Less engine, more gears

[litesong]

Originally Posted by Xist

My sister and I made a trip to California and back in her husband's new Elantra. I had thought that it was a beautiful car and was surprised that they bought it new for $16,000. We got at least 36 MPG the entire trip, "driving the speed limit." It turns out that is Sister for 4 MPH over, so 79 in a 75.

Only by excellent luck was I able to buy my auto Elantra with lots of nice options for $15,500, but I did. Elantra is supremely beautiful, but of exceedingly low 131 lbs-ft of torque. Recently, a highway trip & return with travels into a town & a smaller city w/two major cool-downs, but freeway travel limited to GPS:62mph(mostly) to GPS:66-69mph(occasionally), netted a trip computer reading of 43.8 mpg. Your extra speed travels at 79 mph netting 36mpg, shows how the Elantra small torque will kill mpg, despite Elantra being fairly aerodynamic(no mods).

[Xist]

Originally Posted by litesong

Only by excellent luck was I able to buy my auto Elantra with lots of nice options for $15,500, but I did. Elantra is supremely beautiful, but of exceedingly low 131 lbs-ft of torque. Recently, a highway trip & return with travels into a town & a smaller city w/two major cool-downs, but freeway travel limited to GPS:62mph(mostly) to GPS:66-69mph(occasionally), netted a trip computer reading of 43.8 mpg. Your extra speed travels at 79 mph netting 36mpg, shows how the Elantra small torque will kill mpg, despite Elantra being fairly aerodynamic(no mods).

My brother-in-law complains that the car lacks power for hills, but my sister says that he must not know how to downshift.

Sure, had I driven by myself, I would have wanted to drive fifty-five, but we needed to drop our lives, hurry out there, help the family, rush back, and try to catch up. Even though one nephew had the iPad and the other had an iPhone, hardly anybody likes traveling.

[litesong]

Originally Posted by Xist

My brother-in-law complains that the car lacks power for hills, but my sister says that he must not know how to downshift.

Sure, had I driven by myself, I would have wanted to drive fifty-five......hardly anybody likes traveling.

Yes, Elantra must be downshifted for hills & as much as 2 or 3 gears. Things can be done to hold higher mpg, often concerning those hills. Without knowledge, hills will take huge chunks of mpg away from drivers. Actually, the extra speeds (& speed) can be used as an ally to keep mpg up, but again, it takes fore-thought & knowledge.

Ah, Arizona is wonderful to travel in. Too bad the family was rushed not to enjoy travel, landscapes & viewing new territory.

[H-Man]

My Prizm can climb a 5% grade past 2000 ft with 100 degree ambients in 5th gear. I am not amused.

[Christ]

I like auxiliary transmissions, personally. In a 5&4 setup, you get something like 20 nominal ranges, but there are overlaps, and if you know your input/output ratios and what the engine /wants/ versus what you want, you can do some funny things with it... for instance, in one of the old trucks we had, you might split between 3/2 and 3/3 by shifting to 2/5 or 1/5. It takes a bit of practice and understanding of the ratios to do things like that, though.

I really love multi-speed transmissions. The loss in forward momentum can be solved with dual clutch gearboxes though. Ask VW about that.

[H-Man]

I don't like how small the ratio between my top gear and 1st gear is, it is only 4.34 on a 5 speed, I have plenty of power in 5th gear to the point that I think toyota should have made 4th as tall as 5th and made 5th taller.

[gone-ot]

...back-in-the-day, most generic 3-speed automatics had axle-ratio gears of 2.73 or there abouts (seldom higher than 3.18); most non-muscle models used 3.23 or maybe 3.55 ratios; and, muscle models used 3.91-4.10 ratios.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Fiat Siena, with the same driveline.

[litesong]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

With my 5-speeds I'm always skip shifting, like 1-3-5. I would like to only have the 1-3-5 gears and throw 2-4 away and save the internal trans losses.

This long 6 year inactive thread considered the pros & cons of extra geared transmissions. In general, I agree with Frank Lee, whether transmissions are automatic, CVT, DCT, or manual. Since this thread's last post, the disastrous CVT, DCT, & 9 & 10 speed automatic repair follies for so many customers, have blasted to bits the desire to save gasoline money, while giving ten(20?) times more money to transmission mechanics. What.... only Toyota probably "succeeded" with their high MPG auto transmissions. Other brands?
At their best, these automatic transmissions MAY have gotten similar MPG to manual transmissions, but only if drivers used automatic transmissions in ways most auto transmission drivers would not.
I have had a CVT transmission in the past, & presently we have two Elantras, one 6-speed manual, & one 6-speed automatic. I used the CVT to deliver the same & better MPG than other alternative 5-speed manual transmission drivers for the brand. As to our Elantras, I have worked hard to get good MPG from both, which are similar. Under certain conditions tho, the manual gains more MPG than the automatic.
Anyhow, 3 of our 4 cars have manual transmissions (oh, yeah....4, 5 & two 6-speeds).

[slowmover]

Skip gears. Means car improperly-loaded. A situation which shouldnt happen but rarely is considered the norm.

And what benefits accrue on skip-shifting?