Anyone seen/driven a Chevrolet Spark yet? Geo Metro 2.0 ?

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by Miller88

CVTs don't work. End of story. EXCELLENT idea, but no one can make them reliable. Most of these will be sold with automatic, and when the CVT comes apart at 70K miles and the owners are not going to be happy with dropping $7,000 on a transmission ...

I don't know it that's the end of the story. I know the CVTs from the late 1990s Hondas were considered unreliable, but both Toyota and Honda have been putting them in their Prius and Insight cars for years now. Many of them must have well more than 100,000 miles and even 200,000 at this point. I have not heard of inordinate troubles. But, I'd rather the manual. My replacement manaual transmission cost me $300 plus a new throw out bearing, and that's a lot less than $7K.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Chevy is replacing the Spark's automatic transmission: dropping the 4-speed auto for a CVT this year.

Well, actually I see no reason to not use the 6-speed automatic featured in the Sonic, but getting rid of that 4-speed is already a good move.

[niky]

The Insight CVT reportedly has some issues. Not surprising to me, as it's the same in our Fits and Fit Aria, and there have been a number of failures. They're sensitive, require special transmission fluid, and don't like being caned. After the first generation GD Fit, our market swapped over to the 5AT, instead.

-

CVT reliability is hit-or-miss. Some are decent, some are bad, some are terrible.

[Miller88]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Well, actually I see no reason to not use the 6-speed automatic featured in the Sonic, but getting rid of that 4-speed is already a good move.

Price is a major factor in that. The 4 speed auto that it currently has is used in a billion other small cars on the Asian markets. We got it here in the Aveo, Yaris and one or two small Suzukis (I believe). A lot of the Chevrolaewoos use them.

It's cheap and reliable.

The 6 speed auto would make the car much more expensive as they'd have to start building them mechanically different for the US market.

The CVT would be a great idea for such a small car. You can have the low gears to get up to speed and you can have it run down the highway at 2000RPM. Just not possible with 4A and 5M transmission currently available.

My fear with the CVT is that it's going to drive the price up and drive people to other cars, or it's going to hurt reliability. Small cars don't have the greatest reputation for reliablity ... I'd hate to see that continue to happen when GM sticks a bunch of unreliable CVTs in cars.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by Miller88

My fear with the CVT is that it's going to drive the price up and drive people to other cars, or it's going to hurt reliability. Small cars don't have the greatest reputation for reliablity ... I'd hate to see that continue to happen when GM sticks a bunch of unreliable CVTs in cars.

Cheap CVT equiped cars have been around for ages - Nissan Micra K11 and K12, Rover 100, various small FIATS, Lancias. Ford even fitted one to the Fiesta in 1987 (although listening to the OHV kent rattle away at high revs would be tiresome...). Merc A-Class, Kei cars from Japan have them too:



Even these super cheap cars have them



List of automobiles with continuously variable transmissions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Miller88]

How reliable are they? Can they last 150,000 miles?

[Arragonis]

Only lack of maintenance would be a barrier to very high miles - but these are cheap and sell to people who maybe forget about this kind of thing - like Metros.

[Miller88]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Only lack of maintenance would be a barrier to very high miles - but these are cheap and sell to people who maybe forget about this kind of thing - like Metros.

People who buy new cars generally don't keep them forever. I'm more interested in the used market.

If they have a belt CVT, that's bad. The chain driven ones (like timing belts / chains) seem to last a bit longer.

I'm all about function. 1) Reliability 2) Fuel economy ... end of list looks.

The 4A is reliable. I'd buy a used automatic spark ( would prefer to row my own).

Still it's a neat car. Depending on the used market in 3 or 4 years (and depending on how many manual trans are out there), I'll be considering one in a few years.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Miller88

The 4 speed auto that it currently has is used in a billion other small cars on the Asian markets. We got it here in the Aveo, Yaris and one or two small Suzukis (I believe). A lot of the Chevrolaewoos use them.

It's still used even in some versions of the Opel Corsa.

My fear with the CVT is that it's going to drive the price up and drive people to other cars, or it's going to hurt reliability. Small cars don't have the greatest reputation for reliablity ... I'd hate to see that continue to happen when GM sticks a bunch of unreliable CVTs in cars.

Probably the CVT is actually cheaper than a 6-speed. Regarding small cars' reliability, they're widely used worldwide, so if the overall reliability was a concern there would be no market for them anymore.

[Miller88]

If they can make the CVT work ... it'd be excellent for a city car. I drove a Versa that seemed to get about 34 in town driven moderately. Other than in initial surge, which seemed like someone giving it gas and letting the clutch out, I could acellerate and drive around town all day and not go above 2000RPM. That really helps.

CVTs still have torque converters right? I remember people were complaining that the Ford Five Hundred CVT didn't have a lock up torque converter.

Back to the Spark - I'm starting to see a lot of these around. Really surprising how well they are selling ... (despite poor sales figures).

I spoke to two local dealers. One said that they couldn't get rid of the spark they had, and another one says every one they get in sells about instantly.

Granted, the one that said they can't get rid of theirs keeps pushing EVERYONE on that lot towards used Impalas ... even if they are going to look at a Cruze Eco.