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Old 01-29-2023, 10:20 PM   #9 (permalink)
Ecky
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: New Zealand
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ND Miata - '15 Mazda MX-5 Special Package
90 day: 39.72 mpg (US)

Oxygen Blue - '00 Honda Insight
90 day: 59.95 mpg (US)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rmay635703 View Post
Everytime I tell people I can’t own automatic transmission cars because they break

I get a mile of the transmission never breaks and lasts the life of the car and automatic cars always get better fuel economy .

Yet my own experience is that any automatic can fail at any time and the one transmission rebuilder in the area always has a lot full of mini-vans, Cuvs and SUVs waiting for a transmission.

I have had manual transmission swaps done on 2 of my vehicles (that couldnt come with one from the factory e) over the years with good results.

As an aside…
What 2017 are we talking?

I was always good at finding a 3rd party hillbilly to fix, occasionally if the vehicles transmission is otherwise rock solid (usually) you can risk one from a wrecker.

Occasionally an older or newer transmission from the same vehicle will swap in and provide an improvement

As a counterpoint, the ND MX-5 (what I own) has a notoriously fragile manual transmission, whereas the automatic has no such reputation. It's probably a result of Mazda pulling too much weight out of it, combined with replacing the original 1.5L engine the car was designed around with a 2.0L (the US only ever got the 2.0L). Cars driven spiritedly are commonly known to blow up 2nd and 3rd gear. There have been 5 revisions of the transmission, making it stronger each time, and it's still not entirely a non-issue.

They did, of course, manage to pull 46lbs out of the transmission (based on what I've read) and 440lbs out of the car in total, which I find rather impressive. On the flip side, it's still heavier than a Honda FWD transmission, which includes the differential and can survive 500hp, vs 155hp.
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