Transmission speeds

[rusty ol ranger]

I was thinking today....

3 speed autos were the standard for a long time (well, besides the powerglide)

Then from the 80's up into the 90's 4 speeds

Then 5, 6, etc...

Now we are up to 8's and 10's.

You think in the next 5 or 6 years or whatever we'll start seeing more?

 

[ryan]

I was thinking today....

3 speed autos were the standard for a long time (well, besides the powerglide)

Then from the 80's up into the 90's 4 speeds

Then 5, 6, etc...

Now we are up to 8's and 10's.

You think in the next 5 or 6 years or whatever we'll start seeing more?

After a certain point there's too many gears and you will be shifting out of the powerband. Diminishing returns eventually

 

[RobbieD]

AI will come up with artificial gears, as part of its sinister plot to take over the world.

Shifting is . . . so human!

 

[Shran]

It all depends on emissions, fuel economy requirements and the future of EV's... in my mind anyway.

The complexity and cost of repairs on new stuff is just terrible and I would hope that feedback from the general public will force a change. Our local Ford dealer quoted my buddy $13,000 to rebuild the 10 speed auto in his F350... 99% of Americans can't afford that. So three things happen: either it gets traded in to a dealer who can fix it for a tiny fraction of that price and flip it for a huge profit, or it gets a junkyard part (and the process is repeated again in the future) or it gets junked.

That last part is what's really frustrating to me. Regulations, in the name of saving the planet, have added so much unrepairable junk to the waste stream. Our local junkyards are full of nice looking cars that are too costly to fix or the parts simply don't exist. Is there not a break even point where keeping an older, less efficient vehicle on the road is less of an environmental cost than building several other newer, efficient vehicles that have a much shorter lifespan? I think we are already at that point.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

It all depends on emissions, fuel economy requirements and the future of EV's... in my mind anyway.

The complexity and cost of repairs on new stuff is just terrible and I would hope that feedback from the general public will force a change. Our local Ford dealer quoted my buddy $13,000 to rebuild the 10 speed auto in his F350... 99% of Americans can't afford that. So three things happen: either it gets traded in to a dealer who can fix it for a tiny fraction of that price and flip it for a huge profit, or it gets a junkyard part (and the process is repeated again in the future) or it gets junked.

That last part is what's really frustrating to me. Regulations, in the name of saving the planet, have added so much unrepairable junk to the waste stream. Our local junkyards are full of nice looking cars that are too costly to fix or the parts simply don't exist. Is there not a break even point where keeping an older, less efficient vehicle on the road is less of an environmental cost than building several other newer, efficient vehicles that have a much shorter lifespan? I think we are already at that point.

13k for a rebuild? Thats outrageous.

Last trans i had rebuilt...granted it was 15 years ago and not at a dealer...was 1300. An E4OD

 

[Shran]

Yeah. Even half that for a 3rd party rebuilder part is pretty spendy. It can be justified for a late model truck... let's look ahead 10+ years and assume the cost doesn't change much, how do you justify it then? How many more vehicles get sent across the country by truck or train, then overseas by ship, then by truck/train again to a filthy smelter in some third world country with no pollution controls simply because they are too expensive to be fixed? I am not much of a tree hugger but it seems to me that the cost of making simple machines that are easy to fix is way better for the environment and the end user as well.

I had my wife's 4R55E rebuilt a couple months ago and it was just under $2000. I thought that was pretty reasonable, about the same as it would have been 10+ years ago.

 

[97RangerXLT]

You think in the next 5 or 6 years or whatever we'll start seeing more?

Honestly, I think we are probably at a plateau on how efficient a transmission will be by adding more speeds/ gears.

What I see happening is that one of the manufacturers (probably *NOT* Nissan..) will make a viable CVT transmission that will last 200k. maybe using hydraulics/ fluids instead of bands/ belts? we will see.

AJ

 

[sgtsandman]

Honestly, I think we are probably at a plateau on how efficient a transmission will be by adding more speeds/ gears.

What I see happening is that one of the manufacturers (probably *NOT* Nissan..) will make a viable CVT transmission that will last 200k. maybe using hydraulics/ fluids instead of bands/ belts? we will see.

AJ

I think this is the trick. Like you said, I don't think they can do much more with a clutch based transmission. If someone could make a reliable CVT, that might be the next step. So far, I've yet to see a CVT transmission with a track record I would trust.

 

[Shran]

We had a 2006 Prius that had 228k on the car when we sold it and the CVT had never even had a fluid change. I know of a couple other local high mileage Prius's that were pretty much the same deal, Toyota has them figured out! Maybe the hybrid system is easier on the trans than a traditional engine?

 

[SenorNoob]

To be fair one of the more common CVT designs out there right now is basically a scaled up go kart mechanism with software to simulate the shifts of a traditional automatic. Seems they'd be much better off to drop the "fake shifts". Let the belt and pulleys wear evenly instead of at just 4 or so spots.

 

[pentode]

I just did a brake job on the neighbor's Nissan with CVT. It does the fake shift point thing, and while it does a really impressive job imitating an automatic, I can't help but think that just adds unnecessary stress and wear. I've also driven a Subaru that doesn't do fake shifts and maybe I'm getting old, but I find that wandering drone of an engine trying to find 2500RPM at all times to be both boring and annoying.

Point of interest: at least in the case of the Nissan, (and I think Subaru too), although the CVT uses two variable pulleys like a go kart, one pulley actually pushes the belt over the other one. No idea from a physics point of view if there's any advantage to that.

My main complaint though, having seen a few CVTs fail, is that by the time you have a symptom that something might be going wrong, a chirp or a slip or whatever, it's too late. It's just a question of how long you can baby it along before it blows up, and in the cases I've seen, that period of time isn't very long.

 

[Snoranger]

It all depends on emissions, fuel economy requirements and the future of EV's... in my mind anyway.

The complexity and cost of repairs on new stuff is just terrible and I would hope that feedback from the general public will force a change. Our local Ford dealer quoted my buddy $13,000 to rebuild the 10 speed auto in his F350... 99% of Americans can't afford that. So three things happen: either it gets traded in to a dealer who can fix it for a tiny fraction of that price and flip it for a huge profit, or it gets a junkyard part (and the process is repeated again in the future) or it gets junked.

That last part is what's really frustrating to me. Regulations, in the name of saving the planet, have added so much unrepairable junk to the waste stream. Our local junkyards are full of nice looking cars that are too costly to fix or the parts simply don't exist. Is there not a break even point where keeping an older, less efficient vehicle on the road is less of an environmental cost than building several other newer, efficient vehicles that have a much shorter lifespan? I think we are already at that point.

The last Ford reman 10 spd we bought was about $2200. We just recently got a Ford reman 2.3L Ecoboost long block for $1430.71 (plus a $1500 core), I don’t know where everyone gets these ridiculous “we don’t want to work on it” prices.

 

[Shran]

The last Ford reman 10 spd we bought was about $2200. We just recently got a Ford reman 2.3L Ecoboost long block for $1430.71 (plus a $1500 core), I don’t know where everyone gets these ridiculous “we don’t want to work on it” prices.

That’s encouraging. Ford dealership in Rapid City, SD… not naming names……….