There are people making 2-3X the stock power level or sometimes more and they seem to tolerate it no problem, so I don't think I will have any problems with it.
Another question- Assuming cruising with a locked torque converter and identical gearing, how much more efficient is a manual transmission than a conventional auto? I would think a manual would be measurably more efficient since it has no internal pump and presumably less losses through the gears, but how much more efficient?
I think the parasitic losses of an auto are significant even with a locked torque converter judging by how much it heats the fluid up even just idling in park or cruising. When I had no trans cooler at all my trans fluid would easily get up to 180 degrees just from cruising at 70-80 with the converter locked, which indicates that there are pretty significant losses through that transmission. The things you learn when you have a bunch of gauges
