it's all about gears!

[Cobb]

As one who has driven a nissan altima and a honda insight with cvts they do things completely different.

The honda has a fixed relationship between the engine and throttle. THe cvt does the work of making the car go. Its like setting the throttle of a tractor.

The Nissan it was way different. For starter slight throttle pressure made the tach dip 500 to a thousand rpms. More throttle caused the engine to start to rise in rpms. More throttle and it would run up to red line. Really strange from my honda experience. I imagine if you had time to focus you could use the light throttle technique that caused the rpms to drop to maximize mpg.

[serialk11r]

Really? I drove a CVT Altima (a Zipcar) and that's not what I noticed...it seemed to be a torque converter that locked pretty early, it would run the engine up in the lowest gear ratio to some point and then the throttle essentially controlled rpm and load together, controlling the power output linearly.

[Cobb]

No, that wasnt my experience at all. It was a rental car from enterprise, a 2013 Nissan Altima 2.5 SL. I returned it the next day and they gave me an impala.

It was too strange for me watching the tach dip, then climb as you gave it more go petal. The Impala was fun, behaved like a car should, but got 23 mpg. Of course I handed quite a few people their asses at every stop light.

[user removed]

Something was wrong with the throttle by wire.

regards
Mech

[craveman85]

6 to 8 gears in a ford ranger would be terrible. However I wouldn't mind a splitter for those moments when your not quite comfortable with 4th or 5th.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by craveman85

6 to 8 gears in a ford ranger would be terrible. However I wouldn't mind a splitter for those moments when your not quite comfortable with 4th or 5th.

That would be not a bad option at all. But it's sure easier in a longitudinally-engined platform than in the currently-mainstream transversally-engined ones...

[craveman85]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

That would be not a bad option at all. But it's sure easier in a longitudinally-engined platform than in the currently-mainstream transversally-engined ones...

Oh you're in south america. I forgot the ford rangers down there had different engines and other options than the underpowered junk we have in the states lol.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by craveman85

Oh you're in south america. I forgot the ford rangers down there had different engines and other options than the underpowered junk we have in the states lol.

The gasser engines were the same from the U.S.-spec Ranger, until the V6 was phased out. But we still have Diesel options for the Ranger locally.

[craveman85]

Must be nice. We don't have them at all anymore.

[Miller88]

Originally Posted by Cobb

No, that wasnt my experience at all. It was a rental car from enterprise, a 2013 Nissan Altima 2.5 SL. I returned it the next day and they gave me an impala.

It was too strange for me watching the tach dip, then climb as you gave it more go petal. The Impala was fun, behaved like a car should, but got 23 mpg. Of course I handed quite a few people their asses at every stop light.

I recently drove a 2013 Versa and Sentra. They act completely different.

The Versa would randomly shoot up to 4000 RPM while driving 55MPH on the flat. Also, when taking off from a stoplight, I would see the engine rev then it would take off. Like driving a manual. Who knows who beat on the Versa before, though.

The Sentra, I wouldn't be able to deal with. Under light - moderate acceleration, it would lug the engine at 1100RPM. The whole car would vibrate to the point it would hurt my ears!